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Picture such a situation:  you install the application and the first thing that you are asked to do is to register. Don’t you find it annoying when you need to enter your email, create a password, and share your private data before you even get to know the essence and the value of the app? Quite often it results in deleting the app without even giving it a try. As a result, it leads to poor user engagement. Think about it like this: the app market is oversaturated. Apart from technical issues, there is also a number of other reasons why users churn (https://cxdojo.com/how-to-increase-user-engagement-a-three-step-structure): 

• Lack of delivery of the basic product value.
• Ineffective first experience.
• Inability to motivate users.

If your app requires an account before the user can interact with it, make sure to provide a valuable user onboarding experience. The so-called hook that will arouse interest in the product and elicit further interaction between the user and the app. Otherwise, they might get demotivated and not provide the information necessary for registration. This will result in lower conversion and engagement rates.

There are a few ways in which you can optimize user onboarding:

• Not asking for registration from the very first screen.
• Not forcing any email confirmation.
• Provide value and show users what benefits they should expect.

Based on the example of one of our recent projects, we would like to introduce you to our three-step structure on how to increase user engagement and retention. 

ABOUT THE PROJECT 

While traveling the world, our client faced the challenge of finding kid-friendly restaurants. It turns out that the availability of such places is not a common thing in many countries and cities. He had to spend time searching such restaurants, exploring their web pages, and reading reviews to find the right one. “Wouldn’t it be great to have all of them available in one place?” he thought. With this in mind, he came up with the idea of creating a mobile application that would allow us to easily find such restaurants when traveling with kids. So, we helped with creating a digital strategy for this product idea.

HOW TO INCREASE USER ENGAGEMENT?

Apart from mobile application development, our team was responsible for the entire customer experience. Our client wanted to start engaging users from the very first version of the app; gather relevant data and update the service based on the received feedback. 

In a nutshell, the main focus was to lead the user unobtrusively from the pre-register phase to full interaction with the app. 

STEP # 1 – MAKE USER ONBOARDING VALUE-ORIENTED

We wanted to present the app’s benefits before asking users to register. The idea is to let customers understand how useful the app is for them and whether it’s worth wasting time and registering on the first screen. At this stage, the user gets the minimum functionality from the app but doesn’t instantly prompt to create an account. Time is priceless, and people want to know if they will spend it profitably. Simply put, your users will immediately know what they get from your app, without demanding anything in return. When users understand your app’s benefits first, they’re more likely to register the app. 

As part of our project, when a person downloads the app, the first thing they get is an opportunity to try the basic functionality of the app. In our case, the application shows one kid-friendly restaurant in the neighborhood. Instead of forcing users to create a new account straight away, we let them try the app and see its value. Such an approach ensures that users get to know your app and what problem it will solve.

STEP #2 – REWARD YOUR USER AFTER REGISTRATION

The next step is registration itself. After the user creates an account, we reward them by giving a little more. Instead of one restaurant, we now show three restaurants. Thus, there’s no need for users to log in each time they access the app. The moment they open the application, they immediately see three kid-friendly restaurants in their location. 

STEP #3 – OFFER USERS MORE BENEFITS

The third step allows buying our subscription, which includes the full package: advanced options, the use of filters (such as the availability of baby carriage ramps, suitable furniture, children’s meals on the menu, a play area, and other), access to the entire list of kid-friendly restaurants and their descriptions, etc. The idea is that you can subscribe only after trying the key functionality of the app (step one), and only after that decide whether you want to register and try the premium version. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Smoothly adding functionality allows users to first understand what our service is about and decide whether they want to spend time interacting with the app. With each step, we receive different statistics and get to know our users better.

That is to say, if a user installs the app, tries the basic functionality but doesn’t register, then we need to optimize the first step so that there are more registrations. Accordingly, the more registrations, the more chances that the user will buy a subscription. This structure is just one way to boost user engagement, increase app retention, and improve app stickiness. 

The only thing is that you’ve never formulated a social media strategy for your company before. Sure, your business has a Facebook and Twitter account that it occasionally posts on with an interesting industry article or to get the word out about a promotion, but that’s about the extent of it.

You hear how your company needs to be present on social media, but you aren’t seeing the results that are everyone keeps claiming are yours for the taking.

Effectively posting on social media requires a well-thought-out strategy that must be continually tweaked and re-implemented. The occasional posting about company news or promotions will no longer cut it.

