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Part 2/5
Designing a digital product: the research phase
I guess it’s safe to say that most people when they hear the word “Product” , immediately think about a physical object; like a phone or a piece of furniture. And rightfully so, due to the fact that not too long ago digital products didn’t even exist. It will take a while for people to automatically think of apps or software when they hear the word “Product”
But that is exactly what we are going to talk about in this article; Digital Products. More precisely, the process of designing one from start to finish.
And even though there is no one-size-fits-all way of doing things due to so many variables such as size, stage, company goals, bandwidth, etc., it’s important to at least have a starting blueprint that you can tailor moving forward.
So without further ado, let’s dive right into it.
If we were to analyze & outline the base structure of any product design process, we will notice that it is usually split into five main steps. Five steps that will help you design a successful product from start to finish (from concept idea to production).
1. Product definition
2. Research
3. Analysis
4. Design
5. Validation
At their core, these steps can be applied to both physical objects and digital products, in this series we will focus only on the process of designing digital products. In other words, the UI / UX design process.
Now that we took care of the first step of the process, it is time to work our way down the list with the second item.
Research Phase Intro
The research phase of a project serves many purposes. It is meant to help you understand the market space, the users, their needs and their goals. You can look at it as the stepping stone towards defining the requirements for the product you are about to design.
The importance of research
Research is known to be an essential step across the entire life cycle of a product, not only in the beginning.
