You're designing a product. What are the most important things to consider? (2024)

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What Problem you are trying to solve defines the impact you can (possibly) make. A good problem statement should not be more than few liners. It should be precise, crisp and simple enough for non technical audience to understand. The 3 key aspects of defining problem includes: What is the problem, For whom you are solving it & what value your solution will add to the product users in their day to day life. Try to quantify the value proposition (at a high level) to define your product success criteria.

In my experience defining the problem is the most important step of creating a product or solution. We must ask is the problem real or perceived by the all stakeholders? Is there a clearly defined value that the customer will receive?

Create empathy for customers. Understanding and relating to what matters to your customers is an essential part of product management. This requires ongoing research about target user segments so you can build an informed roadmap.

The crucial mantra in product development is not designing something you like, but what the consumer actually wants. After all, only purchases drives the bottom line.Many technical people love to work on something intellectually stimulating to them, but sometimes this doesn't align to the market need. Be aware of where you spend your time and money in a commercial environment.

Being a product manager, user empathy should sit at the center of your decisions. The best user for your product is you yourself. Try to put yourself in to the shoes of end user and see what challenges they are facing in their day to day life. Try to categorize your users in to customer segments (demography, age, occupation etc). Create a user journey with Actors, system, processes etc to visualize the design requirement. Try to break the requirement in to different use cases.

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Solution design should be a cross functional collective effort. This fosters creativity and help in jotting down napkin ideas, and ideating potential solutions without constraints. Some key points to consider:1) Make sure your solutions is future proof2) Sometime obvious is not right. Mine something unique.3) Clock your solution design time and finalize the solution within defined timeframe4) Finalize solution and start with prototype.

It is about identifying a problem, analyzing it, and finding a solution. Problem-solving is at the core of product design. It is essential in creating functional, useful, and user-centered products. By focusing on problem-solving, designers can create products that look good and solve real-world problems

A good mvp should give you early visibility (during product development) on your product design to quickly generate learnings from your product users and identify the gaps. A/B testing can help you see the value your product is bringing to targeted audience. Testing your solutions helps you in:1) Validate values2) Validate scale3) Mitigate bottom line risk

A very critical point to evaluate is whether your solution has a product market fit or not. Your Industry strategy and Marketing team will be your immediate stakeholders in defining the Industry segments, target customer base and market penetration strategy. The pricing and packaging of product is more cross functional as it involves pricing different components (infrastructure, hardware, product operations etc).

Before publish the main product, conduct market research. Analyze competitors, trends, and demand. Is there a viable market for your product? Validate assumptions through surveys or interviews.

Most important thing to consider is user needs.Who will be the user of the product and what are the current paint points. This will help you to design the product which addresses these problems. Once you have identified the solutions to the problem, break it down to functionalities so that your product is efficient. Some other important factors to consider are -scalability: can the product accommodate increased demand and usage?-compliance: not all products necessarily require this but it is essential to understand if you are complying with relevant regulations and industry practices. -cost effectiveness: how will you deliver value and maximise profitability - security: how are you protecting user data