Who is a product designer, why do you need this specialist, and what are their core competencies? Here we will briefly analyze these questions. So let’s start!

Who’s that?

A product designer is a specialist responsible for several tasks: the quality of user experience, product compliance with modern technological solutions, and expertise related to the digital product business (monetization, promotion strategy, viability metrics, etc.). Thus, as you can see, a product designer is responsible for a wide range of tasks, and the effectiveness of the entire product largely depends on the quality of his work.

Just a few years ago, there was no such a profession as a product designer in the modern sense, and this job was partially done by UX and UI designers, product managers and stakeholders. But time passed, and leading IT companies noticed the value in the collaboration of designers, engineers and managers, thus the industry moved away from the pipeline approach. Now, a working group namely a product manager, a product designer, a developer, and a designer is involved in all stages: from hypothesis confirmation to launch and testing to solve the problem.

What are the responsibilities of a product designer?

1. At the very begging of the project, a product designer, together with a product manager, formulates the audience that will use the product and for its purposes. Then a designer tests this hypotheses: conducts interviews with users, selects the best solutions and eliminates the unsuccessful ones.
2. The next steps is prototyping and wireframing. They choose a visual style for a product, and develop a design system.
3. After transferring the product to development, a designer interacts with engineers: answers their questions, solves the arising problems.
4. After finishing the product, a designer analyzes the work results, collects feedback from users and, based on this data, works to improve the product.

What skills are required for a product designer?

Now let’s look at the key competencies that such a specialist should have.

1. Of course, one needs great design skills, the ability to create stylish and beautiful interfaces.
2. Good soft skills. A product designer must be a team player and a reliable partner. This specialist must be able to communicate with colleagues: be open and timely report problems.
3. Technical background. A product designer is not required to have any engineering competencies, but it is important to understand the capabilities and limitations of different platforms and in general understand how difficult it is to implement a specific idea.

And of course, like any other specialist, one needs to constantly learn, be flexible and adapt to different situations. This sphere is developing very quickly and new requirements and tools appear literally every day.

If your project needs a product designer, our company is ready to provide you with all the support you need and provide professional services of such a specialist.