What is Product Design? - History, Career, Job Responsibilities & Colleges in India

Table of Content:

Definition

History

The Product Design Process

Types of Product Design Jobs

The Product Designer

A Career in Product Design

 

Product Design is the process through which designers combine customer demands with commercial objectives to help businesses create consistently successful products. Product designers aim to improve the user experience in the solutions they provide for their customers, as well as to aid their businesses by creating products that are sustainable for long-term business demands.

Understanding the end-user customer, or the person for whom the product is being designed, is critical to successful product design. Product designer uses empathy and understanding of their potential clients' routines, behaviors, frustrations, requirements, and aspirations to solve real issues for real people.

Ideally, the implementation of product design is so flawless that no one notices; consumers may use the product naturally as needed since product design recognized their needs and anticipated their usage.

History of Product Design

Product design is an outgrowth of industrial design, which is a closely related field.

The Industrial Designers Society of America states:

“Industrial design is the professional practice of designing products used by millions of people worldwide every day. "Industrial designers not only focus on the appearance of a product but also on how it functions, is manufactured and ultimately the value and experience it provides for users.”

Craftspeople made goods mostly by hand prior to the mass-production age of manufacturing. This meant that there were fewer things available for purchase and that they were more expensive. Then, with the industrialization of manufacturing, corporations were able to mass-produce things at a low cost.

Manufacturers engaged the expertise of industrial designers to produce items that were not only practical but also visually beautiful in order to market their products to the millions of people who could now buy them.

Product design is a subset of industrial design that has grown into its own category over time. This is due to the fact that industrial design now refers to real things such as furniture and home appliances. Product design, on the other hand, can relate to any product, including digital, virtual items such as software programs.

Product Design - The Process

The Product Designing process is a fundamental foundation for designers to employ in issue-solving. The product design process is not an individual activity; rather, it is a step-by-step process that results in consumer pleasure and a competent company product. The product design process necessitates the following steps.

1. Imagination, Definition, and Visualization of the Product

The first step in developing a great product design is to explore potential ideas for a new product. Product designers often take two approaches here, first providing a product concept and then debugging.

2. User Research for Product Design

It is critical to do proper user research or a survey before beginning work on your product design. This includes researching the market competitors, consumer thresholds, market demand, and potential markets for your product.

3. Prototyping and sketching

The next stage in reducing your approach and increasing concentration while developing a product is to produce prospective product drawings. Following that, it is necessary to complete and analyze numerous product layouts, as well as alter and enhance them.

4. Specifications

Enumerating your product specs now that your product layout is complete is a critical step before putting your product into production. This includes information regarding the total expected expenses, timelines, and responsibilities. This process focuses on gathering, generating, and arranging all of the papers necessary for product design and production.

5. Sample Testing

The next phase in product design is to create a pre-production sample that will be used for testing and monitoring before making a bulk order. Once a sample is generated, it is tested on multiple grounds, allowing production managers to detect and correct risks and flaws in your product design.

6. Production

You may begin product manufacture and development activities once you have a comprehensive set of technical specifications and a product design. Divide the manufacturing process into smaller divisions to carry out distinct activities and delegate responsibilities to coworkers.

7.  Quality Control

Quality control is carried out throughout the manufacturing process. Every stage of manufacturing must be closely monitored to maintain higher quality standards for a safe, dependable, and modern product design. This can include pre-release testing, frequent inspection, and quality standard evaluation.

Types of Product Design Jobs

What various companies think of today as product design jobs might include several roles under different names, which include,

UX designer

User-experience and interface designers focus on enhancing a product based on how their research into user behavior indicates that customers would be most satisfied with the product. UX designers strive to make users happier.

Graphic designer

Creating graphics, icons, logos, and other visual components of the product experience is the most artistic work inside product design. Their scope ranges from picking a color scheme to fine-tuning individual pixels.

Motion/Animation designer

If the product experience includes "moving" features, such as seamless transitions or a user-controlled avatar, these designers focus on this incredibly complex aspect of the design. They don't make the art, but they make it come to life.

User Research

In a big enough product design company, they are completely focused on understanding customers. Interviewing, conducting usability tests, presenting prototypes and mockups for input, and developing demographics and personas that come within their jurisdiction.

Data analyst

These designers employ user research and other data to discover methods to improve the layout, feature set, and visual style of a product. In other words, while their primary function is scientific, they are also designers.

Prototyper

Prototypers are product team members that bring the team's ideas to life in order for the firm to swiftly validate the product's functionality and other qualities with users. Hand-crafted mockups are created by prototypers in a physical product firm. Wireframes or other virtual mockups will be created by the prototype team for digital enterprises.

The Product Designer

A product designer is in charge of a product's user experience, generally receiving direction from product management on corporate goals and objectives. Although product designers are often linked with the visual/tactile components of a product, they can also play a part in the information architecture and system design of a product.

Depending on the type of company, the size and diversity of the design department, and the specific individual's area of expertise, a product designer may also be referred to as a User Experience Designer, Customer Experience Architect, User Interface Designer, Interaction Designer, or Information Architect.

Qualities of a Product Designer

Product designer may be the job for you, if you:

• Enjoy developing and incorporating business goals into design and product decisions
• Love participating in the design process, holistically
• Have in-depth knowledge of design and a solid understanding of business
• Can analyze complex data to synthesize designs that satisfy business goals and ensure user satisfaction.

Responsibilities of a Product Designer

The job duties of a Product Designer are,

• Identifying opportunities for new products
• Analyzing how a new product meets market needs and consumer preferences
• Setting design requirements based on briefs and discussions with internal teams and external partners
• Researching on materials and techniques
• Sketching drafts on paper or digitally
• Using 3D modeling software to design products and components
• Producing prototypes and testing functionality
• Improving the design of existing products
• Gathering feedback from product users

A Career in Product Design in India

Individuals who choose a profession as a Product Designer are needed in every sector. Product designers are in great demand in the manufacturing industry. Product designers may be found in practically every business. Product designers are employed by firms that seek to market their products worldwide.

The Demand for Product Designers in the Industry

As manufacturing expands on a massive scale in India, there are consistent work prospects for product designers. There are a variety of career options available in the market, including part-time, contractual, and full-time work. Manufacturing companies employ over 30% of all product designers. Specialized design services, wholesale commerce, architectural, and engineering services are some of the other businesses in India that provide a wide range of career prospects for product designers.

Salary of Product Designer

A product designer's annual pay in India is INR 18,95,187. The compensation varies by area, employer, and years of experience. An entry-level product designer may expect to earn between INR 2-3 lakhs per year. In addition to full-time positions, prospective product designers may earn between INR 5,000 and 20,000 per month by interning for a reputable organization as product designers/Product Managers while pursuing any Product Design Courses.

Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google are the highest-paid product design businesses in India, with monthly salaries ranging from INR 50,000 to 70,000. Aside from that, significant product designer recruiters include Wipro, Flipkart, Amazon, Google, HCL Technologies, and many more.

Colleges and Universities for Product Design Courses in India

• Karnavati University - [KU], Gandhinagar
• Parul University, Vadodara
• G D Goenka University - [GDGU], Gurgaon
• Silver Oak University, Ahmedabad
• Raffles Design International - [RDI], Mumbai

 

Must Read: 

Highest Paying Design Jobs in India