How do you create a digital product that works for your users, rather than makes your users work?
Digital product creation is a rigorous process of conceptualising and designing cutting-edge web and mobile experiences. It certainly doesn’t happen overnight, even if our talented designers could create seamless user experiences in their sleep. Instead, we meticulously plan each critical aspect of a digital product so that our clients receive only the very best of Shoreditch Design.
To kick off our production cycle, there is a sacred set of considerations that we make before putting pen to paper. Now, we’ve already written a full guide about how to make digital products, and even show off some of our favourite examples, which you can find here. However, we want to peel the curtain back one step further: what deliberations go into the creative process before our digital product creators start drafting?
Considerations to make before digital product creation
Digital products have become integral to our daily lives, offering convenience, entertainment, and a whole world of user-specific solutions right at our fingertips. The creators at the helm of Shoreditch Design approach the process strategically to ensure that all products not only meet user expectations, but exceed them.
Here are some of the questions to think about before making a digital product.
1. Will you target web, mobile, or both?
The first decision you’ll face is whether to target the web or a mobile platform. Naturally, both options have their respective advantages and disadvantages. For example, web applications offer accessibility across various browser-enabled devices, making them suitable for broader audiences or when your user persona is not predominantly mobile-oriented.
On the other hand, mobile apps can leverage native features and provide a more tailored experience, right in the palm of your user. This allows them to make use of your digital products on the go and embrace omnichannel opportunities that blur the line between in-app experiences and the real world.
To align the choice with your target audience's preferences and needs, you should carry out some initial market and competitor research, identifying ideal users and their digital product pain points.
2. Do you have design guidelines in place?
The best digital product designs are those that are consistent (among all of their other positive traits, of course). A cohesive visual identity is the key to creating a professional and polished digital product. But to achieve this, you’ll need to lay down the early groundwork by building out your design systems and guidelines. These encompass the standard visual elements that will unify your final designs, such as choices of typography, colour palette, buttons, and icons.
Once you have your assets figured out, you can get to work on designing the rest of your product based on these guidelines. Ultimately, this ensures that you present users with a familiar, user-friendly experience that they will come to associate with your brand.
3. Have you conducted adequate UX research?
Before diving into design and development, conducting thorough UX research is paramount. This step involves understanding your target audience's behaviours, preferences, pain points, and goals.
Some of the techniques that we employ to better understand client user bases are as follows:
- Building user personas
- Journey maps
- Stakeholder interviews
- Usability testing
Each of these techniques helps to shape our design decisions and ensure that the product we build addresses real user needs. Skipping or neglecting UX research can lead to design flaws and poor user adoption if your audience fails to take value from your product offering.
4. What is your experience strategy?
With so much competition on the market, your digital product will only be a success if it offers a high-quality experience that users can’t receive elsewhere. To that end, you’ll need a high-quality experience strategy, too. Putting together an experience strategy means thinking deeply about the functional and emotional aspects of your product’s UX.
Consider what feelings you want to evoke, how your product fulfils user needs, and how it aligns with their values. By crafting a well-defined experience strategy, you create a more impactful connection with your audience, as each choice that you make when designing your digital products will be motivated by maximising their experience.
5. How will you navigate interaction design?
Interaction design focuses on creating responsive and intuitive interactions between your digital product and its users. This is the foundation of your platform’s UX, which is integral to keeping users engaged and encouraging them to return to your services time and time again. So, when you’re planning a digital product, you’ll need designers on hand to orchestrate a clear flow of navigation, logical information architecture, and well-designed user interfaces.
This process will take a user-centred approach, beginning with an understanding of user goals and preferences when using a digital product, and ending with a wireframe that shows how they will engage with it.
6. Can you build a prototype?
One final consideration to make is whether you’ll build a prototype for the features or digital product that you’re creating. Prototyping is a vital part of the drafting process for many of our creators, bridging the gap between design and development. It allows us to visualise our digital product's functionality, assess user interactions, gather feedback, and make informed design decisions.
Interactive prototypes simulate the user journey, uncovering potential challenges and improvements early in the design process. This iterative approach saves time and resources in the long run, ushering your product further along the path from concept to reality.
How to create a digital product the intelligent way
As we said, digital product creation is no small feat. With so many moving parts to consider, and the growing pressure to make those parts look beautiful, you’re best off collaborating with an experienced digital product design agency.
At Shoreditch Design, we carefully consider each of the above components in our digital product planning process. From platform selection to user research and interaction design, each step we take is one step closer to sending your product out into the world.
Our designers have navigated the challenges of digital product creation across countless industries, honing their skills in design, usability, and technology. To get the ball rolling on your project, get in touch with a member of the Shoreditch Design team today and we can have a chat about your design needs.
