✋ Disclaimer: I'm learning about product design and I aim to share my learnings so far. Take this into account meanwhile reading this article, and share your thoughts and feedback if you think there is something that can be improved please! 😊
Six years ago, I was working in a small consultancy firm based in Barcelona. Because of the limited resources, the phase we all should sell became a mantra.
Since then, I have never stopped hearing it. If you are near to any startup or entrepreneur, you will eventually hear it 👂.
There is a reason why you would say this, the resources are limited, and hiring one person to be the only responsible for selling might not be possible 😖.
Instead, you aim to everyone in the company tries to sell the product in some way or another. This might sound good, but some inconveniences are out of scope for this post.
But, what do we understand by product design?
Product Design is a process that goes from analysis of user-needs to a problem-solving approach to improve the quality of life of the end-users and their interaction with the environment.
It is about problem-solving, about visualizing the needs of the end-users and bringing a solution.
It's a quite broad description since it varies a lot from company to company, and it might involve different "roles" that collaborate on the product design like:
- UX Designer
- Data Analyst
- Prototyper
- ...
And it usually involves the next phases:
Then,
Why we all should product design is the new we all should sell?
How we are designing products is changing in our industry. Roles as UX Designer, Product Designer, User Researcher are becoming more and more important in how we build and ship products, and the impact on the users cannot be overlooked.
Still, having a team with dedicated people for each role and responsibility is a rare situation in a startup, similar to the sales department 😜.
Instead, as a team, you aim to cover the important aspects of Product Design in a loop-based way.
The important point here is to perform the different phases in a meaningful way. I do think in most startups that phases happen in some way or another, but giving the proper structure will help identify you, as a team, at which point you are at and what you should expect of your work, analyze the outcomes and improve based on data.
Involving the right people in each phase
| Phase | Who (Does or performs some tasks as) | What | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Empathize | People that work with data, analytics and has a more product owner role, marketing people | Research about the people you are creating the product for | User Testing, User Interview, Email Surveys, ... |
| 2. Define | People that works with data, analytics and has a more product owner role | Create a starting point from the user insights | OKR workshop, Define the hypotheses, Align about the MVP (Lean Inception) |
| 3. Ideate | Everyone | Bring the facts and assumptions into the table and start a Brainstorming session to know the next learning you want to achieve with the given data | 2 - 3 days workshop focused on Brainstorming and conceptualization |
| 4. Prototype | Product Owner, UX Designer, Engineers, Data Analysts | Design and iterate a prototype that help you answer your hypothesis | See different prototyping tools |
| 5. Test | Product Owner mainly | Put in place the prototype to grater further information | Via User Interviews or Analytics Tools |
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