Designing products with value

As a product engineer, our aim is to build products which can generate value and which are used by our customers. But there are several traps and design fallacies which we fall into while making these products. These are some of the common traps which we discussed in our bootcamp.

• In the initial stage of product design , usually we look for a problem and try to find a solution for it. But what might happen is that it may be a problem that only you are facing and might not be relevant to others.This is called the trap of using anecdotal evidence to justify making a certain feature . It is unscientific as it relies heavily on personal testimony . It is necessary to perform well structured research in your targeted demographic about the viability of a certain product before building it.
• Don’t build products keeping in mind a hypothetical user. It is difficult to design products without knowing the expectations of a customer . And when such a product is actually made and given to the user , they might want something totally different which leads to loads of time being lost.

Projects which begin on such shaky foundations are likely to end up failing. The majority of projects in IT companies around 80 % end up failing . They either end up being deployed but with no one using them or stuck as a branch in the codebase stuck in development.

One of the approaches discussed when starting a project is to try to build a picture of the before / after of a product similar to how it is done in weight loss clinics.

Make a picture of the current state of the users facing a problem and how it will be after using your product. Doing this exercise will give you a better understanding on whether the product is actually something which will offer value and be used by your customers.