Product development method is one of the key factors in determining how your product will be valuable for its users. There are plenty of development methods that exist, but you should always pick one that fits well to your product. You won’t get very far if you choose a process too detailed for your product or if it’s not suited for the users’ needs and preferences at all.
The following article will give you some insight on what things to take into consideration before choosing a method and which benefits you can gain by using one.
What is Product Development?
First of all I want to emphasize that product development is not just creating an app or software or website. It’s anything that gets developed as a result of the whole design cycle used by companies, agencies etc., and can range from a mobile app, to a new online store and ecommerce platform ( Drupal !) and even a full web solution like GMaps. Its purpose is always the same: developing something for one of the most important business tools – products.
Product Development – something that gets developed as a result of the whole design cycle used by companies, agencies etc., and can range from a mobile app, to a new online store and ecommerce platform.
Generally speaking, product development has two aspects. The first one is all about thinking – how does this thing work under the hood? What are its functionalities? How are they supposed to interact with each other? The second aspect however is more user-oriented – how users will perceive these features working together with their surroundings. What is it supposed to look like? How does it all come together in order to create an efficient business tool that’s easy for both developers and end-users alike to work with?
How to develop products that are both efficient and easy to use can be answered by following a set of well-defined rules. Today we will look at the first rule: “The Principle of Least Astonishment”.
Benefits of a product development process are:
1. Having a development process increases quality
2. A common language for all developers within an organization makes it easier to pass knowledge between people.
3. Increased productivity due to reduced time required for meetings, training and testing
4. An efficient product is easy to use and will bring value to your customers
5. Satisfied employees who enjoy their work are more productive than dissatisfied employees who do not enjoy what they’re doing.
Principles of Product Development: Basically there are three principles that create the foundation for any type of design or development process, regardless if it’s software, hardware, cars or houses. These three principles are called “the principle of least astonishment”, “commonality” and “lowest added-value”. The first one (“the principle of least astonishment”) is about designing for how you expect your customers to use your product, not forcing them to learn how to use it. This seems like common sense, but if you look at the products being introduced on the market every day, it doesn’t seem too common after all. The second principle can be explained as “design around what I want”. So design for what your customer wants and needs.
Don’t work against him or her trying to make this or that thing work. If you think about writing an email on a TV remote control, it will probably sound strange to someone who has never used one before. But once he tries it out, he’ll realize that only some sort of wristband is missing in order to complete the gadget. The idea is: don’t introduce new interfaces and interaction patterns if they only confuse your user. At last, but not least: “people do what feels natural”. A lot of machines we use today feel like we have to learn a new language in order to be able to work with them. As soon as something gets more natural for us, it will become easier and easier for us to use it – and this can be realized by experience-based learning (which means that we also continue to learn how to use our products after the initial training).
Thus Product Development is essential enough to support Fast Innovation for more than a decade. Fast Innovation is a continuous process of bringing new products and services to the market at high pace in order to remain competitive or even ahead of your business environment.
Product Development is useful at every point of the process and The goal of Product Development is to develop innovative products which meet market needs and expectations. This can be done by creating new products or by innovating existing ones. One of the objectives of Product Development is to incorporate customer feedback into new product development phases as well as to develop products based on this information. Another important objective is to increase the value and usability of the existing product portfolio by including innovative features which allow you to differentiate a company from its competitors.
Product development can be a very complicated process due to many factors, specifically for SaaS companies like Chisel. for example: frequent changes in market needs, price sensitivity, faster life cycles etc. Therefore it is essential to have a constant flow of ideas for new products over time supported with various methods which help teams continue their work efficiently.
