User Experience and Narrative Drive Technology Reviews

Key Quotes

"okay and you're going to ask me this and everybody only gives you one of two answers yep and i mean the specific answer for me at this point in my life is the m4 mac mini that i'm using right now okay i also have a macbook air that i use and like a lot i also have a phone that i use and like sometimes but a couple of years ago i really started to go out of my way to try and make my computer a place instead of just a device like i work from home i work in the basement i work a sort of hours wise chaotic job i'm in the news business things are always happening like there's never a moment where it's very easy to just be like i am not at work anymore and so i have tried to confine as much of my work as i can to this spot and this device okay so i leave the basement and i leave work but what that means is that like this mac mini is the center of all of my computing universe at this point"

David Pierce explains his deliberate choice to create a dedicated workspace centered around his Mac Mini. This approach aims to establish a clear boundary between work and personal life, a significant challenge given the demanding nature of the news business. Pierce views this setup as a method to "make my computer a place instead of just a device," reinforcing the idea of a physical and mental separation from his work.

"i think the thing that i've always said about product reviews and i think the thing that's hard to do well with product reviews is to tell a story right like to say is this thing faster or slower does its battery last longer or not is that i think a useful service to people but is not i think the sort of best version of a product review many years ago when i was running the reviews team at the verge the thing i would always say to people is like we should be thinking about these as like feature stories but the main character is a gadget and it's like what these things should be is adventure stories right like i want to be out in the world with you the thing that you the author of this review have that no one else has is you have this thing you get to use it you get to hold it you get to live with it and it's your job to help people understand what the world looks like through the eyes of this device"

David Pierce articulates his philosophy on product reviews, emphasizing the importance of narrative over mere specification comparisons. He believes the most compelling reviews function as "adventure stories" where the gadget is the main character, allowing the reviewer to guide the reader through an experience. Pierce argues that the reviewer's unique access to the device provides an opportunity to reveal what the world looks like "through the eyes of this device," offering a deeper understanding than simple performance metrics.

"the annoying but true answer to that question is always more than you have yeah but i think at this point if you give me a week i can pretty quickly figure it out right and it depends on the kind of gadget like frankly at this point like you spend three hours with the iphone and you sort of know the story of the iphone right which i think is like the iphone air was such an interesting version of that this year where up the iphone air and it is such a visceral thing that you have reviewed the iphone air in four minutes right and it's probably correct because you understand what the trade offs are and it either feels that way in your hand or it doesn't and that is the story with some of these newer devices the thing i always try and do is both like push the thing all the way to its limits which you can do pretty quickly right it's like okay here's a list of things that it can do i'm going to do all of them 10 times and see how it goes that's like a day of testing in many cases you take a million pictures you try all this stuff run down the product spec sheet and try all the things the harder part is actually trying to think about the device less and just live with it"

David Pierce discusses the practicalities of product review timelines, acknowledging that the ideal testing period is often insufficient. He notes that while some devices, like iPhones, reveal their core experience quickly, others require more in-depth living with. Pierce outlines his testing strategy: first, rigorously pushing the device to its limits through exhaustive testing, and second, the more challenging task of integrating the device into daily life to understand its real-world utility beyond its specifications.

"the idea that reviewers kill products is ridiculous like bad products kill products if i had savaged the humane ai pin but everybody else had said oh my gosh this is the greatest gadget that would have ever existed i would have looked like an idiot and the ai pin would have done fine that thing failed because it was bad not because i said it was bad and it's the same with the fisker ocean it's like the bad products are bad because they're bad and it's my job to say that they're bad when they're bad you just try to go into it and not hold a grudge and not you know hold anything against it"

David Pierce refutes the notion that reviewers are responsible for a product's failure, asserting that poor products are the cause of their own demise. He uses the Humane AI Pin and Fisker Ocean as examples, arguing that negative reviews reflect the product's inherent flaws rather than influencing its success or failure. Pierce emphasizes that his role as a reviewer is to accurately report on the product's quality, stating, "it's my job to say that they're bad when they're bad."

"i think the biggest difference for me has been that it i can write to a person and it's the thing i really try to do deliberately in the newsletter is i write the word you a lot in installer because it's like it both is addressed to you a person and it is also intended for you a person and like it doesn't matter that there are lots of people reading it like when the thing works it should feel like it is for you and i think that's just not an expectation you have when you land on a website like you go to a website being like here's a thing that they made and i'm going to go look at it but an email like it should be written to you and i think like i notice the difference in emails that feel like a person writing an email as opposed to feeling like somebody is emailing me an article and they're just different things"

David Pierce highlights a key distinction between writing for a website and composing an email newsletter, particularly in his "Installer" newsletter. He deliberately uses the word "you" frequently to create a personal connection, making the content feel as though it is directly addressed to the individual reader. Pierce contrasts this with the experience of visiting a website, where the expectation is to consume content created by an entity, whereas an email should feel like a direct communication from one person to another.

"i think the best and in many ways only way to launch a new podcast is through another podcast launching a podcast from scratch is very hard it is impossible with any expectation of success if that makes sense yeah unless you