Digital Product. Design.
When the people from one of the most upcoming Digital conferences in Europe ask you to be a small part of their vision, you can’t say no, right?
So in this year’s Digitized i had the opportunity to have a work-shop as part of the pre-conference day. Themed as “Digital Product Design” in an era were titles and job descriptions are changing really fast, i wasn’t all that confident that the attendees would know where they were getting into. I have been called in the past a web-designer, a senior one, a digital art director, a creative director, a UX designer, a UI designer and the list keeps piling up titles with the last ones being a teacher and a Pathway leader at a local college.
But from all of the above, none has ever excite me as much as being a Product Designer. It sums up all the experience i’ve gathered through the years and has placed it in a role were a multidisciplinary designer can contribute through out all the stages of a product.
That means that as a product designer you need a variety of skills to be able to deliver results, or have the right people on your team and be able to manage and learn from them. The difference between a Digital product or service with any other physical product or service, is time and iterations. Sure the methodology might not be all that different but as to where time, testing and results come, a digital product has the reigns of the land. And it has to be as quick as possible with decisions being made faster than any other procedure due to the advancements of technology. You don’t want your new feature to not be supported on a new phone or become obsolete.
But what that means?
Seeing the big picture is a must. You need as a designer to see the long goal and the milestones getting you there. You have to anticipate the fall backs, errors, changes and missed opportunities and be able to juggle between technology and user experience. As a product designer you’ll have to communicate your ideas and solutions to different groups, making it clear as to what needs to be done and listen to any ideas, evaluate and proceed. Just because you are the designer doesn’t mean that you only can provide ideas and solutions. Learn how to listen. Really.
Be good at research. Learn how to interpret analytics and kpi’s to a point where you can understand fails, success and results.
Be human. Design for humans.
