ZAYN DHALLA Say Hello

Products

Sometimes the digital foundation is the product.

Apps. Flows. Dashboards. Experiences.

Some problems don’t need another landing page. They need a product. I like thinking through how people enter, understand, use, and keep coming back to digital experiences.

See how I think about products View products I’ve worked on
Structure sketches of three phone apps: Milo Tennis match discovery, the Coachology first screen after onboarding, and the Coach Mahjy learn, practise, play path.

Coachology · Milo Tennis · Coach Mahjy Structure diagrams, not screenshots

Approach

Good products reduce confusion.

I think about products through a simple framework: get people in, help them understand, make it easy to take action, and give them a reason to come back.

  1. 01

    Enter

    How does someone get started?

  2. 02

    Understand

    Do they know what to do next?

  3. 03

    Act

    Can they complete the core task easily?

  4. 04

    Return

    Is there a reason to come back?

Onboarding

The first few minutes matter a lot.

Good onboarding gets context without making the user feel like they’re filling out paperwork. Every answer changes what the first screen says.

Less friction. More progress.

  1. 01 Name What should I call you?
  2. 02 Sport Six to choose from, or see all.
  3. 03 Role The fork — shown above.
  4. 04 Persona Changes shape per lane.
  5. 05 Focus Writes the first dashboard.

Coachology · flow diagram

Five Coachology onboarding screens: name, sport, role (the fork between athlete, coach or both), persona, and focus, ending in Launch to dashboard.

Screens 1–3 are the same for everyone. The role answer is the fork — screens 4 and 5 change shape for athletes and coaches, and the first dashboard writes itself from screen 5.

Core action

The core action should feel obvious.

For Coachology the core action is simple: upload a clip, say what you want help with, and get feedback you can act on. Everything else on the screen serves that.

Coachology · flow diagram

  1. 01 · Upload

    Upload a clip

    5–30 seconds, one skill, landscape.

  2. 02 · Ask

    Say what you need

    Quick prompts so nobody stalls on a blank field.

  3. 03 · Analyze

    Pick a coach

    Different coaching styles, same clip.

  4. 04 · Feedback

    Act on it

    Train it, re-film, compare. That’s the loop.

Dashboard

A dashboard should answer “what now?”

A good dashboard surfaces the right next step, recent activity, and progress without feeling overwhelming.

  • The next action stays at the topWhatever else changes, upload and coach are always one tap away.
  • The room changes after the first uploadFirst visit sells the why. Every visit after serves the work.
  • Teaching content sinks to the bottomIt stays available, it just stops competing with the work.

Clear next steps. More progress.

coachology

Welcome back, Finlay.

Pick up where you left off.

Upload your next videoGet personalized coaching feedback
Chat with the Digital CoachAsk anything, any time
Total videos 29 1 processing View full library →
Improvement areas 12 Identified across your videos
Recent videos Serving drillAnalyzed Second serveProcessing
The Volley ArchitectYour default coach Manage coaches →
How it works Upload → analysis in ~2 min → train it, re-film, compare

Coachology · returning dashboard Structure diagram, not a screenshot

Product architecture

Structure matters inside products too.

A clear structure helps people find what they need and keeps the experience simple as the product grows. For Coach Mahjy the whole app is one sentence: learn it, practise it, play it.

Match the structure to how people think.

Coach Mahjy · structure diagram

Home

  • Stage 1

    Learn Understand how the game works.

    • Meet the tiles
    • Reading your card
    • The Charleston
    • Jokers and exposures

  • Stage 2

    Practice Turn knowledge into decisions.

    • Practice hands
    • Scenarios
    • Passing decisions
    • Progress

  • Stage 3

    Play Play a real game with coaching.

    • Guided gameplay
    • Why this move
    • Hand direction
    • Review

Product work

Different products. Different problems.

Three products, three different first questions — and the same way of working through them.

  • Coachology logo

    Sports coaching · Product

    Coachology

    Cleaner onboarding, a video upload flow that asks one useful question, coach feedback, and an athlete dashboard that changes after the first upload.

    • Onboarding
    • Upload flow
    • Dashboards
    View project
  • Milo Tennis logo

    Tennis · Product

    Milo Tennis

    Moving a player directory toward a product that actually gets a match scheduled — availability first, then a suggested player and time.

    • Matchmaking
    • Information hierarchy
    • Return behavior
    View project
  • Coach Mahjy logo

    Mahjong · Learning product

    Coach Mahjy

    A learning product for a genuinely complicated game — sequenced so a beginner can follow it, and coached so they understand why.

    • Lesson sequencing
    • Reducing complexity
    • Mobile UX
    View project

Principles

The things I care about most.

None of these are clever. They are just the things that keep getting products used.

  1. 01

    Clear first action

    One obvious thing to do, visible without scrolling.

  2. 02

    Strong information hierarchy

    The most important thing looks like the most important thing.

  3. 03

    Fewer unnecessary steps

    Ask for context when it changes something, not before.

  4. 04

    Useful feedback after actions

    Something happened, here is what it means, here is what’s next.

  5. 05

    Mobile-first behavior

    Designed for a phone screen and a thumb, not a demo laptop.

  6. 06

    A reason to come back

    Progress, a result waiting, or an obvious next rep.

Product thinking

Ideas are easy. Product decisions are harder.

The goal is not to add more features. It is to make the important ones easier to understand and use.

It is a loop, not a line. What you learn from feedback changes the core action, not just the interface.

  1. 01

    Problem

    What is actually going wrong, in plain language.

  2. 02

    User

    Who has it, and what they already know when they arrive.

  3. 03

    Core action

    The one thing the product exists to make easy. Everything else serves it.

  4. 04

    Flow

    The shortest honest path from arriving to done.

  5. 05

    Interface

    What the screen has to say for that path to feel obvious.

  6. 06

    Feedback

    What people did, where they stopped, and what they asked for.

  7. 07

    Iterate

    Back to the problem, now with better information.

Point of view

Clear beats impressive more often than people think.

None of these are wrong on their own. They just tend to get worked on before the things that decide whether the product gets used.

  • Less time onCounting features
  • Less time onDashboards that look busy
  • Less time onAnimation for its own sake
  • Less time onShipping everything at once
  • Less time onClever UX nobody understands

More time on the first action, the next step, and the reason to come back.

Writing

Thinking about products.

View all writing
View all writing

Let's talk

Want to talk products?

Apps, onboarding, product flows, dashboards, feature priorities, or the weird idea you’ve been thinking about for six months.

Talk shop Explore Ventures

Happy to chat.