Optimising Product Design: Creating Products People Love

Optimising Product Design: Creating Products People Love

Imagine you're holding a product that you can't live without right now.

The one that makes you think, “How did I ever survive before this?”

99% of products launched today will fail. Not because they don't work but because nobody wants them.

I've spent 15 years building and scaling businesses. And I've learned that the difference between a product that collects dust and one that prints money isn't complexity or features—whether you've solved a painful enough problem in a way that feels inevitable.

The most successful entrepreneurs I've worked with don't just create products. They develop solutions that are so perfectly aligned with customer needs that buying becomes the only logical choice.

In this article, I'll break down the exact framework I use to design products people not only buy but evangelically recommend to everyone they know—creating unstoppable word-of-mouth machines that scale themselves.

If you're tired of guessing what your market wants and ready to create products that sell themselves, keep reading.

Understanding Your Users

The first step in optimising product design is understanding who you're designing for. Put yourself in your users' shoes. What problems do they face? What goals motivate them? How do they think about and interact with products like yours?

Conduct user research to uncover insights:

• Interviews: Have in-depth conversations to learn about needs and behaviours.
• Surveys: Get feedback from a broader audience.
• Personas: Create detailed profiles of key user types.
• Observations: Watch people use existing products.
• Focus groups: Facilitate discussions with select users.

Journey mapping can also shed light on the user experience. Document each touchpoint and moment of interaction. Identify pain points and opportunities to remove friction.

Benefits of User-Centered Design

User-centred design focuses on users' needs, driving satisfaction. It often leads to increased engagement and loyalty.

Studies show that user-centred products reduce development costs by minimising revisions. This approach also ensures accessibility, adhering to standards that benefit all users.

Collectively, these elements enhance the product's adoption and success in the market. User-centred design enhances customer satisfaction by aligning with user needs.

It drives loyalty and long-term engagement, fostering positive brand perception. Products developed with this approach show a significant reduction in error rates due to iterative feedback.

Furthermore, user-centered design optimises functionality, smoother workflows and increased productivity.

This method helps differentiate products in competitive markets by focusing on unique user experiences tailored to specific audiences.

Defining the Product Vision

Next, define a compelling product vision based on your user insights. A strong vision includes:

• Purpose: How does this product improve people's lives?
• Differentiation: What makes this product unique compared to alternatives?
• Value: What tangible benefits does this product provide?
• Emotion: How does this product make users feel?

This vision focuses on the team and guides all design decisions. Revisit it often to ensure alignment.

Conceptualising Solutions

Brainstorm creative solutions that deliver on the product vision:

• Sketch: Get ideas flowing with rough pencil sketches.
• Prototype: Build simple digital or physical representations.
• Storyboard: Visualise fundamental interactions and transitions.

Constrain initial ideation by jumping ahead to finished designs. Diverge before you converge.

Prioritise concepts that are desirable, feasible, and viable. Evaluate through rapid prototyping and user testing.

Advanced Prototyping Techniques

Advanced prototypes offer a detailed view of the final product. Tools like Figma and Adobe XD allow for detailed interaction models.

These tools help designers and developers collaborate effectively. They also speed up the feedback loop, leading to better, faster improvements.

High-fidelity prototypes are essential for testing complex user interactions. Beyond digital prototypes, physical models play a key role for tangible products.

Using techniques like 3D printing can fast-track development cycles by allowing quick iterations on product form factors.

This hands-on approach is very useful for assessing ergonomic and aesthetic qualities. In digital realms, adding animations to prototypes improves clarity around user interactions, helping teams visualise outcomes more vividly.

By leveraging these advanced techniques, teams can anticipate challenges and adapt designs to meet user expectations better.

Iterative Design

Product design is a process of constant refinement. Build, test, gather feedback, repeat.

Start with low-fidelity prototypes to confirm broader concepts. Then, add detail in higher-fidelity versions.

Small batches and rapid iteration accelerate learning. Be willing to throw away what isn't working.

Gather feedback early and often through usability studies. Identify areas for improvement.

By iterating rapidly, you home in on the optimal design over time.

Focusing on Customer Experience

Keep the broader customer experience in mind. How does this product fit into users' lives? What happens before, during, and after they interact with it?

Craft cohesive experiences across devices, platforms, and channels. Create intuitive paths through the product—guide users gently through flows.

Use microcopy and UI messaging to communicate clearly. Build delight into the details through animation, transitions, sounds, and vibrations.

Creating end-to-end experiences requires cross-functional collaboration. Work closely with marketing, support, operations, and other teams.

Optimising for Accessibility

Ensure your product is accessible to all. Follow standards like WCAG 2.1 to support those with disabilities.

Accessibility standards are constantly changing, with WCAG 2.2 providing new guidance. These updates address mobile accessibility and cognitive impairments.

Implementing these standards ensures a more inclusive product experience. Testing with varied user groups uncovers hidden barriers, allowing refinements for universal usability.

Conduct audits to uncover areas that need improvement. Test with assistive devices. Get feedback from users with disabilities.

