Make something amazing!
As you can tell from our previous article, the story of product design never ends. That’s why we want to help you understand very well how the entire product design process works, from coming up with ideas to providing a finished product to customers.
Most important steps:
Product discovery
Build a useful product! Work together, throw around ideas on what product should be developed. Keep in mind that when there is a group of people, the ideas can be even better.
Do your research: interviews, online research, diary studies, etc. It’s a bit time-consuming, but a great research will provide great business opportunities.
Take into account to discuss to a product’s target group -this trick can provide a lot of useful information.
And always ask the right questions:
(eg.: What is the hardest part about……..?/ What have you tried to solve the problem?/ Describe a typical……./ Has…….happened to you? What did you do? You mentioned…….Tell me more! etc).
With the right questions you’ll get valuable and honest feedback from the users.
Product feasibility
If you did your homework: getting to know the audience, finding the main problems to solve, doing some competitor analysis, it’s time to share your findings and determine the product feasibility. It’s up to you and your team to analyze the ideas and determine which products can be created.
Prototype and itinerate
It’s time to create a prototype to give the company an idea of how the product will look and function. The prototype should reflect what the actual product will be like, and once it does, it’s time for the next step.
Do user tests! You will get important feedback and make sure the people will understand your product. Customers can determine what improvements or changes are needed for the product.
After testing and modifying the prototype then you should finally get to the pixel-perfect, colorful, detailed design plans.
Final design – Put the vision into effect!
From here you will pick a final design that consists of detailed specifications for the new product. It’s very important not to get too detailed, because this can make your job more difficult – focus on creating just enough to know what aesthetic you are working towards.
So, the major steps are:
Define the problem – Collect information – Brainstorm and analyze ideas – Develop solutions/ build a test model – Present your ideas to others for feedback – Improve your design.
On the other hand, you must keep in mind that there are some important factors that can affect the product design process:
The cost– One major factor that affects product design is the cost of production including labor costs.
Aesthetics – Generally, the product may need to appear stylish or of a certain shape. This may end up determining the technology that it built into the product.
Current trends – Customers will want the most updated options and this needs to be considered during product design.
Culture – If the product you are designing is for a certain market with its own individual culture, this needs to be kept in mind during product design. Be aware of the fact that a product acceptable in one culture may end up being offensive or not desirable in another one.
Through this cyclical process of analyzing data, getting user feedback and testing, you will definitely know where to go next. The truth is that you need to be prepared, because new problems will arise and new features will be born. But any of the techniques above can help you approach these challenges with more confidence and clarity!