The Role and Importance of Product Designers in Tech Project Teams

Matea Mirosevic

/ 2023-11-27

“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.”

Dr. Ralf Speth, Chief Executive Officer, Jaguar Land Rover

What’s Product Design and how can it benefit your project?

In the dynamic world of modern business, the success of any product hinges on its ability to resonate with customers, deliver exceptional experiences, and drive sustainable growth.

Product Design encompasses the strategic methodology through which designers harmonize user requirements with business objectives, facilitating brands in creating consistently thriving products. Product Designers are dedicated to enhancing user experiences within their crafted solutions, concurrently ensuring products align with sustained business requisites over the long term.

In this article, we will look into the essence of the Product Designer role, exploring the responsibilities and value they bring to the development and evolution of successful products.

The key differences between Product, UX, and UI design roles

While Product Designers can be UX / UI designers, UX / UI designers are not necessarily Product Designers.

UX Designers conduct and leverage user research to ensure a seamless browsing experience (e.g. oversee research to make a certain program designed for a business optimal for their customers’ needs). UX design focuses on the total user experience with a digital product.
UI Designers work on exclusively visual parts of the project. Typically, they come late in the design process – right before a project is handed off to developers. UI design focuses on the visual experience of a digital product, such as fonts, colors, and animations.
Product Designers can work on a vast array of products and can be employed by the manufacturers of almost every product you can imagine (e.g. websites, furniture, technology, cars, and anything else you can buy). In recent times, the term "Product Design" has seen widespread adoption, particularly in the realm of digital products. It is often paired with “Digital Product Design” to add specificity, especially when the context may not clearly indicate that the product being discussed is digital.  Product Design is a holistic concept that has ownership over both UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) design.

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Understanding Product Design teams

The Product Design team serves as the driving force behind the conception, development, and refinement of innovative products that resonate with users and align with the company's strategic objectives. Comprised of individuals with diverse blends of creativity and technical skills (including UX and UI design, user and market research, and often some product management skills) this collaborative unit brings together varied perspectives to shape the entire product journey. Their expertise extends beyond aesthetics, delving deep into user behavior, market trends, and technological possibilities.

With a user-centered mindset, the team crafts seamless user experiences, from the first interaction to long-term engagement, ensuring that users' needs and expectations are met. Some examples of the methodologies Product Designers use are:

design thinking - a central framework, helping define problems, ideate solutions, prototype concepts, and test them iteratively;
prototyping - helps create tangible representations of concepts, enabling stakeholders to interact with the proposed solutions before they're fully developed;
usability testing - involves real users navigating prototypes to identify friction points and areas for improvement;
A/B testing - involves conducting controlled experiments with two or more variations of a design to determine which one performs better in terms of user engagement, conversion rates, or other key metrics.
There are more tools in a Product Designer’s toolbox, of course.

Moreover, the Product Design Team acts as the bridge between design and development, translating design visions into functional, user-friendly interfaces that drive both customer satisfaction and business growth.

The Role and Benefit of the Product Design Team in Company Growth

“Companies, where user research is well integrated across the product development process, are more likely to notice a positive impact on business metrics.”

14 Impressive UX Statistics to Prove the Value of Great Design

By understanding user behaviors, preferences, and pain points, the team aims to offer user experiences that transcend the ordinary, fostering customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty. This heightened user engagement not only drives repeat business but also amplifies positive word-of-mouth, extending the company's market reach organically. What’s more, the team’s focus on user-centric design minimizes the risk of product iterations and costly post-launch adjustments, thereby streamlining development processes and resource allocation.

Good design doesn’t mean just first impressions from pleasing aesthetics, but can also impact loading times, the way a digital product translates across devices and the way customers experience the product while using it. For example, everyone knows how frustrating it is to have a website loading for a long time due to page bloat.

Examples of companies that rely on Product Design and have received great results from it are Apple, Dyson, and BMW. They are all known for their premium products and are easy to recognize at first glance. Additionally, studies have shown that a good Product Design Team can boost a company’s revenue and shareholder returns.

Offering Value to Customer

“The upfront investment in a design that includes extra features or more costly materials pays off if those design choices are based on a clear understanding of a product’s core brand attributes, deep insights into consumer motivations, and innovative design thinking.”

Design for value and growth in a new world

Contemporary design not only adds value but also fuels growth by orchestrating a delicate balance between optimizing customer value and managing limited costs.

Today, successful designs go beyond aesthetics, aiming to create products that captivate users with their features, form, and functionality, fostering dedicated brand advocates and driving sales that surpass industry norms.

It’s interesting to note that not only do well-designed products generate growth, but they can also raise margins - even if the products cost more to manufacture. One such example is Apple, with its sleek iPhone look and razor-sharp screen resolution. While the original iPhone might have cost more to produce, each new product with better features and parts cost less. This can also be translated to digital products, of course, where the manufacturing cost corresponds to the time it takes the developers to be able to hash out new features or tackle preexisting bugs.

To boast successful design-driven growth, it’s important to know the competitive landscape to be able to deliver a good product, learn more about customers and competing products, understand the product’s cost drivers - and have a design team that will know how to conduct research and bring all of the findings together in a cohesive and understandable format. All of these things combined will help find a “sweet spot” between production and creating any type of product.

Driving Collaborating Across Departments

The most successful products rely on various departments doing their work to the best of their abilities and communicating clearly with one another. Striving to build trust between departments is an amazing goal that delivers benefits to all.

There are ways to foster that, one of which is to create a great plan on how the project will be tackled. One of the major goals is to define the features that need to be designed and developed and then plan the time frame in which they will be done. A product roadmap is very helpful here and it helps keep track of deadlines.

Naturally, (daily) standups are another amazing tool to keep in mind and to have all of the teams sync. What are we working on today? Are there any blockers? Does any of the departments need help or to have someone weigh in on how doable some parts of the project are? These, and more, are all items to address before delivering anything to the client.

Timely communication can save a lot of grief and effort and bring out potential issues that were not apparent when the product was initially discussed.

Conclusion

In summary, understanding the role and impact of a Product Designer unveils the critical connection between thoughtful design and overall business success. The team serves as a bridge, connecting customer needs and strategic objectives to sculpt innovative products that resonate deeply with users. Their expertise transcends aesthetics, encompassing user research, trend analysis, and technological possibilities. By crafting seamless user experiences and translating design visions into functional interfaces, the team fosters customer satisfaction and drives business growth. Moreover, the team's influence extends beyond the purely visual, encompassing aspects like loading times, cross-device compatibility, and user experience.

Examining companies such as Apple, Dyson, and BMW underscores the tangible benefits of a robust Product Design Team, with premium products becoming synonymous with their brand identity. Studies have demonstrated that effective product design not only increases revenue but also boosts shareholder returns, reaffirming the pivotal role of design in a company's prosperity.

Modern design not only adds value but also fuels growth by striking the delicate balance between optimizing customer value and managing costs. Notably, well-designed products can even elevate margins, emphasizing the value of effective design in enhancing profitability.

In the pursuit of design-driven growth, collaboration across departments is paramount. Establishing clear communication and fostering trust between teams optimizes product development. Robust planning, including product roadmaps and regular standups, ensures alignment and timely resolution of potential issues. By adhering to these principles, companies can leverage the Product Design Team's expertise to create products that resonate, delight, and drive sustainable success in the ever-evolving marketplace.

“With consumers increasingly influenced by design, we believe that design-driven companies will continue to outperform their peers in both sales and profit growth.”