UX — Evolving from Design Thinking to Product Thinking

In today’s digital world, what comes to your mind when you hear optimized UX (User Experience). A customer-centric approach towards building websites and applications that puts user personalization ahead of all other design aspects. The base philosophy behind the Design thinking approach is understanding the unique behavior, psychology, and requirements of customers.

Building a user experience augmenting the customer’s needs and habits is the prime driver when developing new online platforms.

SHIFT IN DESIGN THINKING

Designers, however, are now beginning to understand the core intricacies driving users to become final customers. In terms of pure user experience, it strives to fulfill a finite set of requirements for all customers. Moving to focus on products first, gives us leverage to build solutions and features that expand the customer experience. Technology companies have for a long time lived by this mantra of the product first, and it’s now shifting to design and development as well.

“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves — Steve Jobs”

PRODUCTS FIRST

You start by answering the main questions that define your product goals. “Why are we building this product”, “How is this going to help customers”, “What features do we need to build to support our goals”, all these and more questions will enable the creation of a guideline towards designing a better-optimized user experience.

Thinking about the ultimate goal for the product will enable designers to build features that not only satisfy customers but convert them to loyal and returning customers.

SOLVING USER PROBLEMS

Let’s be honest there are quite a few applications out there, which offer a very unique and satisfying customer experience. Case in point is most of the social media applications like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp or even Gmail for that matter. What makes these experiences unique is their adaptability and evolution over time. This is made possible by formulating a strategy to address the user problems the product intends to solve.

A product-first approach empowers designers to address real user issues and implement features that are needed.

PRODUCTS VS CUSTOMERS

Users and customers define the direction of your product thinking approach.

Yes, you are already aware of the problems your product will solve, but asking the right questions based on the target audience is paramount towards building a successful solution.

UX designers often have to make a mental note of the primary goal before designing any feature, so that it aligns with both the product vision and customer requirements. One of the good aspects of being digitally connected is that UX designers have the experience of using a lot of great applications. Comparing product and user experience across several platforms gives UX designers valuable insight.

CONCLUSION

Successful products are always backed up by great teams and clear strategic goals. In an online ecosystem, your product should not only be presented well, but it should also be able to solve user problems intuitively. UX Designers should be able to integrate their approach towards Design thinking with Product thinking.

When designers can ask the right questions and make design decisions that fit the vision, it leads to a satisfying Product Experience.