Escalators and mazes
Metaphors enable us to use what we know about familiar thing to understand more abstract things. That makes them really useful tools for thinking about hard-to-define things like ‘products’.
We can use the metaphors of ‘escalators’ and ‘mazes’ to think about the two different types of products. Escalators take users from one place to another. Mazes keep users within the maze.
Knowing the difference helps us design products with greater clarity and coherence, measure the right things and align the product with it’s business model.
Escalators
Escalators help manage the flow of people. They help them get from one place to another with greater ease.
Government services, health and dating are escalator products. They succeed by getting their users from one state (untaxed vehicle, want to loose weight, single) to another (taxed vehicle, lost weight, in a relationship). They know that once they do, users will stop using the product. They might come back again if they find themselves back in the original state, but users would consider the product a failure if it didn’t help them make a change that meant they could stop using the it.
Escalators use success metrics like conversion rate and acquisition costs which tell how effective the product is at bringing users in and moving them through the product.
The business model behind these kinds products involves being the only one (government services) or having lots of marketing to attract new users (dating). And the value collection method (making a payment) is usually upfront as part of completing a transaction or onboarding.
Mazes
Some mazes lead a user along a single path, some have forks in the path that give the users choices about which way to go, but all mazes try to keep users in the maze
Social media, games, banking and video streaming products are mazes. Success is about keeping people moving around but not getting out.
Monthly recurring revenue, daily active users and lifetime value are the kinds of metrics that show success for mazes. They indicate how many users are staying in the maze.
Maze business models are often around collecting and monetising user data, so don’t always involve users paying to use the product (e.g., social media). Businesses that can get a money and monetisable data from their users win twice (such as video streaming).
Designing escalators and mazes
Neither of these types of products is inherently good or bad. Both types can have extractive business models and deceptive design patterns, just as both can have ethical business models and transparent design.
Thinking about products in this metaphorical way helps us be clear about how we design products to work effectively. If we’re creating an escalator we would avoid using techniques that try to achieve some kind of lock-in or rely on user data for income. If we’re creating a maze we wouldn’t design for immediate, one-off user outcomes, or have a business model that relies on early value exchange.
References
Edkins, J. History of Mazes and Labyrinths. 2008.
Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By. 1980.
Escalators. Wikipedia. Accessed 2025.