Working in digital, creating solutions that connect people and organisations to what they need, want and desire is a fantastic but incredibly challenging thing. I liken the process to that of planting a seed. For a digital product to become something of substance and value it requires continual nurture to grow.
Here’s my advice on the nurturing you should consider doing to ensure your seed of an idea grows into something that’ll deliver returns.
Do Your Research, Then Do Some More And Then A Bit More
Who is your target audience and why will they be so keen to use your digital product? Don’t second-guess or assume you know these people, their needs and wants; get out there and find out for yourself. Undertake, as much quant and qual research as you can to understand if your idea has potential and if it does not, use this process to discover what will.
Bring Your Research To Life With Persona’s
It’s easier to work with research when it is packaged into something people can relate and understand. With quant/qual research create one to two persona’s that best represent your target audience and give them names. Persona’s are your crash test dummies; personifying your ideal target audience use them throughout your products design to help shape its features, functionality and design.
Put Your Persona’s Into User Stories
This is something you can do in collaboration with your digital team. Doing so ensures all involved are aligned and there’s no room for misunderstanding. To create user stories write down every possible instance in which your persona’s will want/need to use your digital product. Exhaust every possibility and evaluate the importance of each in relation to the user experience you want your product to deliver.
Design Iteratively And Be Prepared For Change
Now it’s as this point things can falter. With research, brief, budget and timings in place you’ll be keen to start seeing something creative and sexy from your digital team. This is only natural but don’t and I repeat do not push for high end design too soon. Why? High end user interface design is expensive and until you’ve tested your products user experience there’s no way to know what will need creative love and what will not. Don’t be dismayed if at the start what you see from your digital team is not aesthetically impressive; chances are they’re using what you’ve given them to nut out the best user experience they can for your product to be a success.
Continuous User Testing Builds A Better End Result
Now a smart digital team works iteratively and collaboratively with their client to shape a products user experience and user interface design. An iterative approach is crucial because it allows for the most important part of digital product design and that’s user testing.
No one can tell you more about what your product needs to be than the people it’s intended for.
Through continuous user testing let your products target audience help shape what will ultimately be for them. An iterative approach to product design is great for it allows for user testing to take place at key steps in your products UX and UI design development. User testing provides your digital team with the green light to start translating the endorsed user experience into a hi-end user interface design.
This Is Just The Beginning
So, your digital product is ready. Having implemented user testing at key stages throughout its design you can be confident it delivers a value your target audience wants. It’s now time to let your audience play with the end result of all this work. Now your product can truly begin to grow.
I hope you find the above of value. I’ve said my piece, if you have any thoughts or opinions, please feel free to comment or get in touch.
