Product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem and validating the solution with real users.

During my career I have delivered bespoke UX design solutions to leading brands in many industries. Depending on the stage of your product I can provide critical research and analysis, and develop cohesive UX strategies that allow you to become a product-driven organization.

PROCESS

The Product Design Process (PDP) consists of a user-centered design process for digital products that follow a multi-disciplinary approach. Its main goal is to create outstanding products with a fast go-to-market strategy. Plus, it can also be applied to projects that seek growth through optimization.

Research

Ideate

Execute

Technical Assessment

PHASE 1: RESEARCH

The first phase of PDP is UX designer's responsibility. The objective is to gather evidence that will support the decisions taken henceforth, ensuring that no decision is made based on vague assumptions. In this phase, the main aspects of the business model and user needs are identified.

Key users and their demographic criteria

The needs that your product meets for your users

The goals which your users rely on your product to meet

The user experience offered by your competitors

This phase is critical to a successful UX strategy, as it provides the baseline data that will drive all design decisions.

PHASE 2: IDEATION

Ideation is the core of the creative process and it is where the concept of the product is formulated based on the user's needs and the business model (both identified in the Research phase).

User Journey: the user journey is where the ideal user experience is mapped by describing each user's action. In this step, various user scenarios are written and validated. Overall, it provides a global user experience vision, ensuring its consistency and fluidity. Moreover, the user journey also serves as a base to establish the product requirements.

Decision Matrix: provides an indispensable basis for the project development plan, ensuring that a viable product can be developed even under time and cost constraints. This step is crucial to prioritize the users' and product's goals while considering the product life cycle's current stage.

Wireframes: in the wireframes' step, the skeleton of the screens starts being drawn. The pages structure and navigation flow are established to ensure interface usability and reduce design time by baselining the core information architecture.

Mood Board: assures that the product's look & feel conveys the desired user experience and is aligned with the user profile and market strategy. This step aims to understand the product's "mood" through a collection of pictures, words, and other visual elements.

PHASE 3: EXECUTION

In this phase, we focuse on creating a physical representation of the concept that has been defined up to this point.

Style Guide: it's where the baseline to style the graphic interface happens considering colour palette, fonts, image style, input fields, buttons, and so on. This step assures the consistency throughout the application, baselining various graphic interface elements' visual coherence.

Graphic User Interface (GUI) Design: it executes the end-looking screens by applying the Style Guide to the Wireframes. The ninth step provides stakeholders with the final aspect of the product's screens in order to obtain approval before moving to the implementation.

Prototype: in this step, a click-through Prototype is developed to be accessible online and shareable with other devices and users through a link and password. The Prototype step allows the navigation from screen-to-screen, facilitating the feedback intake either from stakeholders or potential users and investors.

PHASE 4: TECHNICAL ASSESMENT

The main goal of this phase is to guarantee that all requirements and ideas generated are realistic concerning their implementation. They must be achievable considering the available time and budget previously setted.

High-level Architecture: this step develops the technical design with the ideal balance between complexity and reach. Further, it is also where the external dependencies from third-party providers (e.g., Stripe, Facebook, Amazon) are identified. This step details how the product will be built, identifying baselines for the needed technologies and skills to make it.

Project Plan: the last step defines the major milestones and provides a general understanding of the project's structure, phases, intersections and interdependencies. It allows a good comprehension of how to build the product, how much effort it will require and the expected costs for each phase.

It's crucial to respect the order in which the phases are enunciated. The outputs generated by the previous phases' steps are a requirement to those in the stages that follow. It's a common practice in design to develop several tasks at the same time. However, in most cases, this will be more harmful than efficient.