Difference between Product Design and Product Development

Over the past few years, several fresh job titles have taken hold in the IT industry. The results of the development began to be called the product. Then they divided the areas of responsibility of seemingly related actions. This is how the Product Design and Product Development departments appeared. Ultimately, in order to take advantage of the functionality of the finished project, we need to understand its interface. The interface defines the interaction of the user with the computer program. This is where the concepts of product design and development company come from. In today’s article, we will tell you more about this.

More about IT product design

A product designer does not have an end point where the work can be considered complete. If the development company is engaged in constant technical support of the project, it will definitely modify and modernize it.

Stages of product interface development:

• The product interface starts with a concept. The concept is understood not only design, but also functionality, design, interface structure.
• The concept of the interface in the product is the starting point from which the product starts its life.

Often the work on the interface is presented in two final stages:

1. Design concepts using the example of main pages.
2. Design of all other pages.

Now a few words about development

How should this process begin in a web studio? Using Fireart Studio as an example, we will show how the process of developing the interface of a new project or updating it is organized. In fact, both stages are a concept for the product interface. A concept is an assumption of how an interface should work. The professionalism of the developers determines how competently this concept will be implemented. But even at the stage of its preparation, it is necessary to choose the right tools and tools.

When the product is launched and the interface takes its first breaths, real users begin to interact with it. The first observations, statistics and responses appear. From this moment it becomes clear in which direction it is worth correcting the interface, what to add, what to remove, what to make less noticeable, what to focus on. With each change, the concept of the interface is a thing of the past. Many products become unrecognizable after a year of life, as many of the assumptions in the concept have been supplanted by stronger solutions.

It turns out that the interface still has two stages, but the final one is only one:

1. The concept ends at the time of the product launch (alpha, beta and other versions are considered a launch).

2. Ideally, product life does not end. In practice, the longest running projects are reorganized after about 10 years.

These two phases are the responsibility of business analysts, designers, and developers. Analysts do research, lots of assumptions, finalize them all in mockups and a live interface. Developers implement layouts and bring them to release. The product designer starts working with the interface after the product has been launched.

The Role of Product Design in the Project Life Cycle

It happens that they are looking for a product designer for a project who is involved in product support and development. Designers often call this kind of work support and dislike it. But working with a live product means working not only with the interface itself, but also with users and developers. This is a live product that is already on the web and is used by hundreds and thousands of people. This is the experience that is most useful to society. The product designer becomes responsible for how much time users cannot figure out the forms, they are looking for information on the site. If you want, a product designer manages the user’s time.

Conclusions:

Of course, the more the user spends time on their needs in the interface, the worse the designer does, and the worse the attitude of users towards the product. As a result, the product designer becomes responsible for the success of the product. Concept designers make a lot of pretty pictures that are nice to look at. But how convenient it is to use it finally becomes clear only after the launch of the product. So, the role of a product designer is central to any product.