A Beginner's Map for Getting Started with Product Design
Resources and my takeaways after a week of diving deep into Product Design.
Have you ever wondered whether being good at drawing and painting is all that it takes to be good at everything design? Or, could you have excelled in product design had you taken arts in college? 🤔
In this post I will try to demystify Product Design for you after a week of digging.
Takeaways
In the past week, I learnt that:
Product design involves creating solutions to problems faced by potential users. A general goal is to create products that not only work but also leave a positive emotional impact on the user.
It requires both creative and analytical thinking.
Design thinking as a framework is intuitive and more common sense than it seems. Only when you have a clear problem with the status quo do you try to think of a product/service or an idea that will solve that problem. In the process you empathise with your potential users and clearly define what needs to be fixed. You then create a testable product or a prototype to see if users are satisfied, understand where does the prototype lacks and then work on it.
There are a lot of niche roles within this area that focus on a single task like UX researcher- someone who analyses what users want and Prototyper- someone who materializes ideas into testable elements. This video will show you other such roles and how they vary with a company's needs.
Resources (articles/podcast/video)
What is Product Design and the Product Design Process? (article)
The author highlights the various activities that are involved in designing a product by trying to solve a real problem.
Product Design - How to get started (video):
This video provides a good framework on how to get started and links to other interesting resources as well.
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman (book):
This is the first book about design that I have started to read. I have heard about this book from a few places and I expect that I will learn about the fundamental concepts that surround design by the time I finish reading.
People to follow
Ryan has helped design products like Basecamp(a project management tool) and Hey(a paid email service), that have been used by millions of people.
Lenora is a former school teacher turned designer. She shares her story in this Learn to Code With Me podcast. And guess what, she hasn’t stopped teaching. Her website is filled with a bagful of self learning resources. She lists free websites to learn design here, her favourite design podcasts here and must read books here.
He is the Design Director at Webflow- a no code tool and Design Partner at BeOnDeck- EdTech company. His newsletter Proof of Concept.
Rabbit holes
These are the 3 topics/websites/tools that I often came across in my research. These might be worth getting into during another later week:
Design sprints
After getting diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, Alex experienced firsthand the challenges that came with the chronic disease. Using the design sprints technique she led the Diabetes by Design team to create Companion Cards that informs about the disease and helps reduce mental stress for the newly diagnosed.
Figma is one of the prototyping tools used by designers that was mentioned often during my research.
UX Design
UX design is like a subset of product design. A UX designer is solely focused on the needs of the consumers and how to make user experience better so that they come back. A product designer, apart from user experience, is also concerned with the goals of the business or the needs of other employees or departments within the business.
Thanks for reading. Best of luck.😃
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