As developers, we feel that things and ideas are alive because they come to life and die just like us humans do. They also live their own stories: some are straightforward and ordinary, some are full of tragedies, abrupt twists, and breathtaking moments. If we look behind this thick veil of metaphors, we will see a definite process. Every human passes through a similar life cycle: conception, birth, life, and death. Products pass through a cycle too and that cycle is called the Product Development Life Cycle.
Let’s explore each stage together and observe what happens along a product’s life cycle!
1. Brainstorm
The "brainstorm stage" is the first stage of the product development life cycle. In this stage, the team starts thinking of an idea for a new product. Before starting the Product Development Life Cycle, you or your team might already know the user problem that you want to solve. If not, then make a list of user problems. If you are part of a team, then pay attention to the diversity of the members. Teams having meaningful diversity across identifiers like race, gender, abilities, family, age, ethnicity, etc. are way more effective at brainstorming. This is because they bring together a lot of different experiences.
It is an ideal time to check out your product's competitors. At this stage, you also identify if there are already similar products available in the market. In order to beat other similar products, you should make sure that your product fills a gap in the market and solves a certain problem better than existing products. One should research both your competitors and your users. This helps to determine what problems need to be addressed by the product’s design.
Note: A UX designer at a large company might not be involved at this stage. On the other hand, a UX designer at a startup or small company could have a big role to play!
2. Define
"Define" is the second stage of the product development life cycle. It brings together UX designers, UX researchers, program managers, and product leads to define the product. The main goal is to figure out the specifications for the product. This is done by answering questions like:
• Who is the product for?
• What will the product do?
• What features need to be included for the product to be successful?
During this stage, you or your team narrow the focus of the main idea. A single product can’t solve every user's issue. Here, a UX designer might help the team pin down the focus of the idea. Still, a product lead will make the main decision and will probably be the one to define the scope of the project.
The research completed in the 1st stage becomes useful now. Using that knowledge, you will have to pinpoint your potential users’ issues. You or your team just can’t assume that they know what problems users are experiencing without even asking the users directly.
3. Design
This is the third stage of the product development life cycle. In this stage, if you are a UX designer, it is your time to shine! As at this time, the UX designers develop the ideas for the product. Most start by drawing wireframes (outlines or sketches of the product) and then move on to creating prototypes (early models of a product that convey its functionality). UX writers are also involved in the design stage!
While designing, UX designers include all of the product specifications that were highlighted in the define stage. One should also check to ensure that every single part of the design fits together in an intuitive way. For example, UX designers might check that the screens of an app flow in a way that makes sense to the potential user. Or also that each interaction such as tapping a button, has a correlating action, like rating an item. Finally, you should also make sure that each task that a user needs to complete is clear and also easy to understand!
4. Test
The next stage is the test stage. UX designers work with engineers to develop functional prototypes that match the original designs. These also include features that fit the company’s brand (fonts, color schemes, etc). At this stage, the code is completely written and the overall structure of the product is finalized. But if you want to test your designs earlier you can test a functioning prototype of the product using a design tool like Figma or Adobe XD.
There are at least three phases of testing:
internal tests within your company
reviews with stakeholders
external tests with potential users
If you are part of a team, then running these tests is mostly the responsibility of the UX researcher. First, the product is tested internally to look for technical glitches and usability problems. This is also known as alpha testing. The product then undergoes a test with stakeholders in order to make sure that it is aligned with the company’s vision, meets legal guidelines for accessibility, and follows government regulations for privacy, etc.
In the end, there’s an external test that is conducted with the potential users. This is the time to find out whether the product provides a good user experience. This is also known as beta testing. At this stage, gathering and then implementing feedback is absolutely critical. If users are not happy with your product then the UX designers make adjustments or even create different versions of the design. Then, the designs are tested again. This happens until there’s little or no friction between the product and the user.
If you are working with a team, then you guys might cycle between designing and testing a few times before you're even ready to launch the product!
5. Launch
At last, you’ve arrived at the fifth and final stage of the product development cycle. This is the time when the product is released into the world! In this stage, you might have to list your product in Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store, make a website go live, or even put a physical product on store shelves. It is the time to celebrate your work and to start promoting it. You or marketing professionals on your team might post about the latest product on social media or even publish a press release. If you are working in a company, then the customer support team might get ready to help new users learn how the product works.
Program managers also meet frequently with the cross-functional team to look on the entire product development life cycle again and ask questions like:
• What worked and what could be improved?
• Were goals achieved?
• Were timelines met?
Making time for doing this is very important since it can help improve the process going forward. For a physical product, this stage might be the end of the product development life cycle. But for digital products such as an app, website, game, etc. launching the new product to a wider audience provides another good opportunity to improve the user experience. New users might find problems with the product’s functionality or features. If they do, then you can improve them! So, after the launch stage, the product development life cycle does not end. Often, teams move back and forth from the design and testing stages to start working on the next version of a digital product.
Conclusion
Every developer makes a product at least once in their life. In order for that process to run smoothly, one must understand the Product Development Life Cycle. You can’t predict exactly what will happen to your creation but you can have an outline of how things would go in an ideal situation. There may be 0 guarantees that your product will go from stage to stage. But through this cycle, you have a sense of control over the process. It would cost you absolutely nothing to follow it while thinking about your product’s future. And, maybe, it would help you counter the unexpected.
In the next article, I'll write about various careers in UX design so stay tuned ;)
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