Chapter 11 is about empty space

Thirty spokes share one hub. It is precisely the empty space at the centre that makes the wheel useful. Clay is shaped into a vessel. It is precisely the emptiness inside that makes it hold. Walls are cut with doors and windows. It is precisely the holes that make a room livable.

We quote this badly in English. The usual translation turns it into a slogan about minimalism, which it is not. It is a claim about where function lives. A wheel is not a thing made of spokes; it is a thing made of the space the spokes enclose.

What this means for a catalogue

Most objects are sold by adding. More features, more benefits, more reasons to buy. Chapter 11 argues the opposite: the useful part of an object is usually the part that is not there.

A censer is a bowl with a hole in the lid. The bowl is the material; the hole is the function. Take the hole away and you have a paperweight.

So when we decide what to carry, we ask what the object is for leaving out. If the answer is nothing — if the object is entirely itself, with no room for anything else — we do not carry it. That is most of why our catalogue is short.

The uncomfortable part

This argument also applies to claims.

An object that promises a result is an object with no empty space in it. It has been filled in completely by what it is supposed to do, and there is nothing left for you to bring. That is why we do not describe what our pieces will do for you. It is not modesty, and it is not a legal hedge. It is the same argument as the wheel.

We sell objects, not outcomes.

A censer has exactly one job, and it is to hold ash while something burns. Everything else is yours.

Try it

Next time you pick something up, find the hole. The handle of a teapot exists so your hand has somewhere to not be burned. The gap under a chair rail is where the broom goes. The pause before the first sip is where the tea is actually tasted.

If you cannot find the empty part, the object was probably designed by someone who was paid by the feature.