Essentials of UI Design XXIII: How Product Design Impacts User Experience
Product designers are as important in the digital product design pipeline as UX designers, UX researchers, UX writers, and even UI designers. In this article, I will introduce you to the role of product designers in taking your digital product from idea to implementation. This is useful information to help you maximize your investment in UILand.
What is the Role of a Product Designer?
Product design involves imagining, designing, creating, and iterating a product. In one sense, before the UI designer gets to manipulate layouts and pixels, the product designer builds the roadmap to develop products that help users achieve a goal.
What does product design entail?
Product design is end-to-end stuff that covers the full product lifecycle. So, a product designer will:
Research the product and its usefulness in the market.
Adequately address pain points by researching user personas.
Develop creative solutions to pain points.
Wireframe, prototyping, and eventually creating the product.
Iteratively improve the product design.
How does product design differ from UX design
There are obvious similarities between product design and UX design. The key difference is that product designers are tasked with fine-tuning the product to perform well in the marketplace. Product designers are also responsible for guiding the rest of the design team, interacting with stakeholders to calculate ROI (return on investment).
The first point where UX design diverges from product design during product development is that product design focuses on the business while the user is the main issue for UX designers. Of course, product designers have identified the user’s needs, they prioritize business concerns.
Also, product designers work more closely with design teams and other aspects of the business than UX designers. They are often responsible for managing the entire process, including UX design. This is why product design roles tend to require a bit of management experience.
Product designers will also monitor the brand’s position in the market over time. This often necessitates iterative changes in the product development process. However, the iteration focuses more on improving the company’s market value.
Overall, UX design tends to be more user centric. When UX designers iterate, they usually respond to user feedback. In short, they’re more involved in the hands-on practice of product design.
Conclusion
You can develop your creative edge while building your digital product. You can access a ton of design inspirations from UILand’s interaction design catalog. Start here to explore our growing array of inspiration ideas and stay trendy in digital product design.
