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Here's a question,
Why do you need a product design strategy?
Because it will ultimately help you determine "what" product to create.
A design strategy is an interplay between design, business, and technology. As defined, it determines what product to make and why, and how to innovate contextually in both the short term and the long term.
So, how do you create that winning product design and development strategy that yields nothing but a flawless victory?
There are steps to that.
Follow us as we guide you via this blog on the right steps to product strategy development
Step to creating the winning Product design and development Strategy,
- Get a grasp of the problem
- Define your product vision
- Paint Your Target Audience
- Analyze the competition
- State your product design principles
- Layout your marking guide (Success metrics)
- Execute the strategy (You’re Good to go, Get Started already)
Let's begin with,
Get a grasp of the problem.
If you’re not solving a customer’s problem with your product design and development idea, that idea is most likely a waste of time and resources.
It’s very essential that before any other step in the product design and development strategy is taken, the problem you’re looking to solve is clearly defined and thoroughly understood.
To really understand the problem, you need to:
- Know the problem that your product solves intimately. Do your research diligently.
- Know the people that will use and experience your product.
- Understand the environment your product will be used in.
Develop your product design vision.
After identifying a problem you look to offer a solution to, the next step in the product design and development strategy is the development of your product's design vision.
As with any journey, you must have a clear idea of where you want to go.
Don't mistake setting a product vision for setting a product design and development strategy, they are not the same.
“Vision is an inspiration for making a product; strategy is a guide on how to do it correctly.”
It encourages everyone to see the big picture when working on a product.
Here are a few things to have in mind when developing your product design’s vision:
- Establish long-term goals. (i.e. what the product will look like in 2 or 3 years).
- A vision should be motivating and it’s crucial to get emotional buy-in from your team members when it comes to motivation.
- It’s also crucial to define your product vision and make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page. Many companies use a video for this purpose because it is much easier to communicate a message this way.
Paint Your Target Audience and Market
Providing clarity on who exactly you’re tailoring your product design/development towards can narrow down your focus and help you create a clear strategy for your product design and development.
You can describe your target market in any way you want. Use demographical, psychographic, behavioral, and geographical variables to pin down who you want to target.
Remember, you can’t be everything for everyone, because of this, you need to specify a market segment that you’re going to capture with your product design and development.
If you’re in B2B, describe the ideal business prospects.
In the end, just focus on doing whatever you can to effectively communicate the target market definition, since it will help you target the right problems, with the right solutions.
Analyze the competition.
After Clearly defining your target market, the next step in the product design and development strategy is to analyze your competitors.
Competitors are basically other businesses that can offer similar products or services to your customers.
In developing a winning product design and development strategy, you need to identify your competitors, and analyze:
- What they are doing well?
- What they are doing poorly?
- What the minimum expectations from customers are?
- How product could be different from theirs?
You need to understand the minimum expectations from the customers and think about what your unique selling point could be.
State your product design principles.
By adding a basic but very effective tool—product design principles—you can make the decision-making process easier. Product design principles will help in defining what good design means in your business.
Principles that are clearly established reflect the product design and development philosophy of your company. Well-defined principles are genuine.
Layout your marking guide (Success metrics).
Metrics allow a team to track their progress and measure their performance.
You should clearly define what success looks like for your product, and how it’s performing. It shouldn’t be opinion-based but data-informed.
This should be done at the product design and development strategy stage.
I suggest starting with Objectives and Key Results, or KPIs if you’re looking for practical advice on how to choose the right metrics. The goals in this model are what you want your business to achieve, and key results are how you intend to measure that goal.
Execute the strategy (You’re Good to go, Get Started already).
After you’ve got your strategy set and the Key Performance Indicators clearly defined, It’s time you executed your product design and development strategy then.
In execution, start with the basics and work your way up. The earlier you get the feedback on your product strategy after launching, the faster you can implement it.
A comprehensive revision of the product design and development strategy is also needed. When you learn more about what works and what doesn’t, revise your metrics and adjust tactics.
To wrap it all up,
So as you can see, the product design and development strategy are not that complicated. It might look stressful and complex at the beginning, but if done continuously, It becomes easy.
Developing that winning strategy is the one way to an explicit product design and development.
Once you fully have your winning strategy aligned, designing a compelling product that will enhance your customer’s user experience will be smooth.
This is one secret we continuously exploit at Spoke Design Labs when designing and developing products for our clients and their users who can't help but fall in love with! ;)
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