How do you start a social media strategy? There are so many social media channels out there, which ones should you post on? What kind of content should you post to get the most engagement? Should you pay to promote your posts? Do you know where to look to see how well everything is performing?

Before you get overwhelmed, here is a guide to get you started on the right path of a successful social media strategy for your business:

Step 1: Set Goals and Objectives

Before you start a campaign in any business, you need to have goals and objectives in place to assess progress and know whether you’ve achieved success. A social media strategy is no different. If you don’t have any goals or objectives written out, you won’t know how your campaign is performing. These provide the foundation of your blueprint for your strategy.

Every subsequent course of action within the strategy is aimed at meeting or exceeding these goals and objectives.

With goals and objectives, you can quickly see when and where your social media campaign is going awry and make immediate changes to put it back on course.

When creating goals and objectives, it the S.M.A.R.T method is a good starting point. According to this method, the goals and objectives are to be specific (S), measurable (M), attainable (A), relevant (R) and time-bound (T).

Step 2: Do a Social Media Self-Audit

After creating the goals and objectives for your campaign, you should look at where your current strategy stands.

What social media platforms is your company currently posting on? What kind of material is being posted? How much or little engagement is there? When do you post? How often do you post?

It helps to create a spreadsheet to document your answers to the above questions. Use this spreadsheet and compare it against your strategy’s goals and objectives. Are there things you’re already doing well? What needs changing in order for your goals and objectives need to be met?

Besides looking at the health of your current social media channels, be sure to completely fill out your company’s social media profiles, with a clear, identifiable picture and keywords. Completed social media profiles make your brand easier to find by consumers and it adds to your brand’s credibility and authority.

Step 3: Research

Maybe your company is posting on the wrong social media channels, or posting the wrong type of content, or is currently not on another social network it could leverage for increased attention. Maybe your posts are going out at the wrong time.

It can be tempting to be on as many social media networks as possible. The downside of this is that you will wear yourself out, waste valuable time, and produce hurried, boring bulk postings.

Social Media Strategy 2.jpgYou need to do some research on your industry, your desired audience, and even your competitors. Where are your ideal audience members most active? When are they most likely to engage? What interests them and what messaging catches their attention?

There are multiple social networks that allow you to gain insights into these questions. Facebook, for example, allows users to target specific audiences, see the interactions on their posts, the best and worst time for post engagement as well as demographics of those that interact with the posts.

In terms of scheduling posts, there are automation tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite that allow you to sync and schedule posts on multiple social networks in one place.

Observing what your competitors are doing and how well they’re faring on social media can give you tips and tricks on what to try out and what to avoid when formulating and implementing your social media campaign.

Step 4: Create Quality Content

You can be on every social media network and still not get the engagement and conversions you’re looking for because your content is bland, sales, useless and impersonal.

You won’t know what to write without first identifying your ideal audience and social media networks. When coming up with content, you want to not only catch people’s attention, but you want to make your brand stand out as an authoritative and trustworthy source of information in your industry.

As you do this, it’s important to design your content to take advantage of each individual platform. Twitter, for instance, only allows for 140 characters and utilizes hashtags. Instagram, and Pinterest utilize images. Facebook utilizes text, images and videos. YouTube utilizes videos.

Your content needs to match the format of the platform, be interesting, and be useful. It should not come off as impersonal or condescending. Have your content make your brand appear as a person, not an organization.

Like putting together a social media audit spreadsheet, and using scheduling tools for posts, creating an editorial calendar can help guide you as to what you write. With an editorial calendar, you’ll know what you’re going to write about and have details

Step 5: Continued Assessment

Once you research your audience, craft your content and schedule the posts on the appropriate social networks, you may be tempted to sit back and relax.

If you put a lot of time, resources and energy into a social media strategy, you want to make sure the ROI is worth it. Otherwise y, u’ll remain stuck and stagnant in your efforts.

Nobody wants to stay stuck and not grow.

As with any aspects of internet marketing, things in social media change constantly.

If you post a Facebook post at 2 pm one week and get a lot of engagement can turn into an ignored post the next week. Consumers also get bored seeing the same content all the time.

Social media strategies require time and a plan.

Just doing the occasional posting on a few social media channels will not result in a successful social strategy.

