With a change from acute care to ongoing maintenance, Vetster was looking to change it's target audience in 2023. We knew that in order to keep users coming back to the app we needed to provide value outside of those emergencies and urgent moments that drive pet parents to a veterinary clinic.

This case study explores the importance of product design in the software development process and its impact on achieving commercial success. It highlights the need for an extended role of UX designers beyond the pre-production stage and emphasizes the value of in-depth expertise in both user experience and business aspects. The study outlines a specific product design process that includes commonly applied elements, providing a comprehensive guide for product designers. The process is further illustrated through a case study of the InGame project, showcasing the practical application of the product design process.

Lead: Director of Product Design, 1 Senior Product Designer

Lead: Chief Product Officer, 1 Senior Product Manager

Lead: Director of Engineering, 1 Front End Developer, 1 Mobile Developer

Without a systematic approach to product design, we may struggle to differentiate ourselves from competitors and struggle to communicate our value proposition effectively. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a well-defined and efficient product design process at Vetster that incorporates user-centricity, aligns with business objectives, and fosters innovation to address these challenges and drive successful product development.

Product design is a holistic approach to developing a product that takes into account the requirements of the target customers and aligns them with the business objectives. It recognizes the importance of understanding user needs and preferences, ensuring that the final product meets their expectations and enhances their overall experience. By focusing on the user-centric nature of design, product designers aim to bridge the gap between technology and non-tech users, making it more accessible and appealing to a wider audience. Moreover, prominent IT companies have increasingly embraced product design processes as a means to mitigate the risks of market failure, express their core values, and stand out from their competitors. This comprehensive approach to product design not only ensures the creation of functional and aesthetically pleasing products but also fosters innovation and drives success in the competitive market landscape.

Building a solid product design strategy is paramount for businesses to achieve their goals and surpass mere aesthetic considerations or user interface improvements. Recognizing the true value of product design, it is crucial to engage designers from the early stages of a project. Their involvement allows for the validation of assumptions and ideas, ensuring that the product meets the needs and expectations of the target users. Moreover, maintaining continuous support from product designers throughout the development process proves instrumental in reducing risks, saving time, and optimizing resource allocation. A well-defined product vision is another key aspect of the strategy, providing a clear direction and purpose. By setting goals and creating a unique value proposition, businesses can effectively guide the product design process, align it with the overarching business strategy, and ultimately achieve success in the market.

1. Planning & preparation Understanding the goals we had for the process was important to determine our next steps. We needed to understand the current pain points and goals for each discipline.

2. Create working group The next step was figuring out which stakeholders should be involved in helping to create the product development process.

3. Interview stakeholders We spent some time interviewing, surveying, and just generally enquiring as to how the team were currently experiencing the delivery process, and how it could be improved.

4. Workshop with PDD I ran several workshops with the product, design & data team to ensure they were able to contribute their views and ideas to the project. We did not want to finalize any processes without their input.

5. Document our decisions We used Miro to create a visual flow of the process we wanted to use moving forward. We also put together several documents, and a slide deck in order to educate the rest of the org.

6. Share across the org Presented to the entire org about the process, how it works, how it will be implementing, how we're hoping it will help, etc. It was important to engage folks often and ensure that user research and design is top of mind for all.

User research plays a crucial role in the product design process, as we've seen time and time again. The 1:10:100 rule was introduced, emphasizing the significant cost savings that can be achieved by investing in prevention and analysis during the user research stage. This rule underscores the importance of early and thorough user research to identify and address potential issues before they escalate into more costly problems during development or after product launch. It also emphasizes the potential biases of founders and the need for unbiased research to validate assumptions and gather comprehensive insights. It highlights various user research methods, such as card sorting, in-depth interviews, focus groups, field studies, and concept testing. Each method is mentioned for their specific benefits in uncovering user expectations, detecting weaknesses in the product concept, and verifying the viability of the business model. By conducting user research using these methods, businesses can gather invaluable data and insights to inform their product design decisions, ultimately resulting in products that better meet user needs and drive greater success in the market.

Building a robust product design process is essential for creating successful products. It introduces product design workshops as a crucial component of our process, emphasizing the importance of involving diverse participants such as product designers, software developers, product managers, project managers, and client representatives. By bringing together a multidisciplinary team, these workshops facilitate idea verification and enable the gathering of comprehensive knowledge about the product. It also highlights various techniques, including the Value Proposition Canvas, Customer Journey Map, and user stories, which serve as effective tools for generating ideas and creating a user-friendly design. Furthermore, the close collaboration between product designers, as well as clients, is emphasized as a key factor in building a delightful user experience. By engaging in these collaborative workshops and leveraging these techniques, businesses can establish a robust product design process that promotes innovation, aligns with user needs, and delivers exceptional user experiences.

Building a product design process involves recognizing the significance of prototyping and testing. It emphasizes the iterative nature of product design, where continuous refinement based on user feedback is essential. To facilitate this iterative process, our process highlights the benefits of adopting agile methodologies like Agile and Lean Startup. These methodologies enable quick iterations and early user involvement, ensuring that the product design remains aligned with user needs. Additionally, the section mentions the Design Thinking methodology, which adopts a human-centered approach to innovation, putting the user at the center of the design process. It also introduces the Design Sprint framework as a means to efficiently run the product design process, enable cross-functional teams to collaborate and make rapid progress. By incorporating prototyping, testing, agile methodologies, and human-centered approaches into the product design process, we can effectively iterate and refine our designs, ultimately leading to the creation of successful and user-centric products.

Building a product design process within our product delivery organization involves establishing a structured framework for designing and delivering products. This process typically includes defining the product vision and goals, conducting user research to understand user needs, engaging in collaborative workshops to generate ideas and validate concepts, creating prototypes for testing and refinement, and finally, executing the design phase. By following this process, Vetster can ensure a user-centric approach, improved efficiencies, reduced risks, and ultimately deliver successful products to our customers.

Presented a slide deck during Town Hall, introducing the company to the process, and letting them know the role they would be playing in it.

Adoption of process by entire product, design and data org. Eventually followed by both Engineering and Marketing integrating our process.

Using this product design (and now org-wide) process, Vetster was able to successfully launch a subscription model. We had not had any other successful launches that year.

More efficiency, higher quality. The teams are now working more efficiently and know how to engage each other to get the job doe quickly, and well.

Personal growth. Building process is complex at times. I have learned that the best way to approach it is to remain flexible to constant iterations around the process for the first few months. It will change. People will have better ideas than yours.

Team building & growth

Culture enrichment

Inter-department alignment & transparency

Process improvements