The world through NSoft designers’ eyes
Here at NSoft, we have an in house design team with a total of 9 designers. We tend to hire ‘T’ shaped designers meaning that most of us have general knowledge across many different areas of design, but everyone is really, really good in one thing. UI and UX designers, Interaction Designers, Graphic Designers, and Illustrators are working together to bring the best possible product to our customers.
When people think about design, they mostly refer to products’ appearance. Currently, we do have one of the best looking products on the market. However, now we work more on evolving our Design System (standardized set of rules and elements that unify look and feel of all our products), product updates and market/user research, so we can bring best possible products to our customers as well as a great experience for their users.
We don’t just design products, but also we suggest what might be appealing to the market.
We want to deliver something beautiful with both functional design and the best possible user experience.
I’ve been working in NSoft for 7 years now, so I could say I grew up with the organization. I’ve participated in shaping our Product Design team into a unique group of people.
It’s important to say that we were lucky enough to have more than just a talented team, but leaders who believe in the power of design. We could say we’ve deserved it by bringing good ideas to the table and making great products. The Designers from other companies struggle to bring their vision and ideas to top management, regardless of their work.
Process
Everything might look easy when you read and learn about the different processes of product development, especially when some of them go through 5 phases and others go through 12 phases. Some companies first do the research, others start designing their product and make changes on the go while some define problems they want to solve and then proceed to another phase.
What works for one company, most likely, does not work for another.
To make a good product you have to understand your clients’ needs, who makes the requests and what are the capabilities of your team.
We use different approaches depending on the type of request:
If a product is completely new, we like to start with a few concept designs which can help everybody in the team to understand what we are actually making.
If we need to update the existing features, we use iterative design — we do research and based on the analyzed results, we make changes.
We realized that Design sprints are a good way of making new innovative products. We usually use these sprints in the early phase of planning a new product. The idea is to describe and let everyone understand what is the problem we want to solve. Afterward, everyone in the team works independently on their solution for one day before coming together again to share their work. We go through all solutions, discuss them and decide which is the best one.
Collaboration
We truly believe in the strength of collaboration, not only within the Design team but within the company. When making or updating our products, we have brainstorming meeting(s) that involve members from different teams — Development, Product Management, Business, etc.
What I’ve learned through my work is that there are Backend and Frontend Developers with a great sense of product and UX. Despite the thought that Designers have the best and most creative ideas, if you give chance to other people to participate in the process of product design you could be surprised with results. Anyone can have and suggest ideas and every idea is valued equally.
Leave your silo, explore, talk and develop great products with the help of people around you.
Robert Pressman in his book “Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach” said: “For every dollar spent to resolve a problem during product design, $10 would be spent on the same problem during development, and multiply to $100 or more if the problem had to be solved after the product’s release.” Solving the problem at the start is the most cost-effective and you can do it only if you include people from different areas.
Our company and team have grown rapidly in a few years, and it was hard to motivate people to work through collaboration. The truth is nobody should believe that their ideas are the best ones.
Biggest challenge
If you know any passionate designers, you can agree — designers are, let's say, unique. They all have cutting edge ideas, their own style, and unique mindset.
Now, imagine 9 people with different ideas and try to make them work with the same design elements under the same vision. You have to make them feel that the product they are building is actually theirs because if they do not feel that, it will not be made with passion.
How we help our clients?
Today, if you have a bad product or service, users go to other providers. There are numerous companies in the same business, so you have to continuously evolve to keep up with the trends and customers’ needs.
The primary goal of any business is to increase its sales, make sure the business grows and build brand awareness.
Product Design plays an essential role in achieving this goal by improving user experience and customer satisfaction. The result is an increased number of product users.
Each customer has a Customer Lifetime value and this value depends upon the customer’s willingness to keep using your product. If you have a great UX design that does not frustrate the customers, they will more likely dismiss the small mistakes.
Do you know how many users don’t use your product because they had trouble registering? How many of them don’t know how to use your product at first sight? How long does it take to do an action and can you make users do it more easily? Conversion rates depend highly on the user’s ability to use the application easily.
We get to know our users by doing research on what they expect from the product. We try to iterate regularly on existing products and improve the experience for partners and their users.
If you have the best product today, it doesn’t mean you should stop working on it.
It is necessary to research and always stay on alert. That’s the reason why we are always on top of new technologies, and among the first ones in our industry offering concepts for our products that include virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, face recognition etc. These products don’t necessarily bring us money, but they prove that we don’t work in a bubble and that we are ready for the future.
Wrap Up
Design became an integral part of our vision and additional value driving company strategy. NSoft will keep creating a culture, environment, and process that attracts the best people for our team and company.
If you wish to be a part of our Design or any other team, apply for a job and join us at NSoft in the creation of innovative products.
Cheers.
