Product Types
Part I established shared mechanics. This Part covers how those mechanics get assembled differently depending on what is actually being built. Each chapter follows the same shape — definition, architecture priorities, UX priorities, common mistakes, best practices, example — so product types can be compared directly. Regulatory or sector-specific nuance for domains like healthcare and government is governed separately in the Domain Playbook volume, referenced where relevant, to avoid duplicating that material here.
Start Part II — 2.1Landing Pages
A single page with exactly one job: move a specific visitor toward a specific action.
2.2Institutional & Organizational Websites
Business, corporate, church, and school sites — different institutions, the same underlying informational job.
2.3E-Commerce Platforms
Every screen is downstream of one non-negotiable requirement: correct, trustworthy transactions.
2.4Blogs & Content Publishing
Optimized for one repeated action: publishing new material without friction, indefinitely.
2.5News & Media Sites
Content publishing under a much harder constraint: sudden, extreme, unpredictable traffic.
2.6Portfolios
The work has to be the interface — everything else is scaffolding that should stay out of the way.
2.7Forums & Online Communities
The technical build is the easy part — moderation and governance are the real product.
2.8Social Networks
Identity, graph, and feed — three hard problems that compound rather than add.
2.9SaaS Platforms
Software rented, not owned — which changes almost everything about how it must be built.
2.10Web Applications (General-Purpose)
The broad middle category: interactive, stateful, but not yet specialized into any one business model.
2.11Enterprise Applications
Built for organizations, not individuals — which changes who the real user is at every step.
2.12CRM Systems
A system of record for relationships — its entire value depends on data people actually keep updated.
2.13ERP Systems
The system of record for the entire operational backbone of a business — inventory, finance, and people, unified.
2.14Dashboards & Internal Tools
Built for an audience of one team — where speed of internal iteration matters more than external polish.
2.15AI Platforms & AI-Native Products
A product category defined by a fundamentally probabilistic core component — which changes how reliability itself is defined.
2.16Marketplaces
Two customers, not one — and they usually want opposite things.
2.17Booking & Reservation Systems
Selling something that only exists once — a specific slot, seat, or room, at a specific time.
2.18Learning Platforms (LMS)
Success isn't measured by content delivered, but by knowledge actually retained.
2.19Streaming Platforms
The product is continuous, uninterrupted delivery — any stutter is a direct, visible failure.
2.20FinTech Platforms
Every design decision competes against the same constraint: regulatory obligation, not just user preference.