15+ Key areas where a good product designer brings impact

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You would be amazed to see what impacts a product designer can bring once you collaborate. Product design is and has been an integral part of the success of digital products.

Giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon have been wise to implement a product designing first approach!

At Octet, we discovered one thing when it comes to fresh concepts of a product. There is a lot of opportunity for interpretation in terms of needs, usefulness, and purpose. After all, these are novel concepts.

Ideas must be fleshed out, scrutinised from various perspectives, and cross-pollinated among teams and stakeholders. And then finally validated in the target market.

We believe it is critical to communicate the clearest form of the product idea to the product team as early as feasible in the lifecycle.

How does a product design begin?

Let’s say you have a product, any product like a pen. Now, if you decide to sell it, what will be the first thing you do from scratch?

Let us guess. You will first ask yourself questions like:

“What problem does the pen solve?”

“Who will buy my pen?”

“What are other pens doing differently?”

“Which material will be required to build the pen?”

“How is my pen unique?”

“Will my pen be cost-effective?”

And the list goes on!

This is what product design is all about.

With a robust product designing first approach, your business can save higher costs and acquire higher revenue.

And who doesn’t want that?

This is where you realize the need for an effective product design agency or a product designer. But wait, don’t confuse these with the UI UX designers.

In our blog on product design vs UI UX design, we have already mentioned how product designers and UI UX designers are the two facets of the same ideology. Only the processes and mindsets tend to be different.

Let’s get back to product design. Keep reading about how it can help your business build and thrive in the competitive market.

Why do businesses with product designers perform better?

In the initial few years, all businesses (including yours), regardless of industry, would have experienced some of these challenges:

• Figuring out the product/service model
• Evaluating business models
• Listening to their customers
• Adding new or improving existing features in their product
• Growing their business

Each of these is a challenging task that will need time, effort, and money.

All these challenging tasks can be mitigated. The leading giants like Flipkart, Paytm, Cred, Zomato and others are already doing it.

How?

By inculcating the design-first approach in their process. 

If you own a product, you can do this too! 

How is that?

Try collaborating with a product designer. Product designers will do the designing first and help you with faster experimentation for your business model.

As a result, you can commercialize your product better instead of just beautifying it.

This applies to those who have already established their products too. 

So what happens next?

As time passes, competitors keep improving their products. So if you don’t improvise or update, your product is bound to get outdated. 

To overcome this issue, let’s first understand the entire product design ecosystem. 

One is your product, the second is your user, and the third is your overall revenue based on the product’s success.

If you have a fair idea of all the three elements, your product is more likely to succeed in nearly every aspect – business, process, user and service. 

But, before you begin, designing your product first needs to be a critical part of your process to mitigate early risks. 

Now, this can be for a digital product or a physical one.

Product designers or digital product design agencies can help you do so with optimum expertise. 

They are more focused on developing user-centered solutions. They follow a discipline that integrates ideas and methodologies like:

• Design Thinking
• UI UX Design
• Agile implementation
• Lean approach

The final outcome of implementing these, a product designer will create an interactive prototype that becomes the platform for every early experimentation.

This early experimentation can be a game-changer for your business and there are many salient advantages of it. 

We will discuss it later in this article. But let’s first know a bit more about product designing and how it started.

Let’s get back to how product design emerged. 

Product design and its rise!

Conventional product design focused more on tangible products like furniture, automobiles and more. Whereas contemporary product design now encompasses all products, including digital ones.

Modern-day product design focuses more on solving complex aspects than visual aesthetics. It can help:

• Enhance your business
• Align the marketing aspects of your product
• Add modern ideas to it
• Bring out the creativity trapped inside

In the traditional times, product designing was quite challenging – why? Traditionally, a product took more effort to create. Let’s not forget the scraping process until it becomes a perfect product!

However, that is not the case these days. Thanks to the advanced product designing software like Figma, Adobe XD, Blender, and more. With the help of these, you can easily iterate desired changes and implement them with minimal effort.

These software are one of the most influential reasons behind the rise of product design.

On the contrary, no matter how advanced the software gets, a solution is highly dependent on a product designer’s skillsets.

Let’s understand more about product design.

What is product design?

Product design is designing, positioning and altering the interface to meet specific solutions and business demands. This mandates a thorough understanding of your end-users habits, actions, requirements, and desires.

Basically, it’s all about finding the sweet spot between:

• Meeting user wants
• Meeting company objectives
• Recognising market prospects
• Remaining technologically viable

We have learned one thing so far. And that is – A product design can make your product a super hit! 

How is that? By ensuring that it resolves consumer issues most simply and effectively possible. 

And when you offer an easy solution, your users are more likely to come back to your product. 

The usability and performance of your product are based on the user’s willingness to return to your product. As per Toptal, 90% of consumers stop using an app because of poor performance, demonstrating the need for smart digital product design.

So, who is a digital product designer?

A “Digital Product Designer” focuses on generating digital experiences rather than an “Industrial Designer.” The latter refers to individuals who work on physical items.

Your digital product designer’s particular tasks will vary from project to project, but in most circumstances, they will conduct:

• Market research (including competitive analysis)
• User research, quality assurance and usability testing
• User Experience Design – entails the creation of prototypes, user journey maps & user stories
• Interface design – working on the font style, animations, effects, colours & layout
• Branding – working on the brand identity and the visuals that express it

To recapitulate, a Digital Product Designer is in charge of more than just the product’s functional and visual layers. They make all of their decisions based on how the product can be monetised and designed to increase HCI (human-computer interaction).

Let’s learn more about how product designs influence your business. 

Impacts of a product designer

Now that we have explained the nook and corners of product design, it is time to understand its impact.

A product is manifold. It has to deal with every aspect – business, process, users, and services. 

Product design is right in between the fine lines of these aspects. It makes your product in a manner where it:

• Accentuates your business
• Eases out the process
• Brings user satisfaction
• Simplifies the services

Keep reading to learn how product design impacts all of these.

Impact of product designers on business

Improves brand reputation

The first and last impressions of your product are crucial. As per Forbes, the most effective UX is one that is intuitive. In fact, by improving its user experience, Walmart increased their sales from 0% to 43% in 2018.

Product designers have a design thinking approach to offer outstanding designs. In addition, they are skilled in building prototypes and offer tested products to make your product intuitive and memorable.

A good design will improve your brand’s recall value. For instance, when you hear “McDonald’s”, the first thing you recall is the red and yellow colour of the brand’s logo.

This can be the ideal goal for your product design to build an impressive brand reputation among your users. Not to forget, a product designer can offer their expertise to resolve user queries and offer error-free products.

Makes your product competitive

Companies in any field, on average, compete with 10 to 100 other businesses that provide a similar product or service. You would do it too!

In fact, as per Intechnic, 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site (product), will go search for another site. This makes it essential for your product to become distinctive.

In order for your brand to stand out from the competition, offer a promising experience to your users when they interact with the product.

If a user has a terrible experience with a platform or doesn’t grasp how to connect with a website, purchase a product, or perform a task right away, they are most likely to look to the competitors.

So, what is the key? First, build a product so good that your users can’t resist navigating to it and keep boasting about your product!

But, this is possible only if your product is superbly built and the user experience is exceptional. 

A product design agency can help you build a product that fits into the competitive marketplace and exceeds the basic expectations of your users.

Increases consumer loyalty

Now that your customer is likely to come back to your product, it goes unsaid that you can win their loyalty with the help of an efficient product!

Product design helps businesses attract new customers and helps them retain existing ones. You can earn user loyalty by providing positive experiences and being more human in whatever you offer to them.

Moreover, when your product offers a premium experience to users, they may develop a high tolerance toward minor issues. It is during these challenging times that you can see they build loyalty towards your product.

Swiggy keeps sending quirky notifications that talk directly to its users. It is nothing but building a bond with them that gives them a strong sense of trust.

In return, the users would not just opt for their services but also recommend them to their friends. 

Increases ROI

Your product’s ROI stems from its conversion rates.

And the conversion rates of your product are directly influenced by its simplicity, transparency, and ease of use. An interface built to fulfil your customers’ needs has a far greater conversion rate than one that does not. 

It will compel your customers to buy the product, subscribe to the service, or open an account if it meets all the requirements of:

• Navigation
• Usability
• Aesthetics

Apple’s web store has to be the hands-down best example of the criteria mentioned above. When you search for a product in it, you simply find its description and comparison handy. Here’s what it offers:

• An easy navigation bar
• Clear names of categories & subcategories 
• Simple product messaging

We don’t need to mention Apple’s success in return!

Impact of product designer on process

End-to-end visibility

Because product design keeps every aspect of your business as a central focus, it brings visibility to all stakeholders. This means every individual – the developer, designer, marketer and service team will have a proper and clear understanding of:

• What is your product?
• How does it work?
• Where can it be monetised?
• How will it benefit in every way?

As a result, your teams can take ownership of their activity and function towards one common goal with better visibility. We have well explained in our article how teamwork creates better UI/UX designs.

All this is only because your product designer is designing the product first, considering every aspect of the product. 

Aligns teams & action plan

Now that your team has end-to-end visibility, their interdependencies become clear.

Your team’s action plans to become more refined and give out a clearer sense of “who does what”. However, this doesn’t mean that the product designer leads every team. 

All they do is act as active participants in the initial product creation process. This makes it easier for the rest of the team to understand their course of action.

When the teams are aware of their roles and responsibilities, implementing the action plan becomes easier and smoother without any friction.

Better resource allocation & saves time 

With end-to-end visibility and a clear action plan, your team can focus on crucial tasks.

Your team can determine the effort required to build a product and figure out the time it may take. 

Therefore, you can allocate your resources to evaluate the remaining time now that their dependencies have become clear. Moreover, you can utilise your teams for other essential tasks leading to the execution of your product design. 

In return, you can be mindful of your resources and save time simultaneously.

