When thinking of UX, we often think of an attractive, simple, and easy to use feature-set of a product, that makes the user’s life easier. But as a fact, features are a small, fragile part of the product. They are some thinkable solutions for a user’s problem the product tries to solve. Thinking in products or its features means thinking in specific user’s problems, in jobs to be done.
The Product Definition
When thinking in products, User experience designers should be able to answer these following questions :
- What problem should we solve? (User problem).
- For whom are we designing this? (Target audience).
- Why are we designing this? (Vision).
- How are we designing this (Strategy) and what we want to achieve? (Goals).
Only then it makes sense to think about what exactly we are designing (Features).
The power of Product Thinking
Thinking in products gives to designers the advantage of building the right features for the right user. It helps to understand the user experience of a product as a complete; not purely as Interaction- and Visual- Design of features. It makes sure designers tackle real user problems and therewith reduce the risk of building anything nobody wants. It supports making the right decisions whenever it comes to building features.
“Building features is an easy task, building the right features for the right people is a challenge”
Product Thinking enables designers to ask the right questions, to build the right features and to communicate with stakeholders more efficiently. It motivates designers to say „no“ and to be hesitant before adding new features. Whenever a new feature is requested or someone has an idea for a new product, designers are able to ask the right questions to that person, before drawing wireframes or crafting layouts: “will it fit into the product?”–“will it serve a real user problem?” –“Do people want or need it?– Let’s find out first!” This will keep the product effective.
Conclusion
Thinking in products makes sure user experience designers build the right features for the right people and tackle real problems people have. It empowers to make the right decisions and is the foundation of building successful products what users want. Product Thinking makes a fruitful relationship between Product Management and UX Design and therefore leads to stronger products. Because of this Product Thinking is going to be the next big thing in UX Design.