A well-performing social strategy begins with goals and objectives. You need to see where your current strategy is, research the best social media channels and your target customers and create high-quality, useful and interesting content.

Being a product owner can be overwhelming – like you’re trying to juggle lots of things at once. Between defining the product scope, creating a great experience for your customers, working with cross-functional teams, and understanding when something is your number one priority and all focus should be on that.

In this list of never-ending tasks, the key one is the ability to manage project risks. Risks are almost inevitable, and to mitigate them, you need to prepare yourself. Even a simple activity can turn into an unexpected problem. Addressing and realizing those risks in advance can save you time, costs, and sometimes your product. When you plan the digital product development process, first of all, answer this question: “do I understand the problem I’m solving, and is this problem worth solving?”

In this article, you’ll find more about risk mitigation planning, why you need it, and how to build products customers actually need.

WHY DO PRODUCTS FAIL?

First of all, let’s figure out what are the reasons that something can go wrong in your project. Here are some of the most common risks associated with product development. 

RISK 1: CREATING PRODUCT WITH NO MARKET DEMAND

As an industry expert, you might think that you know what your users need. This assumption creates a risk of working on a product that, as a result, will be used only by you and possibly by several more people (sorry for being straightforward). The risk is higher as you grow the product idea on assumptions or without conducting enough user research.

Starting a business is hard. A survey conducted by CB Insights among 101 failed startups states that 70% of startups fail because there is NO market need for a product (42%). It follows that companies should build products only according to the real needs of their users.

There are several questions that you should answer to minimize the risk of building a product that doesn’t meet users’ needs and wants.

The result of your answers will help you to differentiate your product and create a unique value proposition (UVP). 

RISK 2: SETTING UNREALISTIC DEADLINES

There’s no universal formula to guarantee project completion on time. However, there are a few tips that can help you mitigate the chances to fail meeting the project deadlines. 

• Create a project roadmap with clear objectives, expected results, and ways to achieve them. Otherwise, you will work without understanding the final result the team should achieve. 
• Once you have a roadmap, you may want to make some adjustments. For example, you decided to follow the latest web design trends and add more complex and dynamic elements such as animated scrolling. It’s fine to add fresh solutions but keep in mind that frequent changes require more time to develop and test, and usually result in project delays. When you create a project scope, try to think through all the details as carefully as possible, so that during the implementation phase there will be fewer unexpected tasks. 

RISK 3: UNDERESTIMATING HUMAN RESOURCES

Things happen. When the work on the product is in full swing, one of the developers leaves the project.

As a result, you might experience team members’ change-over or lack of qualified specialists. To minimize risks associated with human resources, try to organize team members into small groups. In this way, team members can jointly plan a project, share knowledge, perform code reviews and work together on tasks from the get-go. Also, the team should be able to easily perform work if one of its members is temporarily absent or has left the team.

RISK 4: CHOOSING A WRONG TECHNOLOGY

Before you start working on the project, you’ll want to be meticulous when deciding on a tech stack and whether it suits your business goals. This choice can make or break the entire product performance and UX. Here are four (at least basic) rules we recommend to keep an eye on when deciding on a new technology stack for your next project:

1. Make sure that tech is correctly updated. Old and legacy technology can negatively impact your business. Failing to keep up with the times can turn against you. Increased costs, crashes, and system downtime, decreased team productivity, legal compliances, and security holes are just the tip of the iceberg and consequences of using outdated technology. So consider regular upgrades an essential part of your strategic toolkit.
2. Focus on ongoing support. You don’t want your product to focus on a system you can’t be confident about. This means that if you decide to choose a particular technology, make sure it’s actively developing with constant updates. Otherwise, you risk ending up with a product with an uncertain future. 
3. Choose technology that is reliable and tested. Don’t blindly follow trends. Consider whether the stack you are about to choose is just a fad or a well-established technology with a good track record.
4. Keep in mind personal requirements. When choosing a stack, one may rely on the technical expertise of the team. It’s not quite right. First of all, choose a technology based on the problem you want to solve. Think about who your users are and how to provide them with a great user experience and product performance. For example, if your project is complex the combination of multiple programming languages is inevitable. On the other hand, if you aim to enter the market quickly, you can start with less sophisticated technologies. 

HOW TO MITIGATE RISKS IN THE DIGITAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS?