Simple changes make a big difference:

• Add image alt text
• Increase color contrast
• Support screen readers
• Allow keyboard navigation
• Accommodate motor limitations

Accessibility benefits everyone by promoting inclusive, flexible designs.

Driving Adoption Through Onboarding

A stellar product means nothing if people don't use it. Nail the onboarding experience.

Guide new users step-by-step. Explain key features and functions clearly. Set them up for that “aha!” moment.

Look for opportunities to onboard through active use. Avoid walls of text.

Craft motivational messaging. Communicate the value users gain. Share quick wins to build habits.

Onboarding is an ongoing process. Reengage those who fall off with reminders, tips, and new feature announcements.

Optimising Conversion Funnels

For products like SaaS apps, optimise the signup flow. Remove friction through each conversion funnel step:

• Awareness: Grab attention with compelling messaging.
• Interest: Share value prop and key differentiators.
• Consideration: Make choosing your product a no-brainer.
• Intent: Make signing up easy through clear CTAs.
• Purchase: Reduce fields, simplify language, and highlight benefits.

Test variations to funnel elements. Measure results. Double down on what works.

Driving Retention Through Delight

Getting customers is one thing. Keeping them is another. Wow them with unexpected delights:

• Surprise rewards: Random upgrades or gifts.
• VIP treatment: Special access or support for power users.
• Relevant recommendations: Suggestions based on usage and preferences.
• Human touch: Handwritten notes or customer appreciation days.

Build habit-forming products. Trigger frequent use through notifications, reminders, and incentives.

Solicit feedback through surveys and reviews. Monitor churn metrics. Diagnose and resolve pain points.

Optimising Visual and Industrial Design

Craft intuitive, cohesive visual designs across interfaces and touchpoints. Develop a design system documenting core elements like colours, fonts, and UI patterns. Maintain consistency in layout, interactions, and composition.

Design systems like Google's Material Design standardise elements across products. This consistency boosts user recognition and reduces learning curves.

A coherent system helps in maintaining visual harmony and operational efficiency. By documenting design rules, teams can focus on creativity and innovation without sacrificing consistency.

For physical products, optimise industrial design. Ensure excellent ergonomics through material selection, form factor, weight distribution, and manufacturability—model and test for durability, safety, ecological impact, and other factors.

Work closely with design partners like visual designers, content strategists, researchers, and engineers.

Data-Driven Decision-Making in Design

Data analytics offers insights into user patterns and preferences. Metrics such as retention rates show how users interact with products.

Heatmaps highlight popular areas and show where users struggle. Using data helps refine design elements to enhance user experience.

This approach ensures the product continually aligns with user expectations. Practical data usage transforms design processes, aligning decisions with user behaviour insights.

A/B testing is integral to this approach, enabling comparisons between design elements. Results from these tests illuminate the most effective design choices.

Collecting qualitative feedback through user interviews complements quantitative data, providing a well-rounded view of user needs and motivations.

This comprehensive strategy ensures design refinements are grounded in real-world evidence and analytics.

Testing and Validation

Continuously test product designs to validate assumptions:

Usability testing: Observe users interacting with prototypes. Look for confusion and obstacles.

A/B testing: Try variations to design elements with a split audience. Measure performance.

Beta testing: Release an early version to select users. Gather feedback to guide refinement.

Analytics: Monitor usage data and metrics. Find bright and dark spots.

Let testing inform design decisions at every stage. But also listen to your intuition as a designer. Find the right balance.

Launching and Monitoring

Set your product up for success at launch by readying support resources and monitoring systems. Have a plan to capture feedback and issues early.

Post-launch, stay closely connected to the user experience. Monitor ratings, reviews, sentiment, and usage patterns. Look for opportunities to optimise.

Use in-product surveys and feedback channels to have direct conversations. Learn about delights and frustrations.

Be responsive. If users encounter issues, diagnose the problem and push fixes quickly.

Maintaining Momentum Over Time

Fantastic product design takes perseverance. Launching is just the beginning.

Stay aligned to your vision but adapt to learnings and changing user needs. Give users a voice in shaping that evolution.

Keep energising the product with fresh features and improvements—balance continuity with innovative thinking.

Revisit your processes and principles as the team and product grow. Hold onto what works while welcoming new ideas.

You can build products that stand the test of time by staying relentlessly user-focused.

Key Takeaways for Optimising Product Design

Optimising product design is an ongoing process of understanding users, ideating solutions, prototyping concepts, gathering feedback, and refining designs. Key tips include:

• Deeply realise who you are designing for through user research.
• Define a compelling, user-centric vision to guide design.
• Conceptualise creative ideas through sketches, prototypes, and storyboards.
• Use an iterative approach to incrementally improve the design over time.
• Craft cohesive customer experiences across touchpoints.
• Design for accessibility from the start.
• Onboard users effectively and drive product adoption.
• Surprise and delight users to improve retention.
• Continuously test and validate design assumptions.
• Monitor usage and be responsive to user feedback post-launch.
• Maintain user focus and momentum over the long term.

Following an optimised design process, you can create products that genuinely resonate with users and make a difference in their lives.

Frequently Asked Questions About Optimising Product Design

Here are answers to some common questions about optimising product design: