What is Product Design?
A few years back Redgate decided to move all of our then UX Designers in our Product Division across to the title of ‘Product Designer’. This change was enacted both to explicitly recognise the more strategic aspects of the role (designing the value set of the product, not just the interface) and to better position our design roles in a crowded and often fragmented job market.
Testing the market
Back in April 2018, we went live with a revised job description for a Product Designer that would replace our then live User Experience Designer listings. We were looking to initially run this as an experiment to explore:
- Whether this resonated better with the then designer job market
- If it would attract a new pool of experienced candidates
- If it would improve the fit of candidates applying for our design roles
Whilst we didn’t see any immediate, noticeable uplift in the pipeline, we were able to hire some strong candidates who we felt were a better fit for our definition of the role at Redgate.
This supported our assumptions that:
- We could find more suitable candidates, who were a better fit for our definition of the design role, if we positioned the role as ‘Product Design’ and aligned with this trend in industry.
- We could find more suitable candidates, who were a better fit for our definition of the design role if we explicitly set out a broader, more strategic definition of the responsibilities.
It was clear (and still is) that that the market for designers was in a state of flux, where there was very different definitions and expectations of design roles from one industry to another. However, we felt our revised definition gave us a clearer understanding of what to expect from successful candidates, and seemed to align well with how other successful product companies are making this distinction.
Rationalising the change
Taking a step back for a minute, it’s important to understand a little about the key triggers for change. Why did see the need for the role to evolve and as a result, why did we decide to revis the description and job title?
As you’ll see, the decisions here run much deeper than the naming of a role. For us, it was more about what that stood for and how it helped redefine the scope, behaviours and expectations of the role of Design at Redgate.
1. Need for better market alignment and positioning
As above, the current job market for design roles was very fragmented, with a proliferation of candidates working in what they would describe as UX/UI roles who unfortunately weren’t a good fit for Redgate. Typically these folks come from industries where the focus (and therefore the perceived value of design) was more about creating the outputs of design (artefacts) rather than applying design tools to solve specific customer problems (outcomes). We believed that ‘Product Design’ was therefore a more fitting description of design at Redgate and better aligned with a market of designers who see themselves first and foremost as problem-solvers and product-thinkers.
2. Opportunity to help the business discover new opportunities
I’ve written previously about the value of research in helping teams make great product decisions, but this goes well beyond unblocking the teams with momentary tactical decisions (e.g. how best should we implement this workflow?). There’s a growing expectation that designers should be more instrumental in using strategic or generative research methods, alongside Design Thinking, to help discover and validate new product opportunities. Designers, acting as the custodians of users’ needs, are well placed to support Product Managers in identifying gaps (new, unmet, or underserved needs) and our current portfolio of products.
3. Design has a key role to play in bridging strategy and execution
Like many of the big product companies (Facebook, Google, Spotify, Atlassian etc.), we now recognise the role of Product Designer as a more fitting representation of someone who works on the design of digital products. At many of these companies, the scope of Product Design is not just to design the product’s interface and shape the resulting experience, but also to work further up the Product Market Fit Pyramid (see illustration); playing an invaluable role in connecting customers’ underserved needs to the corresponding value set of the product (AKA its value proposition). Again, a designer with product experience will recognise this as a critical part of the design process and as pivotal to defining what features to include or remove.
4. Democratisation of design execution shifts the value of design
In a future where systems like Honeycomb (our design system) and our Design Playbook commoditise some of the more detailed, day-to-day design decisions, we can plausibly see a shift in the perceived value of design from “I need help with how to design this control” to “I need help with understanding what is going to add most value for our customers”. While there will always be a need to guide and direct implementation (a strategy is only ever as good as our ability to execute), we believe design can be better utilised to serve some of the bigger growth opportunities for Redgate over the coming years.
From execution to exploration
Traditionally, the role of design at Redgate was more readily associated with design execution; that is, designing the workflows, interactions and detailed visual assets that we test, iterate and ship to customers. This was, more often than not, what people thoughts about first when asked to describe the role of design.
Thinking about all aspects of the product experience is and will continue to be a big part of the role of a Product Designer at Redgate. We strongly believe that the quality and simplicity of the flows we design and interfaces we craft is core to the role and something that differentiates us from many competitors in the B2B space.
However, we also recognise the value of broader research and Design Thinking, as a means to discover opportunities and explore new ideas. Where we see the tools of design, combined with a collaborative and creative mindset, helping the business to envisage and validate new propositions, services and experiences.
With that in mind, we set the expectation with the design team (particularly those who are more experienced) that a percentage of their time will be spent each quarter working closely with Product Managers, conducting more strategic/generative research, developing key artefacts for analysis and evaluating prospective opportunities. This still sees the Product Management as ultimately responsible for decisions around product strategy and direction, but with the designers bringing insight and ideas into those discussions.
This assumes (as above) that there are both strategic (what) and tactical (how) responsibilities associated with the role of design, where the job of the designer should be both to help the team decide what to build next (right problems) and how best to execute (right solutions). Or in other words, moving routinely between a 1000ft to a 10ft view of any given problem and pushing Design beyond execution and optimisation and into finding new value.
Designing for the future
To be clear, the goal here wasn’t for everyone to be an out and out researcher or design strategist, nor was it turn our designers into something resembling a Product Owner. We continue to hire for problem-solving, creativity and craft foremost, however, we also strive to develop the overall makeup of our design capability to support the future needs of the company.
As described above, a great Product Designer should always have one foot in the ‘what now’ and the other in the ‘what next’. They should bring strong product sensibilities and be able to connect their work to the outcomes we’re trying to create for Redgate and our customers. To support this approach, we have to be more intentional about the skills we hire for and how we develop and grow future iterations of our design team.
This, however, requires us to recognise that the career paths of some designers may better align with execution and craft, whilst others are looking to grow through impact and influence; requiring a broader set of research skills and the ability to think and operate more strategically. We believe there’s a need for both, and for those who have the desire and ambition, we want to support and nurture their development along these different but related tracks.
If you’d like to learn more about our approach to to design, please do get in touch, or if you are looking for a new opportunity please do take a look at the Product Designer job description on our careers pages.
Credits for cover illustration to as designed by pikisuperstar / Freepik.
