Starting to develop a digital product you face many challenges, but the major one is to make the product beneficial. The user-centric approach tells us that to increase the benefit you need to get users’ attention and make them love your product.
Many kinds of researches prove that companies gain their profit if they pay attention to design a lot and user experience in product development. According to DMI Design Value Index design-centric companies show a 211% return over the S&P 500.
So, how exactly does design work? How can it reduce or increase the benefit of the product? How to avoid bad design practices? Let’s figure it out.
Read further:
- The UI/UX design — what does it really mean?
- The good, the bad, and the ugly. Mistakes in the design approach
- How to make a design that will make your business more profitable ?
The UI/UX design — what does it really mean?
Often the design is interpreted like a “pictures drawing” or in other words, visual graphic pieces to add some glitter on the surface. Such a vision is dangerous for any person who wants to start a product.
UI/UX Design is a process based on an analysis of user experience and aimed at its improvement. So let’s see what this process actually consists of.
Design Research
It’s the first thing to start. The research includes the competitors’ searching and analysis, finding weak sides of the project, problems statement, a customers’ portrait discovery, and even business value research.
Customers Research
Here is more detailed information about the user being collected. What exactly do the users need? What problems could we solve for them? When, where, and how would a customer use our product? Answers for all these questions build the bridge between product and user and give us a vision of the project.
Structure and Prototype
In accordance with all the research results, you could build the very first prototype of your product. The pretty visual part is still not very important here. A prototype gives space for experiments. You could try different variants of the scenario, see if the user needs or not some features, and what important features are missing So, with the lowest expenses, you already get closer to the product which is loved by the user and, as a result, profitable.
Interface Design
When you have enough info and a solid prototype you can start with the interface polishing. It also an important part. Here you create not only a convenient and seamless interaction. You also develop an emotional part of the product which is the basis of the customers satisfaction.
So, we can see now that product design is a complex process that includes crucial steps on the way to a popular, efficient, and high-quality product. But is it really that simple as it looks like?
The good, the bad, and the ugly. Mistakes in the design approach
The good
Surely, most of the product founders are aware of design value and try to incorporate design into the development process. Despite it, not every product becomes successful. For example, 25% of mobile apps are dropping off by users after very first use. Experts often connect it with poor design decisions. But how do those appear and how to detect them?
The bad
Poor design in most cases starts with the wrong approach. Here is the list of preconceptions we’ve encountered from our clients which could turn on bad:
- Let’s start with bare features. We will do the design later
- We should use libraries/templates that already exist
- The product’s functionality is self-sustained even without design
- Our customers don’t care about the design
All those mistakes have one thing in common — underestimation of the design process by reason of the lack of info and unbalanced technical approach. Where does it lead to?
The ugly
The crucial moment in your product development is the moment when you stop and check if your product is still lovable? If you stick to the design-centric approach, you already have the required data to check the accordance between expectation and reality (remember the design research stages?) But, if some of the mistakes above happen, it gets harder to measure usability. It leads the product to the state when the user most likely will drop off a product at the very beginning or at the moment the competitor’s user-friendly product appears. To avoid it, you need to communicate with the user and learn what their needs are.
How to make a design that gains your profit?
The development process has already started and you need to find the recipe for the successful product. Here are some points:
- Put the user in the center
The Design-centric approach will help you to make an almost perfect product that satisfies users. The main ideas are:
- Learn your customers
- Focus on customers’ expectations and needs
- Perform usability testing
- Reduce users’ frustration level
- Look back regularly and change the course if needed
2. Be involved
High involvement of the business leaders in the design process has a great impact on product quality. It will help the design team to understand your business goals clearly and to develop the best approach to achieve those. Working together raises awareness of all the team members and increases team’s loyalty level.
3. Find the balance
Every part of the digital product development counts. Each part doesn’t work one without another
- Techs — unique features make your product competitive and irreplaceable. Poor tech part wouldn’t let the product become successful, even if the design and marketing are great.
- Design — well-performed design affects conversion rates, retention (loyalty), improves brand perception. Also, it helps customers to use the product in the most efficient way. Poor design could make some great features almost unreachable and a user frustrate. Moreover, it’s difficult for marketers to present a product that doesn’t look well.
- Business — wise business planning and professional marketing campaign ensure that your product will be successful. But, if a business plan isn’t solid enough and promotional strategy doesn’t match customers’ specifics, even a unique product with a seamless interface wouldn’t get users’ attention.
What else can you add to this list?