Here are a couple of things to catch up on when managing risks and your project:

1. Start with identifying the risks early on in your project.
2. Communicate about risks.
3. Prioritize the risks.
4. Understand the reason for and impact of the risks.
5. Develop a risk mitigation plan.

1. START WITH IDENTIFYING THE RISKS EARLY ON IN YOUR PROJECT

You can’t resolve a risk if it’s unknown. For starters, try to make assumptions, brainstorm all potential risks, and write them down. This way you structure all of your concerns. Think of all the possible things that can go wrong and note them. Don’t forget to refer to past projects as this is a source of real risks that you can prevent in the current project. After you make a list of possible risks and review them, assign who is responsible for what risk.

2. COMMUNICATE ABOUT RISKS

Don’t be afraid and don’t avoid talking about risks. On the contrary, pay close attention to risk communication during team meetings and make sure that everyone in the team perceives risk management as an integral part of the project.https://giphy.com/embed/rZwm8oOApXjDBjs3Pk

via GIPHY

3. PRIORITIZE THE RISKS

Prioritization focuses on what matters most in the risk mitigation process. However, ‘what matters most’ can vary during the project: some risks may have a higher impact and probability than others. To evaluate what risks may have the most negative impact, and have a higher probability of occurrence create or use ready-made evaluation tools to categorize and prioritize the risks.

4. UNDERSTAND THE REASON FOR AND IMPACT OF THE RISKS.

Before defining how to manage risks, the project team should identify what can cause the identified risks. Think about the effects and consequences of a particular risk. https://giphy.com/embed/SAAMcPRfQpgyI

via GIPHY

First, let the entire team answer these questions as accurately as possible: 

• What can potentially cause each risk? 
• How will each risk impact the project in terms of costs and product quality? 

The acquired information will provide valuable insights into your project, and you will find it helpful later when optimizing the risks.

5. DEVELOP A RISK MITIGATION PLAN 

For each major risk identified, create a  contingency plan to manage it. You then act according to how you’ve prioritized those risks. Arrange a meeting with your project team and try to find answers to the following questions: 

• What can be done to mitigate the probability of each risk?
• How to manage each risk effectively, should it occur?
• How to make sure that opportunities are not missed? 

via GIPHY

Answering these questions allows your team to improve the digital product development process. Based on the above-mentioned points prepare an action plan and convert it into feasible tasks. Once you implement the risk mitigation plan, your work isn’t finished. Risks are dynamic and tend to transform, evolve, and reappear throughout the entire project life cycle. 

SUMMING UP

Yes, risk mitigation might seem like a daunting task. But if you do your homework and embed a risk management strategy into the digital product development process, you can reduce the chances of project overrun, escalating costs, resources challenges, and more. 

The digital strategy is the application of technology and digital media to create value, i.e. it defines in the digital realm what we do and how we do it. A successful digital strategy requires different areas because it will mix technology with marketing and operations. It is something complex to execute if you do not have the necessary profiles so the help of a digital agency or consultant is often essential.

What is una strategy digital?

Once we have seen the definition of digital strategy, let’s really see what it is and why it is important.

The digital strategy must be aligned with the business strategy, after all it will be the digital piece of our business strategy. The objectives of the company must be previously defined and it will be then when we will create the necessary strategies to reach them.

Internet and the digital world ceased to be something optional for companies some time ago, can be somewhat overwhelming, but if we do not take advantage of digital media our company will be doomed to failure. We cannot do without having a digital strategy in our company.

Digital vs digital marketing strategy

If we look for digital strategy we can find many different definitions, mostly marketing oriented but a digital strategy is not a marketing strategy, in fact, a digital strategy will usually contain a marketing strategy.

A digital marketing strategy will generally be outward-oriented, will focus on bringing value to our customers, giving us visibility, increasing our reputation, brand value, etc..

On the other hand, the digital strategy is applied to the organization as a whole, both internally and externally. So our digital strategy will look at how to apply technology to our entire value chain.

Important factors for a good digital strategy?

Creating a digital strategy is not complicated, but if it requires talent and previous knowledge as well as some experience, what do we need?

• Multidisciplinary knowledge: profiles of marketing, operations, sales and technology.
• One previously defined business objectives.
• The support from the executive scale of the organization.

Once we have what is necessary, we only have to see how to reach the proposed objectives using technology and digital media. To do this we must use multidisciplinary profiles and create actions that lead us to the proposed objectives.

