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Comment by Blikkentrekker | Hacker News Reader

Every time the term “UX” is dropped, what follows is incomprehensible vagueness dressed in bizarre jargon that would make postmodern grievance studies quiver in awe.

> Value Proposition Canvas:

> A reductive process in the early stages of product definition that maps out the key aspects of it: what it is, who it is for, and when/where it will be used. Helps the team narrow down and create consensus around what the product will be.

Is this perhaps a transformative critical framework that investigates a reductive analysis of social cohesion factors that lead to an embedded matrix of exploratory identity formation?

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I like how the example you used actually uses plain language "what it is, who it is for, and when/where it will be used", but because you approached this with the mindset that you're right and UX people dumb, you failed to see that and disproved your own assertion.

There is always plain language in between terms such as “reductive process”, “value proposition canvas”, and “product definition”, of which I have no idea what they mean.

The section you quoted defines exactly what it means by product definition - and the entire thing is a definition of value proposition canvas. If you can't understand the meaning of these things when they're clearly defined then I don't know how to help you.

A value proposition canvas is a canvas (could be a poster, could be a whiteboard, whatever) on which you put what value you propose to deliver.

A reductive process is a process where you take many ideas and boil them down to fewer ideas. The opposite would be something like a brainstorm, where you try to get more ideas.

And I don't really think you actually have no idea what "product definition" may mean. :)

And then it doesn't make sense.

In your interpretation, a proposal of a value one attempts to deliver is a process wherein one takes many ideas, and boils them down to fewer ideas.

That is not what the meaning of the term “proposal” is; no one uses it to mean a process wherein many ideas are reduced to fewer. A proposal is simply stating one's plans, not a discourse.

> And I don't really think you actually have no idea what "product definition" may mean. :)

I normally have an idea, but not in this context, as it speaks of stages of a product definition. A definition does not have “stages”

There seems to be a strong focus on iterative process. Problems/needs are (actively) discovered and then boiled down to possible solutions/proposals or at least something that can be acted upon.

The focus on communication and discourse is paramount, because UX brings the user to the forefront and then has to convince owners and implementers. This kind of convincing is important and often challenging, because there are often tradeoffs involved.

I fail to see the connexion between what you just wrote, and what I said that it does not make much sense to call a process wherein ideas are reduced in number a “proposition”.

Technically it would have been more precise to define "Value Proposition" as "(The result of) a reductive process in the early stages of product definition that...".

Having said that, this kind of syndoche where a process is described by its output doesn't seem particularly unusual or UX-specific. When a coworker says it'll take an hour to do requirements I know what they mean.

I'm not sure why you think "definition" (1: the act of defining https://www.dictionary.com/browse/definition) cannot have stages.

Very well, so your interpretation now is that, contrary to what the page itself says, the definition of “value proposition” is rather to be taken the process that leads to a final “value proposition”?

So essentially, your interpretation can be reduced to the advice “It is best to think about what one's product is, and whom it targets, before one makes a proposal about it.”?

If that be your interpretation, then that certainly does not follow from the text, and is contradictory with the interpretations others have given.

I'm sorry, I would like to help but I can't figure out where you're getting tripped up since (to me) the various interpretations don't seem to differ much in meaning beyond the linguistic/semantic fuzziness that is common in informal communication.

> I normally have an idea, but not in this context, as it speaks of stages of a product definition. A definition does not have “stages”

It's really difficult to understand your confusion here. "Definition" is referring the the act of defining, not the formal statement that results from that process. Are you reading it as the latter?

Every product I have ever worked on had definition stages. How else does the formal definition come into being?

I work in UX so I'm poorly equipped to objectively evaluate whether the field's jargon is any better or worse than any other field.

But my impression is that UX jargon is usually pretty self-explanatory but sometimes unnecessary e.g. I'm not sure we really needed to come up with new terms for "sensemaking" (adding meaning), "microcopy" (labels), "responsive" (adaptive), "design thinking" (thinking), etc.

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