The term product has undergone a drastic change in recent times. In the past, it referred to any material one saw in a retail shop. Today, its scope has also expanded to include digital products. Apps are also referred to as products these days.
Design is the most crucial feature for building impeccable products. It is an era when product design has a dominating role to play in every domain. Good product design differentiates the organizations and ensures that your company enjoys an edge over business rivals.
With the recent evolution of the design industry, there are various responsibilities under the umbrella term “designer”. These include product designers, UI designers, and UX designers. Many people confuse these three job roles. However, first things first! If you are serious about making a career in design, enroll in a proper UI UX design course from a reputed institution.
We will try to cover all these job titles in this article apart from the importance of the transition of UI/UX designers into product designers.
What Is Common Between UI, UX, and Product Designers?
There is a common factor between all these three job roles – these professionals design the interaction between a user and a product. At the same time, all these three professionals have slightly distinct functions to attain the same objective.
User Experience Designer (UX Designer)
These designers mainly focus on how a product feels. Their goal is to make the interaction between the user interaction with the product as simple and efficient as possible. A UX designer writes different product user scenarios and resorts to different types of testing.
They watch what users do through these tests. Some tools include A/B testing, eye-tracking, email surveys, etc. UX designers also prototype interfaces and create the products logic through wireframes.
User Interface Designer (UI Designer)
On the other hand, UI designers are professionals who work on the product's appearance. These people are responsible for how the final version of the product looks to customers. A UI designer is responsible for designing every page or screen with which users would interact. It is the duty of user interface designers to ensure that the UI visually communicates the logic of the user experience designer.
Product Designer
The term is used to describe designers who are typically engaged to create the feel and look of the entire product. Several product designers regard themselves as designers who are responsible for designing experiences.
It also signifies that product designers are the professionals who offer the actual insight to UI and UX designers, especially on how specific features should function or the way any UI control should appear. Different organizations refer to the product designer term differently.
Why Should Designers Understand Business Goals?
While thinking in context to the product, a good designer should realize and understand the business goals. They should also have answers to the following questions mentioned below:
· What are the things we wish to achieve?
· Why are we doing these?
· Who is facing these problems?
· How are we going to do this?
· What is the problem we intend to solve?
Getting answers to the above-listed questions will help a designer to realize a product’s user experience as a whole and not only as a visual design or interaction part. The actual design solution comes right after this. It has six distinct phases, which are as follows:
1. Empathize: A designer needs to conduct a thorough research for developing a proper understanding of the end users.
2. Define: The designer has to combine the research and also observe the exact problem areas of their users.
3. Come Up with Solutions: The next step is to generate a set of possible solutions by giving total freedom to themselves and their teams.
4. Create a Prototype: Build an array of prototypes or a prototype to test the solution. Developing a prototype allows a designer to be certain about whether they are on the right path or not. A prototype also triggers diverse ideas, which would not exist in other scenarios.
5. Test: Revert to your end users for collecting feedback. A designer should also ask themselves whether the solution meets the requirements of the users or not.
6. Implementation: It is now time to put your vision into practice. Make sure that the solution is implementable and works for the users. It is a crucial step for your entire process.
Conclusion
The transformation of UI UX designers into product designers is a crucial one. After all, product design symbolizes the subsequent enlargement of your design scope. It is a major but necessary leap from simply user experience to a wider design state for the entire product.
Professionals who understand the entire product properly can only build the best products. UI/UX designers should transition into becoming product designers to make such great products. A product designer who can generate and process additional information will get the best possible result.
The first step for such a transition would be to enroll in one of the reputed UX and UI courses. You may contact an institution, such as Design Boat who has created a niche for themselves for their scientifically-designed UI UX design classes.