What is Product Design?

Table of contents

• What Is Meant By Product Designing?
• History Of Product Designing
• How To Define And Strategise A Product Design
• Career In Product Design & Jobs Availability

What is a product? Well, the term was lately employed in reference to anything tangible and frequently encountered in a retail store. However, these days, it also increasingly refers to digital goods. It’s not at all surprising to say that these days even apps and softwares are known as products. Why? You ask. Let’s take a deeper look into the topic and know how product designing has become an important aspect of every brand.

What Is Meant By Product Designing?

The process of developing goods that cater to certain needs in a market or solve problems for customers is known as product design. Understanding the end-user customer, or the person for whom the product is being built, is essential for a successful product design. This is usually done by research and empathy and an understanding of the behaviours, problems, requirements, and wants of their potential customers, product designers try to solve real problems for real people.

The full product lifecycle is woven together by good product design principles. From user research prior to ideation to concept development to prototyping and usability testing, product design is crucial in developing the first user experience and product offering. The process of improving the customer experience and assuring the addition of supplementary functionality and capabilities in a seamless, discoverable, and disruptive way are the roles played by product design. Up until the end of a product's lifecycle, brand consistency and evolution remain a crucial obligation for product design.

Additionally, it goes well beyond what users see on their screens. Users finally view and engage with the interface design as a result of important back-end elements called system design and process design.

History Of Product Designing

Design was an analogue process until there was a digital environment that required designing. The early explorations in design for the physical world provided much of the fundamental design thinking expertise that went into producing this generation's most well-known digital experience designers. Most of the ideas are similar: how can we offer an enriching experience along with the solution rather than only solving a problem? Although the use cases are frequently distinct, in the end, a sleek, shining car and an intuitive, smooth website are both pleasant packaging that contain an underlying reason.

The Industrial Designers Society of America claims: "Industrial design is a career that involves creating items that are utilised on a daily basis by millions of people all over the world. Industrial designers pay attention to a product's functionality, manufacturing process, and, ultimately, the value and experience it offers users in addition to its aesthetic.

Prior to the advent of mass production, artisans created most things by hand. As a result, there were more expensive and scarcer things for sale. Later, the industrialization of manufacturing made it possible for companies to make goods in large quantities at low cost.

Manufacturing companies engaged the aid of industrial designers to produce items that were not only practical but also aesthetically beautiful in order to help sell their goods to the millions of people who could now afford them. Product design is a division of industrial design that has grown into its own category throughout time. This is so because modern industrial design is associated with tangible goods like furniture and home appliances. Contrarily, any product, including digital or virtual ones like software apps, can be referred to as having a product design.

How To Define And Strategise A Product Design

It's time to outline the design process now that you know what design thinking is. The design process is a set of stages that product teams adhere to during the whole creation of a product. A good, organised procedure is necessary for two reasons: You can maintain your focus and adhere to your timetable with its assistance.

Although a uniform design method that works for all projects is impossible to supply, a general procedure for developing new items can be described.

The most important factor is to come up with a strategy.

We frequently wonder whether our product decisions will be successful or unsuccessful. Discovering new products reduces the dangers connected to the viability of our ideas. In a word, product discovery is the process of honing your ideas by identifying the genuine wants and issues of your target market before selecting the most effective approach to address those issues. Product discovery seeks to swiftly categorise an idea as good or terrible and respond to the following queries:

1. Will consumers be eager to purchase the product?
2. Will our customers find it simple to use the product?
3. Can designers put our ideas into practice?
4. Will our ideas be backed by stakeholders?

You need to carefully evaluate the market and potential users in order to provide answers to these questions. Here are a few design techniques that are useful for creating new products.

From early research to concept development through prototyping and usability testing, product designers are responsible for the project throughout its entire product lifetime. We will briefly describe a number of ideas that serve as the cornerstone of contemporary product design in this part. Actually, before the design process even begins, one of the most crucial steps is completed. A product's context of existence must be understood before construction can begin. The product team needs to define the product vision and strategy at this point.

Have you ever worked on a project with an unclear overall goal? whose design and development team members have a hazy understanding of the intended use of the product? This occurs frequently because the product lacks vision. Unfortunately, this situation occurs far too frequently. This usually has detrimental effects. According to an adage from Japan, "seeing without action is daydreaming. Without vision, action is a nightmare.

A product vision that establishes the direction and directs the product development team is necessary for any design project. Vision encapsulates the core of the product, the vital knowledge the product team has to have in order to create and introduce a successful product. A shared sense of "what we are trying to achieve here and why" can be created through vision. You may define what you are not developing with the use of vision. When developing your product, staying focused will be made easier if you are aware about the limitations of your solution.

Collaborate With Key Players

To establish clear expectations for the team and stakeholders, the kickoff meeting gathers all the important participants. It provides a high-level overview of the product's function, the people engaged in designing and producing it, how they will collaborate, and the expectations of the stakeholders (such as the KPIs and how success of the product should be measured).

