Product Design 101: How to dissect and ideate

There are 10 design principles that one should judge a product on. Out of those, the four most important are:

1. Innovation: What new way is the idea improving over the existing?
2. Utility: How is the convenience being improved? How seamlessly does it fit into the consumer’s habits?
3. Ease of understanding: Can the customer adopt the product intuitively?
4. Honesty: Is the need served in the most adept/ethical way? Eg: reviews on a LinkedIn page can be faulty.

The main reasons why candidates stumble in an interview is the lack of clarity of thought. The main way to develop structured thinking is through practice. The following are the obstacles a candidate usually faces:

• Starting: How to even approach the problem?
• Rambling: I don’t know how to respond, but I won’t give up
• Ending the response: I’ve started, but I don’t know where or how to end on a good note
• Focusing on solution only: I’ve gone too deep to figure out the bigger picture

The CIRCLES methodology

Go through the CIRCLES while analyzing a problem:

C — Comprehend the situation

Clarifying questions that you MUST ask: 3Ws and 1H

• What is it?
• Who is it for?
• Why do they need it?
• How does it work?

If they refuse to answer, make assumptions, and relate the entire story back to them. Also, pull up a visual if possible.

I — Identify the customer

• Create user personas, although creating just one should be fine (and focus on it properly)
• Creating a 2x2 helps: Name/title, their behaviours, demographics, needs & goals

R — Report the customer’s needs

• Illustrate what the above user persona wants in a single sentence.
• As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>
• It’s a casual way of getting through the idea in a relatable manner, while incising your way to the very bottom
• You could suggest various use cases for the product based on the user persona

C — Cut, through prioritization

• Based on the ideas suggested above, you’ll have to make prioritizations. You can only suggest 1 idea in detail. (Prefer quality over quantity in this case)
• Use a matrix to judge the idea on the basis of: Revenue, customer satisfaction, ease of implementation, and then OVERALL.

Compare the most important needs of the customer, not solutions

• The matrix can either be judged on qualitative measures (basis intuition and experience) or quantitative revenue projected.

L — List solutions

• Once you’ve figured out the problem that you’re prioritizing, it’s time to move ahead and suggest the solutions for the same.

Methods to think about ideas:

• Reversal method: Easiest of the lot. Find the problem statement, find the existing solution. Try reversing the existing solution to suit the problem statement.
• Attribute method: Find the product attributes, mix and match to get new combinations.
• ‘Question the status quo’ method: Find the nitty-gritties of the existing, find what you like, and question it. Leads to a ste-by-step overhaul of the entire thing.

Things to consider:

• Think big: Don’t suggest existing ideas which are already there for other apps. Eg: Implementing a feature in Google which already exists in FB
• Integration ideas: isko milakar saari khichdi banado.
• Start fresh: focus on the problem statement, and see where it leads you.
• Have at least three ideas: Three is a good number. Innovation is an iterative process, you get better at the ideas once you think through them more thoroughly. You hedge your bets with the three if in case, the evaluator doesn’t like one of your ideas

E — Evaluate tradeoffs

• Define your must-haves (or tradeoffs) — this sets a clear expectation and priority of what you’re looking for
• Analyze the solution — create a pros and cons list; cross-reference with your trade-offs and make it all come together
• Don’t be afraid to critique your own solution.

S — Summarize your recommendations

• Pull it altogether with a 20–30 second summary.

3-step process:

• Tell the interviewer which product you’d recommend
• Recap what it is, and why it’s beneficial to the user as well as the company
• Explain why you preferred this over the others.

This is all that’s required in a product breakdown.