What is a Product Designer and what are their duties?
In UX teams, there are many roles responsible for bringing a digital product to life. But there is one that ensures all research and strategies are materialized into a new design, the Product Designer.
A Product Designer focuses on developing the process of creating and maintaining digital products. Their main objective is to solve the problems that a user may face and they do not solely focus on aesthetics, as some people may mistakenly think.
Skills of a Product Designer
Every Product Designer should possess certain skills that are necessary for their role. Their main responsibility is to create and design the best possible product that meets the needs of the business and users, while managing the available resources of time and money. To carry out their work in the most efficient manner possible, they must be able to break down the phases and set them in motion.
Additionally, they must possess the ability to translate the values and vision of the business into the language of the users. This enables them to bridge the gap between business areas, technology, and user experience, and maintain active collaboration and communication between departments.
One of the most notable skills that a Product Designer should possess is the ability to understand different profiles, businesses, and tools, and adapt to working in unfamiliar environments. They must also know how to use different methodologies to apply the one that best fits each project.
How a Product Designer works
A Product Designer works following a process and a set of methodologies to meet the established objectives and create the best possible products.
You can learn all these methodologies in the Product Design Specialization Program, the advanced course to acquire all the necessary skills to design products with guarantees (this training is in Spanish).
Before beginning the design process, a Product Designer must thoroughly understand user behavior by creating a Customer Journey Map, which serves as the starting point for creating appropriate wireframes and prototypes that can be validated in the early stages of internal testing.
The ultimate goal of a Product Designer’s work process is to develop a minimum viable product (MVP). An MVP is the first version of a product that meets only the minimum expected functions and quality. From there, the product is iterated and improved until reaching the final version.
To iterate with guarantees, a Product Designer must also have the ability to organize and analyze A/B tests to understand which product is best for users. These tests offer users two versions of a product that differ only in one aspect, and allow the designer to determine which version the user responds to best.
A key aspect of being a good Product Designer is not becoming too attached to their creations, as the work methodology consists of iterating, changing, modifying, and improving the product based on the project’s needs and user feedback. While it is possible to become emotionally invested in a product, it’s essential to remember that customers will demand new features and improvements, and this love for the product can be counterproductive and hinder its development.
When creating a new product, a Product Designer plays a critical role, leading and coordinating all aspects related to interaction and visual design, ensuring that the product is completed before moving on to the development phase. However, a Product Designer must always make decisions based on data, and this data must always be grounded in research to provide greater guarantees of success when launching the product.
Lastly, it’s important to note that a Product Designer is not a 100% digital profile and can be found in various fields, from agencies to the physical world. If you want to learn and develop in this area, the Product Design Specialization program is an excellent opportunity to do so.
This is a translation of the following article from our corporate website:
