Most of us these days take great software products for granted. Whether you’re shopping on Amazon, booking a room on Airbnb, or ordering a ride with Uber, you very well know which button to tap to go to your desired page. What do you do when you come across a website or app that is not intuitive or is hard to navigate? That is a result of bad digital product design.
Digital product design (DPD) is the process of designing and creating electronic products, such as software, websites, and apps that provide value to the user. The process should be based on a business strategy and involves both UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience) design. For example, the browser you are using to read this blog post is a digital product, as well as any search engine you used to discover it. Every Application you interact with is a designed digital product.
Digital product design is the process of creating a product that is both aesthetically pleasing and functionally effective. It can involve everything from conception to manufacturing. There are many considerations that go into creating a digital product, including user interface design and user experience. UI design focuses on the look and feel of the interface, while UX design concerns itself with how users interact with the product. Digital product designers must be able to think outside the box when it comes to designing products. They must be able to identify potential problems and find solutions that meet the needs of their users.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs
There is no single way of digital product designing, there are many processes followed by different designers according to their thought processes and their users. However, there are some fundamental principles that all digital product designers must adhere to in order to create a successful product. These include customer focus, problem-solving, and understanding the user’s needs.
You’ll often start with an idea for a product – in this case, a digital product. From there, you’ll need to come up with a plan for how to create that product. This includes empathizing with the user to get to know what are the pain points, this can be done through surveys, interviews, market research and focus groups. Post that, it is important to articulate the problem that you aim to solve with our digital product. Once that is in place, it is time to ideate creative ways of creating and implementing the product. After you have an idea of how to implement your ideas and solutions into a digital product, you’ll go on to design the user interface, the design is responsible for creating a look and feel that will make the user want to use the product. Once the design is complete, you will need to test and iterate on it until the users and you are happy with the product.
There are many different skills and disciplines that go into creating a digital product. These include but are not limited to: graphic design, web development, user experience design, interface design, front-end development, back-end development, programming, marketing and business ventures. Some of the most important factors in designing a digital product include but are not limited to usability testing, user feedback, feasibility studies, market research and prototyping.
Digital product design is an important field that demands a lot from its practitioners. It is a challenging and rewarding craft, and anyone with an interest in creating products should consider studying it. It is an ever-growing and evolving field with plenty of opportunities for those who are interested in pursuing it. If you have a passion for creating products that add value to people’s lives, then digital product design is the field for you.