The important thing will be that for each line of action, or part of the plan, we have defined metrics that inform us of our progress. After all, the environment is very dynamic and many of the actions in our plan will have to be adjusted, so having some metrics that are easy to consult is key. We must test, measure and modify in order to optimize to the maximum and get the best performance from our strategy.

The big problem usually comes at the time of having the necessary talent in the company to make a good strategy. That’s why digital consultants and digital agencies come into play, such as Xtrategy Digital who can provide you with the talent you need. This time companies will work together with your operations and marketing staff to devise and implement that strategy that will make you achieve your goals.

If you need help you can have a look at our digital consulting service, we offer you experts in different fields that will help you in what you need, take a look here.

Have you ever been confused with the concepts of customer experience and user experience thinking that they are one and the same? For most, it’s still unclear what’s the difference between the two terms. While UX is about digital product usability, CX is about how the customer feels about the brand throughout the whole customer journey. It’s what closes out conversions, and drives long-term loyalty.

In this blog post, we’re going to sort things out and look a bit closer at these two quite different experiences. First of all, it’s good to understand what people mean when they use these terms. So let’s take a look at the meaning of each concept.  

WHAT IS USER EXPERIENCE? 

In 1995, Don Norman coined the term of user experience, to describe the set of activities his team was engaged in at Apple Computers. Eventually, the term UX has taken a more limited interpretation in practice. It’s a user’s interaction with a specific digital product, such as a website, app, or software. It focuses on the digital interface in terms of utility, usability, navigation, information architecture, ease of use, and visual hierarchy. The key UX metrics are:

• Success rate: The percentage of correctly completed tasks by the users. It’s about how effectively users are able to reach the goal that you want them to reach. For example, ten users attempted to register on the platform: eight of them succeeded and two of them failed. You need to find out why these two failed. The higher the success rate, the better the UX. 
• Error rate: The number of mistakes the user makes when interacting with the product. It gives an idea of how user-friendly and intuitive your product is. The higher the error rate, the more problems with usability.
• Abandonment rate: The percentage of users who abandoned the task before completing it. The reasons for abandonment may be different: from struggling with complicated navigation to forcing users to update their software. 
• Completion time: The amount of time a user needs to complete the task. The shorter the processing time. The better the user experience. 
• Clicks to completion: The amount of time it takes the user to complete the task. 

UX is an inevitable part of the CX. To put it another way, UX is the experience your users have with your product, whereas CX is the experience they have with the entire brand. 

Related article: Motion Design: How To Win Hearts & Minds Of Your Users?

WHAT IS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?

On the other hand, customer experience has a broader meaning. CX describes a larger experience a user has with an organization. It’s an umbrella concept that encompasses the way customers perceive your brand and feel when interacting with it across every stage of the customer journey. Above all, CX is the sum of all touchpoints, interactions, and engagements that a customer has with a brand and a product throughout the life of a customer relationship. 

The customer experience metrics help you understand how loyal and satisfied the customers are with your brand. Customer experience is measured with metrics like:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): The gold standard customer experience metric. It stands for the willingness of the customer to recommend your company and product to others.
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Measures customer satisfaction level with a product and the entire interaction with a company.  
• Customer Effort Score (CES): The metric that measures how easy it was for a user to interact with a product or service (solving an issue, finding the information, signing up, etc.).

Related Article: CX metrics: How to measure customer satisfaction?

WHY IS UX IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

For any digital product development, user experience optimization across all platforms and devices has become a basic rule. No matter how fancy your product might be, if your users don’t know how to navigate and use it, they won’t come back. In the hearts and minds of humans, no feature or benefit will ever outweigh usability. In fact, you have only seconds to capture users’ attention and keep them. The UX connects your users with your products and increases brand loyalty. UX design is focused on research, analysis, and testing, and because of that these risks can be reduced. In addition, investing in a good UX design can help improve SEO rankings. 

WHY IS CX IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Customer experience isn’t a buzzword. It relates to customer satisfaction and their willingness to pay for a particular product. In other words, the more satisfied customers are, the more likely they are to stay loyal, become your brand advocates, and recommend your product to their friends. We live in an experience-brand economy. Today customers are buying not just products. They buy brands that can transform their lives. Now more than ever, companies should rethink their processes and deliver an exceptional customer experience so that their customers come back. 

