The difference between Product design and UX design is mainly in the intention behind the design process. This is despite the fact that some features of both designs are interchangeable. In this article we aim to put to light and dive into their differences.
What is product design?
This is a multi-discipline design that may include UX, UI, project management, coding and problem solving. It focuses on the connection between a user and the product, trying to provide solutions like aligning the product with business goals and making a product cost effective.
What is a UX design?
This a type of design whose main focus is to optimize the experience a user will have with the product. This may include accessibility and ease of use. It aims to make the product as user friendly as possible.
What skills does a product designer need?
- User Research
They must be able to use qualitative and quantitative data to understand the needs of the product users. This can be done using analytics.
This helps to model a product according to the demands of users.
To get this information a good product designer may use observation, interviews or even user tests.
- Facilitation
This requires excellent communication skills. It entails being able to coordinate a team from the conceptualization of an idea to its realization. Being a good public speaker, understanding group dynamics and use of diplomacy are some of the qualities a good facilitator should possess.
- Design: Conceptualization to realization
This entails using data on research to bring out the best ideas of the product, to constantly evaluating user experience by auditing the web and mobile interface to ensure it meets the users need. Basically, one should be able to be on top of things from the time an idea is conceptualised through all the process to a finished product.
- UI design
This is the design of the graphic layer that a user interacts on with the product. A product designer should have good understanding of UI design.
Other skills include:
- Empathy
- A Good communicator
- Should be collaborative
- Curious
- Agile
What skills does a UX designer need?
- Design thinking
A UX designer should be able to identify a problem, come up with potential solutions, test and finally deploy the solution. Design thinking is important because when implemented the designers will identify and solve a problem before even the users notice it.
- Decision mapping
This is applied in solving research problems. It involves coming up with hypothesis that will be used in decision making after a problem has been identified through research.
A good UX designer will come up with a framework of how research data will be collected, analysed and then help in developing a better product.
- Prototyping
UX Designers use prototyping to assess the performance of a product. This aims to identify any problems and how users will utilize the product before it goes into production.
- Basic front End Coding
Front end refers to what an end-user directly sees and interacts with. The main coding languages in front end are: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Basic understanding of these languages helps a designer better understand and communicate better with developers.
Product designer job responsibilities
- Identify customer’s needs and see opportunities to pitch new product ideas or even new features for already existing products.
- Design and create new products and features.
- Manage the design team and maintain correspondence with shareholders.
- Monitor product after its release and ensure its updated as needed.
- Research and get feedback from users then implement changes where necessary.
UX designer job responsibilities
- Test products and prototypes and give feedback on user experience and ease of use.
- Communicate new ideas and potential designs to improve usability of the product.
- Research and review finding related to user experience and relay the information appropriately.
- Create prototypes for new features, products or websites.
Product Design and UX Design Differences
The difference between these two is mostly a matter of when one is applied.
Here’s the differences Product Design and UX Design.
- Responsibility
Product design focuses more on business needs, while UX design focuses on the user experience while using the product. Product designers mainly concentrate on the business end of the product. Is it meeting the business requirements? And how to improve it to effectively offer business solutions.
On the other end UX designers aim to ensure the product is user friendly and easy to use so as to optimise the user experience.
- Design method
As discussed earlier, UX design is all about user experience. They improve the user experience by trying to identify user behaviour through testing/research. It also involves coming up with user interaction patterns and product user scenarios.
Product designers concentrate more on presenting the product as a solution provider to a user problem in the market.
- Skillset
Both require high skills in designing and problem solving, but UX designers are more limited to design specific functions like prototyping. Product designers come up with more of business fore sighting solutions and decisions, thus requiring high decision-making skills. Products designers also need to have skill in user research, UI design and visual design.
- Tools used
Whereas both of them use the same design software, designers maybe be limited to prototyping and interactive tools while product designers go ahead to use sketching and mapping tools.
Both UX designers and Product designers work together to create an easy to use and user-friendly product. They work together on the same designing software. The UX designer researches and implements findings on the users experience with the product trying to make the experience better, all along communicating with all the other appropriate stakeholders including the product designers. They also perform prototyping of the product before roll out. Employing prototyping and interactive tools in the process.
Product designers on the other hand go further with the product to the market trying to ensure it solves business needs it was created to solve. Researching, identifying and going ahead to pitch new features to users that they can use to offer better solutions.
To know more about Product Design and UX Design, connect with web design company in India.