8 Best Practices for a Modern Digital Product Design

‍How do you ensure your product design is a hit with consumers?

It's not enough to have a talented crew; you also need top-notch resources and a tried-and-tested method of product development.

Get your design project off to a good start with the right information. We'll start with the basics of digital design and walk you through each phase, from conceptualization to final output, including picking the right tools along the way.

What Is A Digital Product Design Process?

Digital product design is a process of finding a problem, creating a functional solution, and launching it to a market for your target audience. Uber is an excellent example of how the basic problem of finding reliable and secure car rides, turned into a multi-billion dollar solution.

The digital product design process is evolving, and the new approach is more collaborative and inclusive than ever before. Designers have embraced the importance of user research and prototyping, while developers are more inclined in building the solution.

As a result, we’re seeing faster development cycles with higher-quality products. But while everyone seems to be on board with this new approach, many organizations still struggle with implementing it.

You may have overheard people talking about the "product design process" as though every organization that works on the design of a product follows the same steps.

From brainstorming to final testing to marketing, everything you and your team do to bring an idea to fruition is part of the product design development process (and all your continued testing and refinement afterward).

The specifics of that procedure will vary from business to business and from product to product. There isn't a set plan that takes into consideration every possible twist and turns in the route.

For instance, whereas some businesses can struggle with constant evaluation, you could find that it helps you solve a real-world problem. Creating prototypes may be done in a number of ways, including with the help of a cross-functional team or with one UX designer.

There is no such term as a "correct" method for designing products. Implement the strategies that have proven successful for your business. However, all successful product development procedures have commonalities. The challenge is in putting ideas into practice in a way that results in a product that both attracts and maintains customers.

In this blog, let’s share some modern digital product design best practices—along with case studies that show how adopting these practices can help your organization get better results faster!

1. Involve Your Whole Team

It's important to involve the right people in your digital product design process, such as designers, developer, product managers, and the sales team. You need to get everyone on board with the design decisions that are made as they impact their role within the company.

2. Look for Experienced Designers

While these are not hard and fast rules, you should look for designers who have worked on similar projects in the past. This means that they have experience working with a variety of clients and companies, including your competitors.

It also shows that they can adapt to different situations without needing excessive hand-holding. This will save you time and money down the road.

You’ll also want to consider whether or not there is alignment between your goals as a business and their personal interests (e.g., do they only work on projects related to environmental sustainability?). 

Once again, this isn’t something you have control over; however, it will help improve communication throughout the design process till the end result.

3. Conduct User Research

We live in a data-obsessed world, but there’s still no substitute for the human touch. If you want to create a successful digital product experience, user research is one of the best ways to get an understanding of your customers (and potential customers).

88% of users are less likely to return to your website or application if they had a first bad experience. This should be an eye-opener for everyone.

User research helps you design products that meet people's needs. Taking time to study and understand how people behave will help you not only create better products but also understand what makes your customers tick.

Conducting user research also gives you a chance to test out ideas before developing them into finished products, but keep in mind that talking with users doesn't guarantee success. You'll still have plenty of work ahead of you after conducting this initial step.

4. Create a Clear Design System

Here’s another shocking fact for you:

62% of users are less likely to purchase from you if they had a bad experience on your app, and 70% of users will simply abandon their carts if buying is not a pleasurable experience.

A design system is a set of components that are reused across multiple products. Design systems are collections of design patterns, which are reusable and modular building blocks.

Design systems help to reduce the time and cost of creating new products while reducing the risk of making mistakes.

5. Stick to the basics

It’s important to keep your product design as simple and intuitive as possible. Remember, people don’t want to learn how to use your product. They want it to make their life easier in the most straightforward way possible.

If you get too fancy or complicated with the design of your product, it can be overwhelming for users who are not familiar with what it does or how to use it.

Avoid over-complication when developing a new digital product from scratch.

Stick with what works. Use a responsive website layout that is clean and familiar. If you need inspiration, look at websites that have been successful in the past (think Apple).

A great example of this would be Mail-chimp which has used a simple interface since its launch almost 15 years ago (and still looks current today).

6. Less Time on Wire-framing, More on Prototyping

By now, you’re familiar with the process of creating a prototype. However, it may have been some time since you last used one as part of your design process, or you never have. If so, let me explain why prototyping is so important in modern design:

• Prototypes allow users to form an immediate emotional connection with the product and create a sense of urgency (e.g., “I want this!”) that can drive ongoing engagement with the product or service.

• Prototypes can be used to test ideas before they go into production (and thus save money).

• Prototypes are essential for usability testing because they provide an environment where users can interact with elements on the screen and offer feedback about which features resonate most with them, prototypes allow users to think about how their mental model aligns/doesn't align with what actually happening on screen—providing valuable insight into whether specific design decisions make sense based on how people will actually use them.

• Prototypes also help teams validate technical performance goals when they're working on complex features such as large datasets or AI models; by developing an early version of these tools ahead of time, teams are able to identify issues early rather than later in development cycles--when fixing problems becomes expensive due to increased complexity from multiple layers added onto existing code bases after each phase ends (e.g., rapid prototyping).

7. Use feedback to improve results

You can learn a lot about your product by getting a feedback from current users. Companies that implement new features based on user feedback, tend to be far more favorable than those that don’t listen.

You should also incorporate user testing into your design process so that you have a better understanding of how people interact with your product before it goes live. This will allow you to create the right user experience and identify problems early on in development.

8. Don't set the bar too high

Setting the bar too high is one of the biggest mistakes that a designer can make. Don’t try to do everything at once, and don’t set out to reinvent the wheel. Instead, focus on making small changes and improvements that will have an immediate impact on your product or service. 

Don’t get discouraged by setbacks: remember that every great product has its fair share of failures in its early days (and even after launch). Be humble enough to ask for help when needed—there are many people who can lend a hand with feedback or advice on something like this.

Takeaway

The best designers in the world are those that create user-centered designs, combining simplicity and functionality. But this doesn’t always happen overnight. It needs a lot of hard work and planning, along with an understanding of how users interact with products.