Learn more about our CX-aware solutions development approach, and let’s build a digital product together in line with your goals!

SPOTIFY & NETFLIX: CUSTOMER OBSESSION

To dilute the theoretical part of the differences between CX & UX, let’s take a look at the example of the biggest digital music service Spotify.

At the heart of Spotify’s customer experience strategy is delivering a tailored listening experience to the users. One of the wizards behind Spotify is user researchers who work together to understand what users are doing on the platform and why. Spotify is considered to be among the top of customer-obsessed brands. They continually work on uncovering customer insights to improve their entire experience. Spotify’s approach to the customer experience is multifaceted. First of all, the onboarding process is fast and clear. Spotify makes it easy for users to collaborate on playlists and share music, follow friends, check their music preferences. By using prediction models and data analytics, Spotify offers simple suggestions like “Your Daily Mix” or “Discover Weekly”, thus introducing each user personalized playlists.

No surprise, the next example that we’d like to mention is our favorite Netflix. A lot has been written about their approach to creating a personalized experience. 

Netflix managed to develop cutting edge algorithms. These algorithms allow them to serve content that caters to the users’ tastes and preferences. This level of personalization is what makes users come back for more. No doubt that Netflix is an industry giant with a great staff, including data scientists. Not every business can afford such a level of customer experience approach. But what each business, no matter small or big, can learn from Netflix is being customer-centric and delivering a great experience with every interaction. Data informs every decision they make at Netflix. It begins with data collection. Ensure you collect data points across all customer touchpoints. This includes complaints, support requests, transactions, social media, and customer feedback. Netflix has turned customer engagement into a science. They’ve prioritized learning who are their customers and how to reach them.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Are UX and CX different? Yes, they are. Should they be considered completely separate and exclusive disciplines? No, if you want to win the loyalty of your users and customers. To make sure you’re making the right investments in both CX and UX, ask your customers. With this knowledge, you don’t have to choose between investing in your CX or UX. 

“Don’t you guys make it look pretty?”

This is a question often overheard from people who don’t really know what product designers do, or from those who are new to the industry. So what do product designers do?

The role of a Product Designer.

Let’s try an experiment. Walk around the teams in your room and ask a developer, a PM, a UI designer, a UX designer, and maybe a QA engineer what a product designer does. Now formalize your findings… I bet you will find they all vary and some may even be shocking. This may be the right time to get your teams together and host a fireside chat to discuss what a product designer actually does.

It’s not uncommon in many organizations to have different opinions as to what a Product Designer does. I have worked for some of the biggest organizations, and even there it was a grey area. If you really get into it though, it makes sense: product design and the whole digital design ecosystem has moved and evolved so fast in the last two years that role specifics can confuse even the most seasoned designer.

This confusion may be attributed to competing and complementary niche roles. Specialists in UI design, UX design, information architecture, UX copywriters, mobile designers, web designers, interaction designers, animation designers, and so on, can often be lumped together or crossover in responsibilities.

I hold the role of Director of Product Design at aequilibrium, a digital product agency in Vancouver, BC, and I like to consider myself akin to a conductor of the digital orchestra. In my experience, product designers typically come from one or many of the listed specialist roles and have adapted to another, then another, building out their toolkit over many years (and late nights) to become the holistic, data-driven, results-based, pixel-perfect, bleeding-edge technology masochists that we are. Although the role is still much in flux as the industry changes day by day, this is my attempt at conveying the breadth, wealth, and utility of this sadly underestimated role.

Solving problems with design.

Product design is about problem-solving, and product designers seek to improve the experiences of products by solving complex design problems. If you look at your Product Designer as someone that makes your solution look presentable, look again. They are there to help you identify, investigate, and validate the problem. Ultimately, he or she is there to craft, design, test, and ship the solution.

“Product design is not purely aesthetic.”

They do so by using a variety of skills:

1. Animating
2. Prototyping
3. Coding
4. Research
5. Visual
6. Interaction design
7. Psychology
8. Business strategy

“Present a product designer with a solution, and they will tell you what’s wrong with it.”

A Product Designer will never commit to one idea from a client or a manager. Instead, they will explore various alternatives to solve a single problem. Using analytics and gathering existing user data are critical to finding the right solution, as is employing cross-functional teams from every corner of the business to help brainstorm as many solutions as possible.

