In the era of digitalization, when new technologies are rapidly changing the business landscape, digital product design and development services are becoming a key success factor for many companies. Digital products can span the spectrum from mobile applications to complex software platforms, each requiring a clear understanding of the market, technology, and user needs.

Every product development starts with an idea that lays the foundation for further development. There are many successful examples of product development in the market that can effectively conquer the market by showing their needs in the user’s life. So, we’ll talk about the key points in designing software products and get started right now.

Product Development vs Product Management: Understanding the Key Distinctions

Research

Everything starts with research. At this stage, you need to determine the direction in which the product will develop. It is important to talk to different user segments and consider the wishes of the project employees.

For example, when starting work on new features, the company must understand the customer’s problem and situation, how they solve it now, whether they use competing products, and how it affects our indicators. Many questions arise at the start, and the main goal is to get answers to them. This can be done, for example, through in-depth interviews with potential users and market and competitor research.

Design

At the next stage, the product designer prepares several interface options that could solve the problems identified during the research stage. The goal is to find the modification considering different scenarios for using the product and other audiences and platforms.

To choose the optimal solution, we usually conduct:

  • Interviews – identify difficulties in using the service;
  • Usability testing — we study how people interact with the application interface and assume how they will use it after the update;
  • Corridor tests — we let random people, such as nearby colleagues, try out new features.

This way, we quickly understand whether we are moving in the right direction or whether we need to take a step back and consider other options.

Interface at the Design stage

The interface of the designed solution should be simple and intuitive. In addition, the user should be able to customize the product for themselves. For example, by adding flexible push notification settings to the project, the user decides when she needs a reminder. Users can set a reminder for an individual event or one for all.

The development team needs to build a clear user path during the design. It consists of the steps a person goes through to achieve their goal within the service. Moreover, you also need to know the business metrics you want to improve. For example:

  • DAU — daily user audience;
  • MAU — monthly user audience;
  • Retention — users’ return to the product.

Development

Development begins strictly after the completion of all previous stages. The discussion of the technical side of the issue starts with technical summaries of directions at the research stage and continues until the release.

If the development is done by an outsourcing company, such as KindGeek, it is important to build competent sprint planning. It is better to organize work so that the development team has tasks in the backlog 2-3 sprints ahead. This will help avoid pauses in the work on the product if there are delays in reviews and approvals from the business side.

Contractors develop projects on a demo platform that resides on their server. The client is provided with a login and password to access the platform and control the process.

During development, responsible front-end and back-end developers are involved, and they write the code for the new feature. Programming languages, frameworks, and databases for development are selected during the preparation of technical specifications. A product designer is also involved in the work; comparing the received layouts with the developed ones is important. A QA engineer verifies the functionality of the finished feature, while a project manager monitors processes and ensures deadlines are met and quality is maintained at each stage. For example, for the mobile version of the service, we can use ready-made iOS and Android operating system components.

It is worth noting the work with related teams: Support, Sales, Marketing, and others. Usually, by the end of this phase, they are all immersed in the upcoming launch and understand what they need to do.

Product Development Strategy

Testing and debugging

Testing is an integral part of digital product design or development services. QA engineers test all the product’s functionality at the end of each sprint. They do this using different methods: manual testing, load testing, and automated tests. The development team immediately fixes all detected errors.

Launch

Product development is completed with final testing, a demo presentation, deployment, and, if it is an application, the launch of the product in stores. After deployment, the contractor prepares instructions for the project, transfers them to the customer’s server, and transfers the source code.

Collecting feedback from users

After launching a digital product, it is important to ensure that it meets users’ needs and helps the business develop. As experts from KindGeek note, to do this, identify control metrics and compare them with data on user behavior in the product.

What you can look at:

  • Number of users;
  • Conversions to target action;
  • The average time that users spend on the product;
  • Feedback from users;
  • User retention rate;
  • User frequency.

Focusing on metrics and feedback can help you understand and improve the weaknesses of the product or the entire business model.

Conclusion

The life cycle of digital product design and development solutions is the path from the idea to the implementation of the project, taking into account all its factors: user needs, competitive advantages, functionality, and company resources. The most challenging task is to develop a product idea and ensure its competitive advantage.