Product Design
We design products from their inception stage, as well as work to refine and elevate a product by adding new features and improving usability.
Product Design
We design products from their inception stage, as well as work to refine and elevate a product by adding new features and improving usability.
01. Discovery
The Discovery phase is a vital part of the product design process. During this phase, our team gathers pertinent information needed to create meaningful design solutions that help businesses and users achieve their goals.
Interview with stakeholders
Our work begins with a Stakeholder interview. It is important to understand the Objectives, Mission, and Vision of a company.
From here, we draft a problem statement and value proposition using The 5 Ws and 1 H framework and build hypotheses.
This generally includes answers to the following questions: Why should a consumer use this product or service? What does the product do? Why would the user care?
User Interview
To better understand the users' pain points and validate the problem statements and value proposition, we conduct user interviews.
This can be conducted in a few different ways. For existing products, the optimal strategy is to talk with current users onsite. Our team often travels to a client’s location to better understand our client’s individual needs. For a new product, we select a representative sample and conduct a participant study proposing screener questions to an audience.
We organize interviews online as well as offline, using a number of available platforms.
Our next step is documenting our interview data and creating Personas or JTBD.
Competitive Audit
An overview of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses is also a valuable part of our research.
Analyzing your competitor’s brand and products can give us a well-rounded idea about the market your product will thrive in. It also can help find challenges potential users face.
Research results
We make clearly defined objectives a priority and detail users' problems as well as potential solutions. We use User Flow, Storyboards, CJM and Information Architecture depending on our client’s preferred approach and product needs. From here, we document all of our findings and present them in a research report.
02. Design ideation
We believe the right solution requires creative teamwork and a multitude of ideas which we test and validate. The Design Ideation phase determines the direction of a product.
Brainstorm
Having a creative team has many advantages in product design. From varied creative input to multiple problem-solving strategies, we gather input from our team and rank ideas together, selecting the best idea using the Impact/Effort matrix.
Storyboards and Wireframes
Storyboards and lo-fi wireframes help us to quickly implement different ideas and design solutions.
Depending on the product goals and needs, wireframes can be presented as sketches, black and white blocks/boxes, or they can be created with existing design system elements.
At this stage it is important that we focus on user’s navigation and iteration within different elements of the product.
02. Design ideation
We believe the right solution requires creative teamwork and a multitude of ideas which we test and validate. The Design Ideation phase determines the direction of a product.
Lo-Fi (rapid) prototypes
We create prototypes that help to see a user’s journey in the product. This is a helpful tool in usability testing and ensures nothing has been missed.
Testing
Testing ideas and flows in the early stages can help us determine whether a product is clearly outlined and intuitive for its users. Our primary goal is ensuring any user issues are fully resolved for the most optimal user experience. It’s highly beneficial to gather as much valuable insight in our goal toward improvements before moving to finalizing a design and implementation. With these plans in place, it also helps us save time and resources on the next stages of our design process.
During our testing phase we evaluate the primary, critical flow with potential users by conducting usability studies. Then, using our findings, we make improvements and adjustments to our design solutions.
Usability testing can be conducted offline (read our article about remote usability testing) and online using at usertesting.com, or with loom11 or other applicable tools.
03. UI Design and visual style
The brand, the feel, and the style are very important parts of the user's experience. We work hard to create clean and intuitive design, taking into account a brand’s objectives, vision, the target audience and accessibility principles.
General Look and feel
Before we begin working on UI design, we create a concept (or several) that represent the product’s look and feel on 2-3 main pages. Then, with the help of testing and stakeholders interviews, we finalize the direction.
Design System
Product design consistency and scalability are critical elements in design, therefore we always create a design system that helps keep everything in a product consistent and minimizes time for changes.
UI design
Taking into account visual design principles, as well as accessibility, iOS, and Material Design Guidelines for mobile apps, we create UI design that is aligned with client goals, communicates with the users, and builds something clean and easy to use.
03. UI Design and visual style
The brand, the feel, and the style are very important parts of the user's experience. We work hard to create clean and intuitive design, taking into account a brand’s objectives, vision, the target audience and accessibility principles.
HI-FI prototype
Our high-fidelity prototypes help us gauge the full experience before spending time on implementation. The prototype is later used for testing and presentations.
Testing
As well as on the wireframe stage, testing helps us gain valuable user feedback before the development process begins. This allows all necessary changes to be quickly addressed before actual implementation begins.
04. Animations and illustra-tions
Interface animation makes a user’s interactions with design more intuitive and fluid. We create animations that do not distract users but navigate them through the interface and give visual feedback to the user's actions.
Illustrations that tell story
Visual content appeals to the human brain much faster than language and text. Using visuals like graphics and illustrations help communicate ideas effectively. Our professional graphic designers and illustrators work closely with the product team to build compelling visuals that communicate with users.
Interface animations
Animations and micro-interactions help communicate with users and give feedback to their actions. It also makes product experience more interactive and provides a smoother experience, altogether.
Check more examples of animations we’ve created or read our article about UI animations.
05. Implemen-tation Support
Collaboration is an important part of the design process. Our design team collaborates closely with developers (both in-house and on the client’s side). This helps ensure everything has been executed the way it is intended to work, as well as, supporting developers with documentation, clear explanations, animations, and additional states of the screens to speed up and simplify the development process.
Documentation
Good documentation strongly supports the development process. Depending on the project needs, we generally prepare: User interface specifications, Interaction guidelines, SRS, Screen maps, and Animations in json format, UI Kits.
Internal and external collaboration
Good communication is one of the most pivotal elements of a project’s success. We regularly communicate with the teams (both in-house and on the client’s side) to ensure everything is on track, as well as provide insights to any questions that come up along the way.
06. Repeat
Design is an iterative process. We are always working on improvements, analyzing users feedback, analytics reports, and new data.
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