“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs
Or are you someone who wants to start a “product designer” career but doesn’t know how and where to begin?
Well, here are some statistics that will give you clarity on this position.
Companies hire product designers to build physical products or apps for them. There are over 30,000 open jobs for product designers in the US only and 5000 in India on LinkedIn.
A product designer can make from $50K to $100K per year. This job comes with greater responsibility and is expected to grow by 5%.
This article will give you a strong understanding of the process involved in product design and the skills needed for it.
Let’s get started!
Before moving to the process, let’s understand what is product design.
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What is a Product Design?
It is a process of creating a product that solves a problem in the market. A successful product design serves the company and integrates the user’s requirements. Three components work together to create a complete image of the user experience with the product.
- User Experience (UX)- It explains the psychology behind the design like how and why the product is designed.
- User Interface (UI)– It shows how the designs will appear on the screen.
- Product Design– It depicts business parts like what the business and user need to combine.
Product designers optimize the user experience to help their brand sustain for a longer period. They also work on defining product goals, creating a product blueprint, and checking its viability in the market.
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What Involves the Product Design Process?
From the consumer perspective, we usually focus on the final product rather than understanding the process behind it. Product design involves a few processes before developing a product.
Product design focus on a “design thinking ideology” that integrates the need of users into business or technological requirements. It consists of 5 steps to solve the user’s problem.
1. Empathise
Research is conducted to understand the user and its need. Before designing a product, it is important to understand the target customer’s goals, worries, or motivations so that one can relate to them and work on creating a solution for it.
2. Define
Describe the problem after understanding the user’s needs and insights. This can be done by conducting surveys, analysing data, and competitor analysis.
3. Ideate
A proper solution is developed after creating wide options of potential solutions. This phase is also known as “idea generation”.
4. Prototype
A prototype is created to test and check their progress. It allows finding that product designing is moving in the right direction.
5. Test
Testing is done to make sure that the designs are working as they had planned. It can also help in modifying some features if needed.
Once all these processes are done, a product is launched by implementing feedback received during the testing phase. Iteration is done if needed otherwise constant modification is offered by engineers to improve the product. This process can be a little complicated and takes a lot of time and effort.
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What does a Product Designer do?
A product designer is responsible for the user experience either by designing or creating prototypes of any particular product. They help in fulfilling business goals and each one has a different role to do. A few responsibilities of a product designer are mentioned below:
- Project Management
- User Experience (UX)
- User Interface (UI)
- Coding
- Conduct Testing
- Creating Simulation and Prototypes
- Team Management
- Developer Support
- Marketing Support
- Presenting the final product
Overall, a product designer solves the problem in the best way they can. They also take care that the product should be functional and cost-effective and that customers are satisfied with it.
Skills needed to Become a Product Designer
As the saying goes, “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” Scott Adams suggests that one must learn new skills to become successful. In the same way, if anyone wants to become a Product Designer then he/she should have some relevant skills and knowledge.
Some important skills are mentioned below:
1. Design skills
Design is the first step in product design and one should know how to create it. One must be highly creative and attentive to design products that are user-friendly and use fewer resources.
A simple design is the most complicated to create. One must have good precision and knowledge of all these elements: Visual Design, UI Design, UX Design, Prototyping, and other specific design tools such as Photoshop, Autocad, etc.
2. Coding
The base of certain designs is coding only. One must know a few basic web development such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jquery, etc to develop a software-friendly product. In this user research and conceptual thinking is crucial to write codes.
3. Soft Skills
Soft skills play an essential role in keeping one disciplined and dedicated to a job. They also help in maintaining a good relationship between clients and employers. Such skills are:
- Problem- solver
- Organizer
- Sound decision maker
- Team leader
- Analytical
- Efficient
- Empathetic
- Skilled communicator
- Learn from mistakes
- Confident
Having these traits or soft skills will take you to a higher level in your career and life too.Click here to read: Validation before product development
Product Designer Job Categories
There are various career options as a product designer which one can choose from. Companies offer different roles and responsibilities to their product designer according to the need of the product management. For instance, a product designer is responsible for producing a marketable and cost-effective product whereas a UX designer will mainly focus on the user’s experience that is already profitable to one’s business. Certain other categories related to product design are:
- User Experience (UX) Designer
- User Experience (UX) Research
- User Experience (UX) Writer
- User Experience (UX) Strategist
- Experience Architect
- Interaction Designer
- Front-End Designer
- Motion Designer
- Data Analyst
- Product Manager
- Prototypers
There are many varieties in product design that one can choose according to their interest and skills.
Why Product Design is a good career option?
According to a Career Portal (Zippia), there are over 17,948 product designers currently employed in the United States. This shows product design is in high demand in developed and developing nations. There is a certain reason that will show why it is a good career option to start:
1. It’s a creative and analytical field
One who is highly creative and has an interest in analytics must think about this role. It will offer work in design, engineering, research, business, etc that one can never find monotonous. It is a combination of art and science.
2. High Growth
This role also offers room for high growth as per one’s experience in this field. The more skills and expertise you acquire, the chances of promotion will increase. Thus, one may start at a lower position but soon will reach their desired position.
3. Handsome Salary
With the promotion, pay also increases. According to LinkedIn reports, a median base salary for a product designer is around $121,500 per year. From entry-level to management level, it offers highly competitive salary packages due to its growing demand.
4. Demand in Market
Now, mostly all companies are in a race to create products that are unique and user-friendly. Therefore they need a competent and skilled product designer who will help them in achieving their business goals.
There has been a growth of 86% in job openings for product designer-related roles every year. It shows that this field is a better career option to start.
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Conclusion
This was all about product design, roles, and career options. Start acquiring skills by learning about product design and coding. Many platforms offer training for this purpose.
Search for those platforms and start your career as a part of this high-growth career field. As a startup founder also it will help understand the roles that you can offer to your product designers and the whole process.
With over two decades of experience in the software technology arena, having worked in multinational and SME companies in India, USA and Singapore in the capacity of programmer to CTO – I felt now was a good time to give back to the world what I have learnt in this journey. Even if it ends up benefitting a few of my readers by giving them insight or solving a technical issue, I think I will have achieved my mission!