Product design process at Kustard
As an outsider looking at an organization’s work, it can often be difficult to understand exactly what is going on within their walls. Even as a company or client approaching us for a project, or a student approaching us for an internship, the internal processes that lead to the final product are intimidating.
Where do you start? Where do we start? What is the process, who takes charge, what is the design phase? To answer these questions, let’s take a closer look at the steps involved in Kustard’s design process.
First, who’s on the team?
The work isn’t limited to one team. There are actually 3 different teams who collaborate in the product design process and each plays a vital role. The teams come together and split apart over the course of the process, and communication among them is absolutely vital.
- The Product Team — Product Managers, Business Analysts, and Product Owners
- The Design Team — UI and UX designers, User Researchers, and UX writers
- The Development Team — Web and App developers
Let’s look at the steps!
There are 7 steps to look at, and each holds its own place and importance. A good, strong product wouldn’t come through by skimping on any of them.
- Kickoff
- Research
- Requirements
- Ideation
- Prototyping
- Delivery
- Analysis
Step 1: The Kickoff — Let’s get this project started!
This is where Kustard’s team members, and the clients begin discussing the important questions:
Why are we starting this project?
Who is this product for?
What are the user’s pain points?
How is this product going to help them?
What are the key performance indicators?
Answering these questions is important to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Sometimes, during these discussions, goals and ideas may shift, the expected user base may increase or decrease, and the KPIs -measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives- may be in flux for a while.
Regardless, by the end of this stage, all these questions are answered and finalized upon. There may even be a brainstorming session to see what ideas everyone comes up with, which is always fun!
Step 2: The research stage — Detective mode.
Now the team begins to ask tougher questions, to more stakeholders and everyone important for the product to get executed. A good product has to account for many things, and often the design and development teams will have different questions and challenges to address.
What does the design team want information about?
The stakeholder’s needs and expectations- what does the business want, what are its aims, goals and visions, and how can we respect and accomplish them through this product? How will this product help the business?
The brand- Most organizations also have a brand and certain guidelines and philosophies that will need to be reflected through this product. Gathering these details early-on helps to streamline the design process.
Other products- Any product the team creates will not exist in a vacuum. It may have competitors doing similar things, who could prove to be a strong force later on. The features,USPs, strengths and weaknesses of each competitor needs to be analysed, to establish where this new product can make the most effective mark.
The users- They are the target audience for this product, and they will have the final say on whether it succeeds or fails. Knowing the users, their goals and pain points, their social and economic status, demographics, environments and everything about them that could be relevant to the app is very important. All this information will form the user requirements that fuel the rest of the process. Getting users to talk and express their ideas is a tough job, and an incredible skill that user researchers have, but we’ll get into that on another day.
What does the product team want answers to?
Business requirements- The product team will also want to know everything the design team is asking about, but might have a different perspective. They will focus on the ‘why’ of every need and goal that is identified, to ensure that each feature later developed is as concise and efficient as possible. This is the nitty-gritty, and it is very important!
Defining the hard and soft requirements- They also differentiate between what is a primary requirement of the product, which constitutes a hard requirement, and what could be changed or removed as time progresses, which are the soft requirements. Making these distinctions is necessary to ensure that the product development does not get overwhelming and never-ending. A minimum viable product (MVP), which is often the first version of the product that will be launched, is centered around accomplishing the hard requirements.
Step 3: Requirement gathering — Lay out the facts.
In the previous step, the design team gathered the user requirements, and the product team found the business requirements. Armed with these facts,the team sets their project goal. As soon as the whole team has understood and aligned themselves to these, discussed them and set their eyes on the target, they can hop on to the next step!
Step 4: Ideation — Get the brain juices flowing.
The next step involves bringing together the Kustard team, experts in the field and stakeholders for the product, and getting all of them to come up with potential solutions.
Everyone is presented with the initial user requirement, or goal, and then instructed to go wild with their solutions. No idea is a bad idea at this point, so everyone gets a say and everyone’s opinions are taken seriously.
Sometimes, the group may even split into 2 or more smaller groups to make the brainstorming faster. In the end, all the ideas are put together and everyone votes for the ones they find most useful. This stage is not only efficient, it is also very fun, loud and colorful — post-its notes are a staple, arguments may break out, and everyone is constantly writing down frantic ideas!
Step 5: Prototyping — Testing things fast.
This stage is based on the ideas that received the most votes at the previous stage. They are collated, combined, and split apart by the team to create a few viable ideas. Each idea is then wireframed — which is the bare bones structure of the product- and prototyped to show where each touch and swipe will lead. This is usually done on software like Adobe XD, Figma, or Invision for digital products.
The prototype stage is where UX and UI designers work their magic, to bring up screens and products that can be tested quickly with the end users. These are made quickly, and are also expected to fail quickly. This stage is about creating, testing, failing, and then building off those learnings until a product is created that the end users appreciate.
The final product at the end of this stage has a lot going for it — it is complete and validated from a UI and UX perspective, is backed by strong user data, has gone through repeated tests, and end users have had actual contributions to the product’s direction!
Step 6: Delivery — Build the product.
Now, the final design from the previous stage is handed over to the developers, through platforms like Zeplin and Simpli. While the developers get to work, the rest of the team works closely with them to ensure that the ideas and intentions are perfectly translated into the coded product. Communication at this stage is vital for a complete, smooth and effective product.
We launch it and the process is done, right? Nope! Remember that last 7th step? That’s a vital part as well.
Step 7: Analysis- How is the product doing?
Just launching the product and hoping it does well is often not enough, so the Kustard team also goes the extra mile. Once a product goes live, data is collected and analyzed to see what works and what doesn’t. If something seems drastically wrong, the team will come through again to troubleshoot and fix the areas. If the KPI (remember this from step 1?) goals aren’t being met, the team will also analyze the data to figure out why, so things can be smoothed over.
These iterative changes are similar to what you might have seen on a lot of the apps on your phone, changes to meet your changing needs, and to make usage sleeker and frictionless. This also means that the product keeps growing, and keeps evolving every time that the team analyzes their data, jumps back to stage 4 and goes through the next steps again!
To wrap up, now that the whole product design process has ceased to look like a scary blur, it actually does sound fun! The Kustard team follows a design process that has been adapted and fine tuned to meet their own needs over time, but it is an evolving process as well (iteration is everywhere!) and it keeps everyone on their toes!
Kustard.design is a top design company that helps organizations design digital products that will increase their conversion rates and their online success!
“It is much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.” — Jeff Eisenberg, Businessman
