What primarily determines the quality of user interaction with a digital product? Oddly enough, this is not a well-structured program code and not the advanced technologies used in its implementation. It is, first of all, design.
Below we will describe its stages performed by a digital product designer for startups.
6 Steps to Create a Product Design for Startups
So, what steps a product design service includes? Let's find out right now.
Determine your final goal
Let's start with the fact that you should have the most accurate idea of what you want to get. Of course, not every one of us, especially those far from software development, can accurately visualize the intended functionality in our thoughts. However, you still need to be able to describe some basic things in words.
This means that your problem statement for designers should not be like “I need the best product in my niche” because everyone knows what “best” means. It would be much more efficient to describe the product's ultimate goal from the end users' point of view. For example, you can say, “I need a solution that analyzes reviews of specific brands on the Internet.” After that, you should understand how achievable your goal is, preferably with what tools and in what ways.
And finally, decide whether your plan will be attractive to some audiences. After all, no matter how excellent a product is, if no one is interested in it, it will be pointless to create it.
Conduct research
Now you need to collect data on the current market situation: to understand if you have competitors, their strengths and weaknesses, and what features they lack to provide your target audience with an advanced user experience. This can be done in a product design agency through face-to-face focus group interviews, surveys, or field research.
Analyze your target audience
At this stage, you must make the most of your collected information. This means you must apply the data to specific types of potential users – for example, by creating user personas (average representatives of your target audience) or building empathy maps that describe the user experience of interacting with your website product design.
Perform a brainstorming
Now you can start brainstorming by generating any product design ideas with your team and then voting for them, considering their feasibility and viability. To better understand these two factors, you can do user journey mapping, create user stories, or perform storyboarding.
Start implementing the most viable ideas
With a few ideas, you will need to build prototypes based on them. To ensure their fine detailing, it makes sense to pre-compile a list of specifications. It may not be complete initially, so you should move from low-fidelity prototypes to high-fidelity ones.
Test and improve
Finally, after you have received a prototype of your product and services design approved by all project parties, you can safely proceed to its implementation. After that, you will need to conduct usability testing with the help of your internal specialists and provide an opportunity to interact with your product with a group of potential users. Then, based on the feedback received, you can return your product to your team for revision and repeat this stage until the vast majority stops finding severe flaws.
Final Thoughts
Now you know how service and product design is created, so it's time to find product designing experts who will perform all the above steps. In particular, you can contact us for a non-trivial solution that fully aligns with your business values.