Tested products

If you work with a product design team, expect that they may conduct comprehensive testing in the beginning phases while designing your product.

Fundamentally, they conduct testing at every stage, whether it is brainstorming an idea, testing the wireframe, the overall interface or even the product!

You must be wondering how that testing is beneficial?

It is simple.

A tested product will have minimal iteration loops for the execution teams. Your execution team, in return, will be focused and quick to deliver the product.

At the same time, teams can mitigate risks pertaining to your product determined in the early stages.

Moreover, it can make your product more resilient and survive favourably in the competitive marketplace. We all want a promising product anyway!

Impact of product designers on users

Reduces frustration & adds value

Your customers use your product with a specific objective in mind. They are most likely trying to find a solution to their problem and already have expectations about the way to resolve it.

You may be at a high risk to irritate your users if your product has a poor experience and it fails to:

• Satisfy your users’ expectations
• Offer what they desire
• Overcome barriers to their solution

On the other hand, if you build user-centred products, each interaction is meant to make their experience as pleasant as possible. Good products don’t feel like products; they feel like habits!

Product designers are responsible for keeping your users happy! Happy users are those who feel supported throughout the process.

Increases interaction

If you work with a product designer, researching human-computer interaction is one of their primary attributes. They may construct user personas or proto personas in this stage, which include:

• Biographical information
• Customer activities
• Emotions
• Motives of the product’s target user group

Proto Personas are crucial for generating engaging experiences that encourage people to interact with your product. 

A product designer can make your user’s interaction possible to flow naturally and predictably. A product designer tailors the UI design to support the users’ interaction.

Isn’t that great?!

Improves customer satisfaction

What is the goal of any organisation? It is to bring utmost satisfaction and a smooth user experience to their users.

Numerous elements in your product might cause users to become enraged, frustrated, or confused, causing them to stop using it.

Once you have a skilled product designer by your side, you can easily:

• Handle frustration
• Assist your users through the task
• Improve the overall NPS (Net promoter score)

Product designers have a knack for identifying issues and resolving them.

They already consider the pain points in the beginning phase to eliminate a majority of such obstacles. 

Higher acquisition

User acquisition and retention necessitate a great deal of planning and strategy. Your product will be more likely to attract and retain users through improved product designs, flows and funnels. 

The key thing a product designer focuses on is the right value. Once your user understands the value of your product, the product designer pitches in. They create flows and funnels to convert potential buyers into customers.

A product designer or a product design agency because they evaluate the commercial aspects of your product.

Impact of product designer on service

Cuts training & adoption efforts

For every new product, some basic guidance is required. However, modern-day users do not expect extensive training.

Any digital product should strive to make the user’s life easier. Therefore, it’s critical to avoid forcing clients to figure out how to use your product.

Your product designer thinks about your new user experience. They create designs that guide the users to adopt the system. 

One of the goals of a product designer is to stop the users from wasting time and energy trying to figure out how to utilise your product.

If planned properly, your new users can interact with your product naturally and intuitively. They can:

• Feel welcomed 
• Realise the value 
• Know what to do next
• Form the mindmap 

A highly diligent product designer can absolutely reduce your training and adoption costs.

Easy to offer customer support

It is as simple as a nursery rhyme! If your product is built in such a way that it communicates a clear understanding, then two things are bound to happen:

1. Your customers are more likely to engage with it
2. Your customer support team will actually help your users with their issues

As simple as that! A better product design can help your customer support team in multiple ways. It helps them understand the query, explain the product and address the user issues with minimal hassles.

It is nothing like the traditional times where the customer support team is unaware of the product’s functionality and has no clue what the user is suffering.

Induced engagement

Product designers understand how to strike the right mix between style, visuals, and performance. They design keeping the product’s performance in mind.

Product designers ensure that users’ needs are addressed while maintaining speed and performance. This enhances the overall engagement and usability of your product!

If your product performs well, it sells well. And if it sells well, it means it resolves the actual problem. So, when your users land on your product, they may explore it well, leading to an induced engagement.

Understand the voice of your customer

User-centric products are a key to sustaining healthy business growth and cultivating positive relationships with users. 

Even if the product is ready, product designers will listen to the users and determine the unknown gaps. 

To understand customers ‘ voices, they use different feedback tools like HotJar, Pendo, Appcues, Survey Monkey, Typeform, etc. 

As a result, they keep honing your product until it turns out to be optimised. 

These are just a few commonly known impacts a product designer can bring to your business, process, users and service.

Conclusion

To sum it up, a product designer is a crucial member of your product team! In order for your product to thrive in the competitive market, it needs to have a smarter approach.

Moreover, as a product owner, you need to keep the designing first approach as it is one of the most promising approaches for your product to succeed.

At Octet, we constantly strive to offer seamless product design and UI/UX solutions to SaaS and enterprise companies. With our agile methodologies and data-driven strategies, we ensure that your product keeps thriving as well.

Get in touch with us for product design solutions to elevate your SaaS and enterprise business. In the upcoming articles, you will see us talk about our comprehensive product design experience we gathered previously.