Customer Journey Map

Making a customer journey map is one approach to depict the concepts the team came up with throughout the brainstorming process. The points between the customer and the product that need to be designed are shown on the customer journey map. The map also makes it easier to comprehend the feelings clients go through and any potential problems along the way. Customer journey maps show the stages taken by customers and their feelings.

Research, Research, And… Research

The second half of the foundation for excellent design is provided by product research, which always involves user and market research. Before making any product decisions, carry out thoughtful research to increase your chances of success. Always keep in mind that time spent researching is never wasted.

Good research informs your product, and starting it early in the design process will help you save a lot of resources (time and money) in the long run because fewer adjustments will need to be made. Furthermore, with thorough research, pitching your ideas to stakeholders would be much simpler.

Career In Product Design & Jobs Availability

A product designer is in charge of the full product lifecycle, from conception to launch and journey mapping. Product designers consult with multiple stakeholders, create a prototype, and then work on the product depending on feedback. They are in charge of bringing together various parties involved in the product's development. A product designer's job is both satisfying and lucrative in the digital as well as offline sector. Some career opportunities that you can explore in product designing course are as follow:

• Automobile Designer

Professionals that focus on the visual appearance or aesthetics of a vehicle are known as automobile designers. They are also involved in the development of cars, bikes, and other automobiles that meet the needs of the automotive segments. They build designs in order to appeal to a specific automotive category of clients. The essential skill set includes an aesthetic bent of mind as well as knowledge of interiors and colour design. A candidate should also have technical knowledge of ergonomics, vehicle body design, and design tools.

• Jewellery Designer

The growth of the gems and jewellery business has created several job prospects for jewellery designers. After successfully completing your course, you will have no trouble finding employment in this industry. You can also set up your own retail and trading unit or establish your own freelance design firm.

• Watch Designer

A watch designer is a specialist in designing various types of timepieces that are trendy. He is known for creating sporty watches, high fashion watches, youthful watches, classical watches, and ultra-modern high-end watches. Watch designers have a unique ability to understand the needs of the target market and apply those needs functionally and elegantly through watch design. If you have a good practical, creative, and technical/scientific approach, you are qualified to become a watch designer.

• UX Designer

User-experience and interface designers focus on improving a product in accordance with their study into user behaviour, which suggests that people will use it with the greatest satisfaction. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for UI/UX designers in India. This is due to the increasing popularity of digital products and services in the country. UI/UX design plays a vital role in creating an enjoyable and intuitive user experience for these products and services.

• Graphic Artist

Making the graphics, icons, logos, and other visual components of the product experience is the most artistic task in product design. Their scope might be as broad as choosing a colour scheme or as specific as changing a single pixel.

• Motion And Animation Artist

These experts focus on this incredibly challenging aspect of the design if the product requires items that are "moving," whether it be smooth transitions or a user-controlled avatar. They don't just make the art, they bring it to life.

• User Research

They are only interested in comprehending clients in organisations with sufficiently large product design teams. Sketching up the demographics and profiles that fall under their remit, conducting interviews, doing usability studies, presenting prototypes and mockups for feedback.

• Analyst For Data

These designers focus on user research and other information to find ways to enhance a product's visual appeal, feature set, and layout. They are designers in addition to researchers, to put it another way.

• Product Designer

Of course, a brand will frequently employ someone to perform some of the aforementioned tasks as well as others that fall under the purview of the position of product designer. Some of the more comprehensive, strategic facets of coming up with new product concepts will be handled by other businesses. There, additional specialists in the company assume control over duties including information architecture, user research, and UX design.

Design inspiration can come from many sources, but one of the best ways to find new and exciting ideas is to read design books. There are countless titles available on all aspects of design, from architecture and interiors to fashion and product design. To help you narrow down your search, we’ve compiled a list of 10 of the best product design books out there.

To name a few:

Design of Everyday Things: Don Norman

The Design of Everyday Things is possibly among the best-selling product design books of all time. It lays out the essential principles of good design and highlights the conscious design choices of commonplace products.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products: Nir Eyal

This is among the books for product designing that will change how you look at digital products. As the title suggests, the book contains recommendations to enhance the stickiness of the products and retain customers.

Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common-Sense Approach to Web & Mobile Usability: Steve Krug

This book, based on principles of intuitive navigation and information design, is highly recommended for product design professionals. In a light-hearted style with a witty tone, the author gives a fresh perspective to usability design with real-world case studies. Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Regine M. Gilbert This book is designed to cater to this digital era. The author explores multiple aspects of technological accessibility, followed by step-by-step solutions. The book covers Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 requirements, emerging technologies including AR and VR, best practices for web development, etc

Laws of UX: Jon Yablonski

The book draws from the principles of psychology, especially how users behave and interact with digital interfaces. The author emphasises the understanding of how humans perceive the objects around them, which forms the building block of the design process.

Summing It Up

Always keep in mind who you are designing the product for when designing it. You need to examine how to specify the ideal product vision, strategy, and design procedure in more detail.

More often than not, people don't appreciate the scope and strategic importance of the function of product design. It involves more than just improving a product's appearance. "Product design is the complete process," says Eric Eriksson. You assess the validity of the problem in addition to creating, designing, testing, and delivering the solution.