How does the role of a product designer differ from the role of a UX/UI designer? I show you in practice

I often come across the fact that people confuse the concepts of product design and UX/UI design. This is done by employers, employees, and even the authors of educational programs. Some people think that these are just different names for the same profession. There is also an opinion that a product designer is just a very good interface designer who does everything the same, only better. I even know one good design school, where the main distinguishing feature of a product designer is that he works on mobile applications. In this article, I want to explain what the role of a product designer is and how it differs from the role of an interface designer. And how does this manifest itself in practice?

It's actually very simple. A product designer must, first of all, solve product problems. Shift the focus away from the user and put the balance between the user, business and developers at the center. Of course, the more convenient the application is for customers, the better for the business. However, when designing, it is necessary to solve the main business problem and roughly understand the cost of developing and implementing a particular function. Thus, instead of the user standing in the center, a triangle arises: business – user – developer, working within which the product designer must find a delicate balance and offer the optimal solution.

When drawing a new screen, a product designer thinks not only about how it will be convenient for the user, but also how it will solve a business problem, and whether it is optimal from the point of view of spending resources of the development department. As a result, for a product to be successful, a designer needs to change his attitude towards design something like this…

Conflict of interests of the user and application owners and technical limitations

Why can’t we just put the user at the center and simply design the most convenient application that will best solve his problems? The thing is that in reality there is a conflict of interest between the user and the application owner. This is usually the need to monetize a product or site so that the development company and development team have the resources to develop and support this product. But there are other options that are not related to money.

In addition to this conflict, when designing, you need to understand the cost of implementation. Not only know the technical limitations, but also, in principle, understand how development works, and create an interface in such a way that as little developer resources as possible are spent on its implementation. Choose methods that are least expensive and difficult to implement.

How can this be achieved?

First — find out the business objectives of the product. This could be capturing the market, maximizing profits, reducing company costs, the need to shock the audience with a unique design, launching an MVP as quickly as possible, etc. You need to dive into the context as deeply as possible, for which you need to build communication with the product owner and product management . And when setting new tasks, immediately recognize or develop a business goal.

Second — user research. Studying the needs of the audience, creating scenarios, designing user flow, etc. This is the essence of the work of an interface designer.

Third — study technical limitations. This can be done by creating good communication with developers. It is necessary to involve them at the earliest stages of screen design and build an ongoing dialogue, making them full participants in the design process, giving them a voice. If you fine-tune this communication process with the development department, over time the product designer himself will begin to understand the resource intensity of a particular function and ways to optimize the interface, which will save resources.

And one last thing. The method by which we will seek this balance is an iterative approach, constantly collecting feedback and refining user scenarios based on the results. This is the only way a product designer can solve this problem and find the optimal solution.

It is this three-way view that will allow you to see the whole picture, and constant testing and collecting feedback will allow you to find a balance when making decisions in the interface design process. Both at the strategic level and in all the little things, right down to the choice of button shape and icon size.

Example from practice. How does a product designer work?

To make it clear to you what I'm talking about, I would like to demonstrate this approach using an example of solving a practical problem. This is a real task from the practice of one of my colleagues, but for simplicity of presentation I will try to simplify it as much as possible and discard some steps and details that are not essential for demonstrating the approach I have described.

Let's say we have a food delivery app, and we've been tasked with adding a new function there – the ability to tip the courier who brought us the order. It should be noted that for a product designer this is the main type of task – not creating a new application from scratch, but improving and finalizing an existing one.

Solving a UX/UI problem by a designer. The user is in the center.

First, let's try to put ourselves in the role of an interface designer and use a user-centered approach. Where do we start? Of course, we need to go to our users, study their behavior and desires, understand what they need from this feature, and based on this, propose the best solution that will improve their user experience. And then check how satisfied users are.

Let's say we conducted a survey to find out what percentage of users want to leave a tip, and also how many people do not like to do this at all. I'm simplifying here, of course, and the research needs to go deeper, but for this demonstration it's enough.

So, we got the result: only 1.4% of people would like to leave a tip in the application, and at the same time, a fifth do not like to leave a tip at all. It turns out that, taking care of our users, we should add a small button somewhere leading to a dialog for sending tips, and make it not too bright so as not to distract and irritate the majority. For example, we will decide to put it on the success screen after a successful delivery. When you click on it, you will go to a screen where you can select the tip amount and send it to the courier. And so we got a solution to the problem using a user-centered approach. Everything works fine, those who want to leave a tip can do so.

