Good product design goes beyond design
Product design has propelled digital experiences forward — apps are not only more functional and easier to use but also look great while doing it. A key part of this evolution has been the design philosophies that have been the guiding principles of the craft. The design has been a glue bringing in business, product, tech and user considerations and output final blueprints that are coming close to the final product. However, the discussion we want to have here is less so about what design can do for business and product teams and more about the other way around and how it can help every aspect of your project.
Help designers help you
Often left to be a peripheral consideration, design teams are pigeonholed from the get-go. Their considerations are sub-structured under the considerations of the product and business teams. To achieve that key ‘delight’ factor — be it wonderful interactions or actual functional parts that make the product experience inherently valuable, we implore you to look from the inside out and let these design considerations (some, not all) become the guiding factors for other teams.
There is also a flip side to this coin — having a mindful design team that knows when to plug out, just as much as they know when to plug in.
Some key considerations to make
The best design starts before design actually begins
By having an understanding of what the design team is capable of, other teams can have a better idea of how they can translate the business and product goals into the final product. This also opens up an interesting conversation on how design teams can help in other aspects of the product workflows.
Considering the design team in lining up business and product level resources can help in a more crucial phase than design — the development phase. Going into a technically dependent phase like development needs an amount of collective prescience between teams. A better understanding of all the constraints and resources and a larger view of the project can be helpful to keep everyone on the same page. This means that design decisions won’t be introduced as blindsiding new factors for the development team.
The best design also knows when to stop
Over-designing problems that needn’t be over-designed is a prevalent and often time-consuming effort that can take away focus from the main points in achieving product success. While some modules and portions of products do indeed need regular iteration and attention, some modules (think support/FAQ sections) don’t need the same change, primarily because certain tried and tested paradigms don’t need a reinvention of the wheel.
This also means saving both time and effort for design teams. Planning a design cycle that mixes core and support features can give design teams the time to stretch their brains between two intense design sprints.
Baking design into the early strategic phase also helps with realistic goal setting
Blue sky thinking is good, but only when well planned. A modern app’s product life cycle is a dynamic engine of multiple teams working together. The design considerations bring another dimension that can be leveraged to optimise this engine.
Just like technical feasibility, by having insight into design capabilities, teams can better gauge what a realistic goal looks like. Planning synchronous design and dev cycles, aligning business and product thoughts and optimising the time and effort of design teams can be leveraged to achieve the product vision.
Design starts before it and continues after it
The essential idea that we are trying to point to here is the fact that making the right considerations outside the design phase (considering technical and business resources for features that are design-centric) can help make products significantly more meaningful from the standpoint of truly achieving the ideas that are chalked out in the design phase.
Canvs Editorial regularly brings you insightful reads on design and anything related. Check out the work we do at Canvs Club.
The Canvs Editorial team comprises of Editorial Writer and Researcher — Sidhant Tibrewal, the Editor’s Desk- Aalhad Joshi and Debprotim Roy, and Content Operations- Abin Rajan
