Show Don't Tell

Visualize complete user journeys with real personas and exact situations

Anuj Rathi
The full-stack PM | Anuj Rathi (Swiggy, Jupiter Money, Flipkart)

Show Don't Tell

"It's a concept of person, not personas. We try to go to, 'All right. No. Don't think about agentic user. Let's say Lenny, 30 years old, doing A, B, C things...'" - Anuj Rathi

What It Is

Show Don't Tell is a product design and alignment practice that makes abstract user journeys concrete and visible. Rather than describing experiences in documents, you physically visualize them—creating walls, flows, or decks that show every screen, every scenario, and every emotional state throughout a user's journey.

The practice works at two levels:

  1. Product manager level: Current state vs. proposed state journeys
  2. Product leader level: Strategy-on-a-page with growth loops and company systems

How It Works

Persons, Not Personas

Traditional personas are abstract composites: "Sarah, 35, busy professional, values convenience." Show Don't Tell demands specificity:

  • Name: Lenny (a real archetype)
  • Context: 30 years old, doing X job, earning Y amount
  • Relationship to category: Has used food delivery 3 times in the past month
  • Recent situation: Last three days—needs, desires, aspirations, fears, frustrations
  • Exact trigger: "It's 11:00. What happened? Why is this user opening the app?"

50% of product reviews should focus on this pre-product context.

Visualize the Complete Journey

Starting from that trigger moment:

  • What exact situation triggered this?
  • What's the emotional state when opening the app?
  • Each pixel and word should serve that person in that moment
  • Plot parallel journeys for multi-sided platforms

Multi-Stakeholder Complexity

For marketplaces or complex products, Show Don't Tell reveals hidden dependencies:

  • User orders food → 30 minutes of waiting begins
  • What's the delivery driver's journey during that same 30 minutes?
  • What are various scenarios? (Food delayed at restaurant, bike punctured, traffic)
  • What's the customer thinking at each point?
  • How do journeys intersect and affect each other?

How to Apply It

  1. Build a "wall" for your product

    • Physical or digital visualization of current vs. proposed experience
    • Every screen, every state, every copy
    • Makes reviews focused and concrete

  2. Start before the product

    • "How is my user getting here?"
    • "Where did they hear about us?"
    • "What was the exact trigger that led to download?"
    • Connect marketing message → app store → onboarding as one continuous story

  3. Use for stakeholder alignment

    • Instead of elevator pitches, do detailed walkthroughs
    • Show exactly why you're making each choice
    • Makes disagreements specific and resolvable

  4. Apply at strategy level too

    • Create strategy-on-a-page showing entire system
    • Growth loops, activation budgets, user flows
    • Show how different levers connect
    • Compare three strategic alternatives visually

  5. Make it a living artifact

    • Current version + proposed version
    • Update as decisions are made
    • Reference point for the whole team

When to Use It

  • Product design reviews
  • New feature planning
  • Onboarding optimization
  • Cross-functional alignment
  • Strategic planning (at leader level)
  • When stakeholders don't "get" the user experience
  • When product decisions seem arbitrary

Source

  • Guest: Anuj Rathi
  • Episode: "The full-stack PM | Anuj Rathi (Swiggy, Jupiter Money, Flipkart)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:33:27) - Show don't tell as an extension of working backwards
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

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