Function over form. The primary problem a great design solves…
… it makes the device/app easy and intuitive to use for the users.
Design consists of two parts:
- Getting the task done for which the product/app is made for.
- Reduce the learning curve for doing the above to as small as possible.
“These questions are pretty big in themselves. You need to really understand what you are building and for whom to answer these.”
To answer these Design questions, the most important thing is empathy.
Be the person for whom you are solving the problem, and make it really really really easy for that person to get the solution. For this, try and find out all you can about that person, think of yourself as Google, you want to create a worldview bubble in which this person would be living.
Now create that bubble for her.
Now you know your customer. Do you know your product ? The product is not the app or the hardware device you are selling. The product is what solution the customer needs from it. Does the customer wants entertainment, does she want coffee?
Get her what she wants FAST.
Don’t make her login, don’t put a lot of buttons on her coffee machine she isn’t going to press. Do not confuse her, stress her, do not make her wait.
And you will have yourself a fantastic product.
Improving your product
Next step, Ask what more she needs from the existing solution. Answering this question is really really difficult, you will have to exclude a lot and I mean a lot of things/ features to come up with ones the you can add to your existing product. Thinking about this revolves around the question, what would the customer want to do next.
If you happen to run medium.com, you would think what would my customer do after writing a good article, she would want to publish and share it. How can I add publishing and sharing abilities without taking away the writing experience.
ALWAYS keep in mind that the ease with which she has access to your product should not come down even 1%, if it does someone will build a better product and sell it to her. A lot of product don’t sell, not because they are not engineered nice, not because they don’t solve a purpose, but because they are a pain to use.
People are inventing apple watches cause it’s a pain to remove your phone from your pocket, think about it. The watch doesn’t do a single thing the phone can’t do.
It doesn't matter if you are building a hardware or a software product or even if you are providing a service these principles apply everywhere.
P.S- I run a web and hybrid mobile app design and development company called Mohammed Lakkadshaw & Co.
