Saturday, January 4, 2020

How should product managers and UX designers work together?


A well-designed product can make or break a business. User experience design is the essence of this turnout. One cannot afford to be ignorant about this profession anymore.

It is not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people’s lives. - Don Norman

Don Norman, beautifully captured what user experience design should be. UX encompasses all aspects of the users interaction, communication with the brand, its offerings, its products, and the complete end-to-end experience. In order to achieve a good ROI, it is essential to deliver serious UX design for the top UX Design Studios.


How do you identify a serious UX design?

Here are a few pointers that can help:
    Aesthetics. Is it good-looking? Pleasing to the eye?
    Utility. Does it solve the user's needs?
    Ease-of-use. Is it user-friendly?
    Relevance. Is it relevant to the user?

To design a great user experience one requires time, effort and empathy. Above all, a talented design team that performs well. While there are different roles within the design team, all UX practitioners contribute to creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences for users. It is important that UX professionals work together well to launch successful products. UX designers are involved in almost every process right from ideation till delivery of the product. The same is the case with product managers. To understand their co-relation better, lets take a look at what a UX designer and a product manager do.


UX Designer. The Thinking Hat.

User interface design skills, User-centered design thinking and visualization skills are among some of the basic requirements of a UX designer. Customer experience mapping and information architecture awareness are quite important too. A UX designer should be able to identify salient points and compile the information in order to design solutions to fulfill the user’s needs. Ability to visualize solutions before one is built byways of measuring progress and success is important.


Product Manager. The Go-to-Person.

To start with, the product manager guides a cross-functional team through the entire strategic product lifecycle, from ideation and strategy to development, iterations, ongoing optimization, and development. The role often also includes contributions to understanding business goals and pricing strategy. In other words, the product manager is basically the go-to point person for any product-related decisions. Product managers are responsible for both, solving day-to-day problems and meeting short-term and long-term customer-business objectives.


Integration in Teams. An alliance leading to a better product.

Alliances among design teams, here in case of product managers and UX designers, allow you to break down barriers. To achieve successful delivery of seamless customer experience. It is crucial to learn how to best complement each other and boost the overall performance of the team. When product management and UX work closely together at the early stages of product development, the results turn out to be far better.

In order to establish, harmony among their design teams, UX design studios can follow this simple action plan -

1.  Familiarize yourself with the work methodologies and common practices.
2.  Mutually agree on the timelines
3.  Understand the communication preferences better
4.  Build a rapport with each other
5.  Regular exchange of feedback and intermittent meetings

The health of a collaborative relationship between your product managers and UX designers will predict the success of your project.

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