Published in · 5 min read · Jan 21, 2024
Hello fellow designers! How was your week? I hope everything went as planned. If not, I’m here to increase your knowledge a little more.
Today we’re taking a look at the whole process behind the creation of a product: the Product Development Lifecycle. Follow me!
Well, great question! The product development lifecycle encompasses all the necessary steps taken by a team (or a solo) to successfully develop a product.
What do I mean by “product”? Almost anything you can imagine. From a website to an application, or simply the design of a cardboard box.
The product development life cycle follows this course of events:
The success of a phase highly depends from the previous one, so it’s important to make each one of these steps good. As a product moves through the development life cycle, the team might need to spend more time working in one stage rather than others, or repeat some stage based on feedbacks.
Brainstorm
The phase when the team starts thinking of an idea for a product. At start, the team might already know user’s problems that you want to solve when you begin the product development life cycle. If not, then it’s good to come up with a list of user problems to start brainstorming ideas.
It’s important to notice the diversity of your team at this stage. In fact, having different cultures around can play a crucial role at this, just like having different experiences.
The meaning of “diverse team” resides in: different race, gender, abilities, family structure, age, ethnicity.
After looking out for those problems, the team chooses one and starts coming up with ideas to solve it.
The Brainstorm stage is also the ideal stage to check out your product’s competitors and identify if there are already similar products available on the market. This because your product should fill a gap in the market or solve a problem better than existing platforms. All this, combined, helps determine what problems need to be addressed by the product design.
Define
This stage brings together UX Designers, UX Researchers, Program Managers and Products Leads to define the product.
The goal is to figure out the answers for questions like:
Who’s the product for?
What will the product do?
What features need to be included for the product to be successful?
At this stage, the goal is to narrow the focus of your idea (remember: one product cannot solve any problem). The research completed during the previous stage comes in handy now. Through what you’ve learned, you’ll pinpoint potential users’ problems.
Design
UX Designers, at this stage, develop the idea for the product. Generally, UX Designers start by drawing wireframes (sketches) of the product, to then move on creating prototypes, which basically are early models that show the product’s functionalities.
UX Writers are also included in this stage and might do things like writing buttons labels or other copy within the various wireframes/prototypes.
At this stage, designers must be sure to include all the product specifications underlined during the define stage. You might also check that the different parts of a design fit together in a flowing way. Finally, UX Designers also make sure that each task is clear and easy to understand for the user.
Test
Here UX Designers work with engineers to develop a functional prototype that match the original designs, including details/features that fit the company’s brand (font-colors).
This step is characterized by code-writing and finalizing the overall structure of the product. You can make tests with prototypes from Figma Designs or Adobe Xd. At this stage, the design goes through 3 Main Phases of testing, which are:
- Internal testing within your company (α testing): These are tests conducted internally to look for technical glitches and usability problems
- Reviews with stakeholders: Conducted to make sure that the product is aligned with company’s vision, meets legal guidelines for accessibility and follows government regulation for privacy (as example);
- Testing with external users (β testing): Conducted with potential users. At this time you can understand if the product provides a good UX, so if it is: Usable, Equitable, Enjoyable, Useful.
A stakeholder is a person you need to work with to complete the project or anyone who has some interest in the project, in/outside the company.
These tests are a responsibility of the UX researcher typically.
Gathering and implementing feedback is crucial at this stage! If users are frustrated or confused by your product, then UX Designers have to make adjustments or new versions of the design. Then they’re tested again until little (or no) friction is reached. The team might cycle between design and testing a few times before launch.
Launch
Product is released into the real world. Time for marketing sector to promote it. Program managers also meet with the cross-functional team and question themselves about:
What worked?
What can be improved?
Were goals achieved?
Were timelines met?
This part is super important because leads to a better working process.
For a digital product, launch dives the opportunity to improve on the UX. New unnoticed problems can be found and the team will cycle back to the design and test stages multiple times.
As we conclude this journey through the product development lifecycle, remember: innovation knows no bounds.
Embrace each stage, learn from challenges, and let the echoes of creativity resonate in your future endeavors. Until next Sunday!
