What is a Product Designer?

Design is concerned with how things work, how they are controlled, and the nature of the interaction between people and technology. When done well, the results are brilliant, pleasurable products.

– Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

Product design focuses on the entire lifecycle of a product to shape how users interact with it. Especially in larger cities, the industry has seen substantial growth in recent years. 

Product design is a true digital renaissance position. Leveraging both UX and UI design strategies, product designers have eyes on the entire design process -- from ideation to creation to product shipment. Because Product Designers leverage both skillsets of research, information architecture, testing of UX professionals as well as the visual know-how of extending a brand in the interface design of UI Designers, it requires almost twice the education and experience. 

Product Designers oftentimes own some of all aspects of these job roles:

• Experience Designer (XD) or User Experience (UX) Designer
• Information Architect (IA) or Experience Architect (XA)
• User Interface (UI) Designer
• Interaction Designer (IX)

A better way to look at a Product Designer’s role is through the lens of the product:

The way a product feels, or the user experience (UX) design for a product. In other words, the logic behind the product, what it offers to a user and how it makes a user feel throughout the experience.

The way a product behaves, or the interaction design (IxD) for a product. This is what the product or interface does when the user interacts with it. Animations, transitions and haptic feedback are part of interaction design.

The way a product looks, or the user interface (UI) design for a product. Extending the brand into the interface of the product is an important component of UI Design – through typography, color, imagery, layouts, hierarchy, buttons, forms, etc.

The way a product is structured and how the content is organized, or the product’s information architecture. This means mapping out how the user performs and completes a task from the beginning of their journey to the end. Information architecture involves understanding what information a user receives and what experience have along the path from point A to point B.

So, what are some of the deliverables product designers create? The short answer is any key deliverable from the entire product lifestyle. Some examples are:

• Competitive analysis
• Journey maps
• Site maps
• Wireframes
• Prototypes
• User testing scripts
• High fidelity designs
• Design systems

Part process architect, part user experience expert, part interface designer, Product Designers are involved in:

• Business strategy
• Research
• Process mapping
• User experience design
• Content strategy
• Information architecture
• Visual design
• User interface design
• Development
• Stakeholder presentations
  
  

UX Student Interviews

To get a better sense of product design as it relates to Flatiron and our program, check out a few interviews with some of our alum:

Marketing student turned product designer.

(5 min read) by Zoë Sinner (Amethyst cohort graduate), Facebook.

Former marine researcher turned product designer.

(5 min read) by Caitlin Brisson (Basil cohort graduate), Gusto.

How to go from marketing products to a product designer.

(5 min read) by Dan Speers (Xenon cohort graduate), Shiftgig.

Articles

What is a product designer?

by Henry Wu (9 min read)
Recently, I was fortunate enough to speak at HubSpot’s First Gen in Tech event where I had the chance to talk about what a Product Designer is and what they do at HubSpot. The event was extremely enlightening. Not only did I have the opportunity to inspire many of my future colleagues but I quickly learned that Product Design is shrouded in mystery outside of those who are already in tech. I was overwhelmed by the feedback and quickly learned there are many questions about what a Product Designer actually does. Read more

We are product designers

by Shahed Khalili (6 min read)
We think design matters. We don’t think it matters a little, we think it is the core of our value proposition and central to everything we build. It is even reflected in our company’s mission statement. At ACL design doesn’t simply refer to the user-interactions or visual appearance of a specific feature. Design to us is the entire process we go through to build the desired customer experience. Read more

Product Design vs UX Design: what’s the difference?

by Sarah Klein (4 min read)
One of the best things about working in technology is that things are always changing, including what tech folks’ job titles are. As a design professional, it can be easy to get confused by the different job titles du jour. So what’s the difference between a User Experience Designer and a Product Designer? I had an answer based on past conversations with peers in the field, but after some lightweight data collection and analysis, I was led to think differently. Read more

Videos

What are the phases of product design

(5 min) Have you ever wondered what steps it takes to create a product? In this lesson, we'll discuss the product design process, from coming up with ideas to providing a finished product to customers.

Crema: Digital Product Design Explained.

(16 min) Ever wondered what digital product design is and how it differs from other types of design? The designers are back in another episode of #designersdiscuss to talk about what sets product design apart as well as the tools we recommend to get started in the industry.

How design is used to sell products.

(6 min) Juul tried to design a solution to a public health problem. It wound up creating another one.

Tools

• Sketch
• Adobe XD
• Invision
• Zeplin

Books

• Well Designed
• Hooked