The designer process.

Product Designers use wireframes and prototypes to validate their designs. After user validation, they will provide several fully baked low-fidelity concepts (more wireframes, and workflows) that will aim to solve the problem at hand. With a clear strategy for how, when, and what to A/B test, the build and release plans will become evident.

“A product designer will design the solution until the problem changes.”

During active sprints, Product Designers will join the development team to see through their solution. UI audits, micro interactions, App Store requirements, you name it, are all part of the Product Design process. On smaller teams, Product Designers will also work with marketing and stakeholders to ensure the story is consistent with the product through the development of social assets and websites.

What I find most personal is that Product Designers will often take part in the continuation of a product long after the first version has been released. They will follow up on data and metrics to continue validating their design, possibly until the end of time.

A marketing mindset.

One of the major areas of work that is often overlooked in the role of the Product Designer is branding. It is part of the Product Designer’s job to ensure the product is designed on brand; if the product doesn’t deliver what the brand promises and what the stakeholders have asked for, users will not stick around. Trust me on this one.

Product Designers are therefore regarded as the caretakers of the business’ foundation. Any such discrepancies will ultimately cause the product to fail. As such, it’s of utmost importance for the Product Design team to work closely with the Marketing team.

Product design is constantly changing.

This is an ever-evolving world. We all feel it. That which was extraordinary yesterday is mundane today and stale tomorrow. Product design is still trying to figure out its place within this highly reactive space. Hell, half the platforms we have to design for today didn’t even exist a couple of years ago. And you can be sure there will be even more in the years to come with even more complex experiences to discover and create solutions for.

Product design is thus adaptive, agile, and flexible. As Product Designers, we need to understand that while good, well thought through design is timeless, nothing is forever and we need to be open to whatever change may come our way.

A strategy I enjoy deploying is preparation. By understanding and keeping up with industry standards and the latest tech and tools, I’m easier able to tackle new ideas and iterations. Microinteraction prototyping using InVision Studio is an example of a tool I recently started to learn, along with my design team where we learned the basics together. We currently spend any free time between projects playing around so that the following week we all have something cool to show each other. So far it’s been a lot of fun, and one of the meetings each week that I actually find myself looking forward to the most. I encourage all Product Design teams out there to consider following our lead. It’s an excellent way to stay apprised of the latest developments and to continuously hone your skills. If we deem the new process a great value-add to our team and also to our clients we start assimilating it into our design process–– we win and clients win.

Product design today.

We’re just starting to wrap our heads around Product Design, and that’s ok because this industry and the technology behind it moves so fast we are running to keep up with it. New capabilities in codeless prototyping, microinteractions, animations, and work tools like the aforementioned InVision Studio not only allow us to push the limits of product design but also the capabilities of the tools we used to create and show them.

Unfortunately, product design has classically been seen as purely aesthetic. “Make it pretty,” they say. This is a perception we have to change. We are the architects of the user experience! And as such, it is our responsibility to educate those around us, above us, and under us, about what it is we actually can and should be doing.

When you hire a Product Owner, you likely do so because this person is well-versed in a wide range of disciplines; they understand some front- and backend coding, timing, budgeting, business valuation, analytics, management, etc. In many ways, this is how you should be thinking about hiring Product Designers. Sure, they might have a beautiful portfolio, but can they be a key player throughout the entire product development process? A good Product Designer should know a bit of animation, prototyping, coding, user research, visual and interaction design, market validation modeling, customer scenario, and journey mapping modeling. They should know when to deliver wireframes, and when to deliver pixel-perfect mockups. They should know when to use animation, and when to prototype. They should know how to validate a product hypothesis, communicate and gather data on what the user wants, and aggregate this data into business intelligence information to the stakeholders. Last but not least, they should know how to convincingly communicate their solutions.

Product design is evolving.

In my time at aequilibrium, we’ve gone from a handful of mainly Visual Designers to a full-stack team comprised of Product Designers, User Researchers, Prototypers, and UX Copywriters.

We’ve gone from being at the end of the product development and design cycle (“We need buttons on this new feature we’re going to launch”) to the very forefront (“We want to investigate all the possible ways of enabling our users to interact and explore our product”). In a nutshell, you could say that we’ve truly gone from being a cursory consideration as the beauticians of the product to the curators of that which matters most—the user experience.