[Weekly Retro] Latent demand design principle
#272 - Feb.2026
Hi there!
Here's a quick idea before you head-off to the weekend:
Here is the corrected version:
Latent demand
I was so glad to hear this concept in a recent episode from Lenny's Podcast, interviewing the Head of Claude Code, Boris Cherny.
Are you familiar with this concept?
Forrester defines Latent Demand as: customer needs that are not acutely evident — or even known to the customer — until new products, services, or experiences reveal those needs.
I like a simpler definition: If people can't solve their problems as expected, they'll hack their way through, using your product in unintended ways.
And that's good!
Think about people storing passwords on post-its next to their monitor. People using books to hold their phone while watching videos. Or people using their iPhones to open bottles (that's a bit extreme!).
As I wrote a few years back, you can see these workarounds as something bad from an adoption perspective, or you can use them as inspiration for new (and better!) uses of your product.
Boris couldn't put it in better words: "When you see people abuse your product in a way that it was not designed for, but is useful for them, that is such a strong indicator you should build a product [for that], and people will like it."
The simplest way to catch this is by watching people using your product.
Look closely. Find these hidden gems!
🤖 Ethical use of AI
This week's news on the tension between the Pentagon and Anthropic is a relevant debate in the AI world. Unfortunately, we don't often see companies defending their core values, even if this threatens a big business opportunity. Well done Anthropic! This type of positioning will differentiate the companies that take privacy and Good AI seriously, with others that only use them as slogans.
The Pentagon is pushing four leading AI labs to let the military use their tools for "all lawful purposes," even in the most sensitive areas of weapons development, intelligence collection, and battlefield operations. Anthropic has not agreed to those terms, and the Pentagon is getting fed up after months of difficult negotiations. Anthropic insists that two areas remain off limits: the mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weaponry. - Axios
⛔️ To block or not to block
Very interesting (and surprising) position of The Economist about the raising bans over social media platforms for teenagers. They defend that bans are not the solution for the core problem. The focus should be on having better controls and push accountability on Big Tech companies. They have a valid point. Interested in seeing how these regulations (e.g. Australia) will work out. As a parent, this is a topic that keeps me awake.
The question of whether social media are causing mass harm is far from settled. Growing evidence suggests they are bad for at least some children. But, as we explain this week, the claim that social media cause great damage to the mental health of young people as a whole has only limited evidence. And even if you wanted to ban social media as a precaution pending conclusive findings, such measures threaten to be counterproductive. - The Economist
📣 Launch of the week
Biggest datapoint that impressed me from this release: Sonnet 4.6’s 1M token context window.
Do you have an idea of how big this is? I didn't. So I looked for an analogy. If found this useful: "750,000 words. Roughly the entire Harry Potter series (1.1M words), or about 10–15 average novels."
That's a lot of context!
🎁 Revamping the e-book content
I'm experimenting with a different format of e-book content. I revamp my previous e-books and turn them into small HTML content. This overcome PPT limitations to add dynamic visuals and effects. Check them out and send me your feedback!
- 10 Design Tools Every Innovation Leader Needs to know
- 5 Key Elements for Customer Journey Maps
- AI and Product Management
- 7 Principles of Ethical Design
ps: the animations are actually patterns created through matemathical functions embedded in the code 😁
👨🏻💻 Other interesting links
- Management as AI superpower. Insights for a future where everyone is a manager of a team of agents.
- Blood test holds promise for predicting when Alzheimer’s symptoms will start. The Alzheimer’s ‘clock’ could make it easier to treat the disease early, before memory problems appear.
🖋️ Quote of the week
“Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.” – Isaac Asimov
