Staying ahead of competitors now requires more than the features and functions of a superior product, a well-honed service. The business landscape is changing as digitization drives more and faster disruptions, and customers increasingly value user-centric design, personalization, and convenience.
Research shows that 94% of a website’s first impressions depend on its design, and 75% of its credibility is due to the design. In addition, about 51% of website visors abandon a page due to poor design.
Product design entails identifying a market opportunity and then imagining, creating, and iterating products that solve problems that users face. It is about balancing user needs with business objectives to create successful outcomes consistently.
Product Design is an aspect to consider or at least explore whether you are starting a new business or have a product that requires an upgrade, additional functionality, or adaption to a new market.
Here are 5 ways product design can help your business:
1. Boost Sales of Your Products or Services
Design is one of the most underutilized sales tools available. According to a McKinsey study, companies that use design create 32% more revenue than their industry competitors. Your company’s success depends on maintaining an optimum user experience and providing high-quality products. The user experience of your website can either completely turn away potential customers or satisfy them, encouraging them to spend more and raising your average conversion rate.
Empathy is essential during the user design process since it enables creative product designers to comprehend a user’s frustrations, pain points, hopes, concerns, and constraints. It allows companies to understand the needs of their customers fully. As a result, it creates solutions that will address the users’ issues and improve the general customer experience. Most of the time, you have a brief window to grab your guests’ attention by making a strong first impression and turning them into clients.
2. Helps Create a Strong Brand Identity
Appealing and consistent design lets you build a strong brand identity, which helps the brand stand out. As a result, a strong design concept will aid in creating a successful product. With millions, if not billions, of businesses vying for attention, having a strong brand has become critical for businesses to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
According to the Adobe State of Create report, 59% of respondents would prefer a product or service with a better design over a competitor, and 45% would pay more for a better-looking product or service.
Your product or service will be more valuable due to product design due to benefits like better functionality, increased usability, pleasing visuals, and valuable experiences.
3. Improve Customer Loyalty
You’re asking your customers to put great faith in you if you’re releasing a new product, possibly from an unproven brand. Trust is the primary aspect of turning website visits into leads and active leads into customers. It assists you in outpacing your rivals and motivates customers to support your brand.
The first thing a consumer notices when looking at your brand is the design. The audience receives a clear message about your brand’s personality, beliefs, and overall identity through design, which fills in all the gaps left by the written word. Design is essential for all your marketing materials, and when done well, it sets you apart from the competition and rival companies. The design decisions you make for your company can create strong emotional bonds with your target market. When establishing your brand as an authority in your field and setting it apart from rivals, design increases loyalty and turns customers into passionate advocates.
4. Lower Cost
Understanding how product design affects cost will help you make decisions early on that will result in larger margins, fewer expenses, and long-term sustainable growth. Product design determines the characteristics, features, and performance of the service or goods that customers expect.
Poor design can lead to an endless cycle of design modifications. Product design aims to create a good or service with excellent functional utility and sales appeal at a reasonable cost and time frame. Research during the design stage will help you understand and better serve their needs. This saves time, prevents product failure, and aids in the creation of delightful products.
5. Enhance User Experience
Customers want a more comprehensive range of products and are switching to products with cutting-edge technology more quickly than ever before. This makes product design more critical than ever. There is no denying that consumers and users are getting more knowledgeable about what constitutes a positive and negative user experience. Due in part to the emergence of a younger generation of customers and their comfort with technology, as well as the expansion of general technological competency, we have recently grown less tolerant of poor user experience and poor usability.
The objective should be to view design as the means of achieving excellent usability and user experience so that you not only draw in new clients but also maintain your current clientele’s satisfaction and loyalty.
In Conclusion
Using design in business has many upsides. Efficiency, productivity, and the overall worth of your product can all increase and may save money and lessen potential risks to your company with this strategy. Businesses that don’t make adjustments may lose clients as more organizations invest in product design and user experience. As new, more user-friendly startups enter current industries and begin to compete with established players, there is a significant need for incumbent businesses to invest more in their user experience and product design.
Consumers are willing to pay a premium for more aesthetically pleasing, functional products.
