How to take an active role in the design process of your product
Sometimes, when thinking about the design and development of your product, it can be hard to tell where to start. We get it. Trusting a technological partner to make the best out of your idea is not easy. But, believe us when we say that co-designing your product with a knowledgeable and dedicated team of designers can make the whole difference. Actually, it can make the journey pretty exciting (and profitable).
So, if you’re asking yourself how you can be an active participant in the design process of your product, while taking advantage of the guidance of design experts, you’ve come to the right place. Find the answer in this article while we’ll give you a tour of our product design collaborative approach.
First Comes First: Why Design is a Vital Part of Your Product
Before diving into Eagerworks’ approach to the design process, let’s take a step back and remember why a fine-tuned design is a key ingredient in the development of your product.
Precise use of design is a powerful source of differentiation. It not only attracts users to your product from a visual point of view -which can be decisive for a first-look stand out-, but more substantially it adds strength to your product’s value proposition. How?
- It makes your product more authentic. By contributing to the singling out and clarity of your product’s main purpose.
- It’s the heart of an unforgettable user experience. Beyond looks and feels, design helps your product deliver streamlined interactions with its users.
- It contributes to building engagement. If a product is designed towards a friction-free flow of actions, avoiding bumps and obstacles on the go, your product is on the road to making your users fall in love with it.
- It strengthens your product’s core. With a calibrated design, your product’s essential function can be simplified and highlighted.
- It can be your best sidekick for problem-solving. Many product features and interactions can be quickly adjusted with an eye focused on design improvement.
The benefits of a top-notch design for your product are endless. Now it’s time to press play and kick off the process.
An Approach to our Product Design Process
We can’t say it enough: when it comes to giving life to a product, time is king. Don’t get us wrong — it’s not about designing and developing faster but to learn fast, developing and designing smarter in this way. In this sense, setting straight the foundations at the beginning of a project is the way to pave a smooth highway to a successful launch.
At Eagerworks, we apply a Design Thinking approach to product design and development. This means that we conduct a non-linear iterative process which comprises five stages: empathizing, definition, ideation, prototyping and testing. With it, we can take the best out of agile methodologies, defying assumptions and testing possibilities faster to co-create sharper solutions side by side with you.
Perhaps, all of this sounds challenging. Rest assured that we have created a clear design process for you to jump in along with our design team. Read further to explore how “co-creation” for us means you’re an essential player in this exhilarating venture.
Stages of the Product Design Process
Here you can get a glimpse at our 4-step design process:
Contact: let’s get in touch
First things first. The kick off stage of the design process is the proper moment for you to convey your vision about the product. This instance is key to finding the perfect alliance with the design team and a match with the right combination of skills and experience to move your project forward.
This stage is all about being aligned. It’s really important to build a strong communication between the client and the design team to invest properly in a thoughtful knowledge transfer phase. At this point, it’s important for the client to express clearly to the design team what they want to accomplish with the product in order to get a result that lives up to expectations.
The time spent on understanding the client’s mission and needs -and translating them into design requirements- is essential to smooth the future process as much as possible. Once this is settled, everything is ready to move forward and kick off. Let ‘s roll!
Workshop: let’s talk it through
At this stage, we held meetings between the design team and the client for a live Q&A and exchange of thoughts to understand the product idea in depth and collect information on our clients’ expectations and needs. Most importantly, this step brings us closer and allows us to create an essential connection based on collaboration, fluid communication, and understanding.
This instance is also the perfect time to define requirements and for you to share a brief of your product, in case you have one. If you don’t have one, don’t worry — we can create one based on a simple questionnaire. One way or another, having this information collected by the design team would be crucial for later teamwork calibration.
Proposal: let’s make it happen!
Once we’ve gathered valuable information about your company, desired product, and value proposition, together we’ll define the terms and conditions of our partnership. In the proposal stage, we’ll establish deadlines, number of feedback loops, and agreed deliverables, as well as means, and communication channels. This is the time for agreements in order to start working on the design of your product.
During this period of time, it’s crucial to stick to consented deadlines from both sides — the commitment of the design team with delivery dates is as important as the client engagement with expected feedback dates. This way, everyone will be on the same page and the process will run fluidly, meeting deadlines and avoiding undesired delays.
Feedback related to design poses a challenge: visuals are not the only thing that we have to bear in mind. We need to understand user experience as a whole. A UX-focused design process implies researching on your users’ needs, building your user persona and aiming to fulfill their expectations with user data-driven decisions.
Another observation in regard to feedback is the value of clarity. Active listening, strong argumentation, and transparent requests for further explanation are necessary from the design team and the client alike. We are well prepared to be flexible and offer alternatives. At the end of the day, what matters most for us is to meet our client’s expectations.
Delivery: that’s a wrap!
And finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Voilá, the final phase has arrived. At this stage, it’s essential to check that all deliverables comply with the necessary requirements.
Before the launch of the product, we strongly suggest collecting external feedback from people outside the project. You can perform UX testing by requesting potential users to interact with the product and collecting their later opinion about it. You’ll be covering not only visual appealing but user interaction with the product as a 360º experience.
At Eagerworks, we are fully committed to be your lifelong partner of choice for innovation, and we strongly believe in teamwork and collaborative efforts, not only inside our company but also when crafting products side by side with our clients.
Whether you are a first-time entrepreneur or a thriving startup, we can help you with the design of a high-performance product, ready to accomplish your company’s mission! The best of all? With you in the driver’s seat.
Originally published at https://eagerworks.com.