No matter if you are starting a new business or just have a product that needs an upgrade, new functionality or adaptation to a new market – Product Design is something that you really should look into or least… consider.
Why? Because you probably want to reduce costs as much as possible, build a stable product, and get more positive feedback from your customers. It is more likely for customers to write negative reviews if something doesn’t work properly with your product.
What is Product Design?
Product Design is a way of arranging different features and benefits of the product in a special way that will be presented to the final user, which is usually the customer of the product.
Why is Product Design important?
Let’s start with the basics. Most people don’t understand that the design itself can be a crucial benefit. Why? Because Product Design is flexible and changes according to different technologies.
Let’s say that you were born in the 90s and you had a walkman. However, you also noticed that they disappeared after a couple of years. Their place was taken by an iPod. Now, in 2022, an iPod is obsolete because the iPhone has everything you need, so you don’t need an additional device to listen to your favorite music.
These three devices were all designed as music players (for an iPhone it was among its core features) but their Product Design was different according to evolving technologies.
Do you need another example? Let’s say that you have a car. Why do you like it? Why did you choose this brand over another? Because of the costs, different engine or the experience when you drive it? There are a lot of car brands on the market, but they all have the same thing in common – cars. They differ when it comes to features, different purposes, colors and other elements. Some brands offer something that is so special that you can’t find it served by anyone else.
The business benefits of Product Design
Now that you know what a Product Design is and what are the simple examples of it, we can focus on the benefits. The business advantages of Product Design can be sorted in a couple of categories.
As we mentioned, there are different groups of benefits that vary through industries. If a brand is willing to invest more in a good Product Design and create something that involves the users in all of the stages of designing, then a high ROI indicator is practically a formality. So, if you focus on the user, then you can be optimistic about the product’s success – it will most likely be chosen more often than a product from another brand.
As always, business indicators are loved by the stakeholders. The issue is that the product is used by customers, so thinking about the indicators will not bring revenue itself. If, however, you focus on the final user of the product, you have a much greater chance of success.
There is, however, one main problem with understanding the point of the Product Design process. For many, Product Design is something that is relevant at the last stage of creating a product or a service. Sometimes it is implemented after the strategy has been determined, the budget has been allocated, and decisions have been made.
However, if you want to achieve success with your product, Product Design should be implemented in the first stage – as a part of the business strategy.
At the beginning, you can save costs by changing materials, testing functionalities before they go to production and evaluating other indicators. The prototyping and user testing process enables you to understand your product or service to a whole new level, saving you money and time in the long run.
If you want to achieve success with your product, Product Design should be implemented in the first stage – as a part of the business strategy.
1. Increased sales
Product Design can increase sales thanks to implementing missing opportunities, especially for the final user of the product. Consequently, if the customer loves your product, he or she will probably stay with it longer than you anticipated. Greater loyalty comes usually with lower signals of complaints and bad reviews. At the same time – more good reviews and feedback can mean a snowball or a viral effect for your sales.
After all, people are more willing to buy a product with positive reviews.
Product Design adds more value to your product or your services. Users are often willing to pay more for well-designed products. Why? That’s simple – better design means that you offer benefits for them such as better functionality, greater usability, good visual, and functional experience.
2. Lowered costs
The fact that manufacturing processes can often be reduced by substantial amounts is another of the business benefits of a Product Design.
Knowing how to reduce the costs of your process and which materials are more efficient can allow you to allocate your budget elsewhere. An important aspect of Product Design is that it allows you to spend less money on promotions in order to acquire new customers. Instead, you want to have your business partner or a customer to stay with your product for a long period of time.
Even small changes can have a profound effect on how your product is perceived.
3. Increased performance
Product Design improves business performance across the market thanks to a better relative position to the competitors. Moreover, a strong identity of your business in the industry will follow that trend. Maybe you will even be able to open up for new markets? Expanding the offer or approaching new markets are indicators that you are performing well.
Get in touch with us if you need help with evaluating or testing your current product or a potential project
Among others, we can help you with:
- Discovering where and how your design is being used in your business.
- Learning what you can do to improve your business indicators.
- Professional consulting related to the functionalities and current design process for identifying potential issues and listing ways for solving tracked issues.
- Areas of missed Product Design opportunities.
- User testing and conducting marketing research to get most valuable information about your customers base and their needs.