Product approach

Now let’s put ourselves in the role of a product designer. And, as I said earlier, along with studying what users need, let’s try to understand what business problems the new function can and should solve. Such tasks most often come from the product owner, but the designer can propose them himself, based on his understanding of the overall product strategy. In our example, let's say my team and I decided that these were three main goals.

First. We need to collect as many tips as possible. This will increase the income of our couriers, make them happier, and they will not go to a competitor through whose app they would not receive as many tips. Moreover, in advertising our delivery service on the labor exchange, we will talk about how much tips our couriers receive and lure the best workers to us.

Second goal – improve relations between couriers and users, or at least not worsen them with requests to leave tips. It would be great if this feature helps customers see couriers as real people, not robots. And couriers feel more grateful for their work.

Third goal – collect additional information about user behavior, understand what they like and why they leave tips in order to further improve our service or further reward couriers.

As you can see, all these goals lie outside the needs of the end users of the application. And now the task of a product designer is to find a delicate balance between the interests of users and business. Design an interface that will solve business goals and not degrade the user experience.

Step 1. Display the tip request on the success screen

For simplicity, we will be making changes within the same success screen that we modified earlier. Let’s take the same scenario, but now let’s think about what we can change here to increase the number of tips and solve the first business problem. And to do this, let’s display on the screen the functionality that was hidden under the secondary button. Now there is no need to make an extra click and the user immediately sees the offer of specific tip amounts. To increase conversion, we can show the same screen the next time the user opens our application, reminding him that he can leave a tip on the previous order.

Let's say we implemented this function in test mode, did some testing and saw that this interface change increased the amount of tips. But, as expected from user surveys, the decision also had negative consequences. In the reviews, many noted that they were a little annoyed by this intrusiveness and did not like that the application asked to pay extra. Questions arose about what percentage of the tip goes to the courier, and how much the company takes. In general, the attitude towards our application has deteriorated somewhat. Thus, we shifted the solution from users towards the business problem. There were more tips, and users became less satisfied.

Step 2. Making the request friendlier

Now let's move on. Having collected this initial feedback, as well as other business goals in mind, the team decided to improve the script by redesigning the screen as follows:

As you can see, information has been added to who the tip goes to – the name and photo of the courier, as well as text stating that he receives the entire tip amount without commission. In addition, the team added the line “the goal for which I am saving money” in the courier’s questionnaire to show it in the application. At the same time, the courier’s photo was already in the database, so the modification was not too labor-intensive. Our intention is that this should increase confidence in our function and further motivate tipping. After all, it is much clearer to pay 100 rubles to an ordinary guy Alexander so that he can save up for a trip than to transfer money to a delivery service. And even if we don’t pay a tip, the application will once again remind us that the food was brought to us by a living person who has his own desires.

Now we are conducting the following tests and see that this screen modification has further increased the total amount of tips and reduced the number of negative reviews in surveys to almost zero. Even though this screen appeared before starting to work with the application. In addition, the hypothesis was confirmed that the image and name of the courier on the success screen, together with his goal, will improve the overall attitude towards them from buyers. For example, this was confirmed in regular surveys of couriers about relationships with customers. Thus, this interface already works to solve two out of three business problems.

Step 3. Add a survey.

By the time the second version was tested, statistics and additional feedback had accumulated. It turned out that even those who do not leave tips began to spend more time on the success screen, and the support service began to receive the same questions – some users did not understand what to click in order not to pay a tip. It was not obvious to them that by clicking on the close button, by default, they do not pay anything.

Let's take the next step. Besides the fact that we needed to solve this problem, we decided to make one more modification. Ask those who decided to leave a tip why they did it. What they liked. In order to further encourage couriers and suppliers based on this information, as well as improve the service in those places for which fewer votes will be collected.

The new version has added the option “do not leave a tip” selected by default, which solved the problem with misunderstanding. It has now become obvious that by closing the screen the user does not pay anything. Also, when choosing any amount of tip, a list opens where the user can choose what exactly he liked (or choose nothing). Subsequently, these surveys helped to collect a lot of important information about users, couriers and the service.

Step 4. Technical limitations.

So, we got a solution to all business goals, and tried to reduce user inconvenience so that the interface remains friendly. However, for example, when transferring to development we encountered a limitation. It turned out that if you calculate the tip as a percentage of the order each time, this will require too much time for developers and the allocation of additional resources that are not currently available. And we decide to indicate some fixed tip values, calculating them from the average check. The development department says that this can now be implemented, and then we remove percentages from the interface and leave only fixed numbers. The result is a screen like this. From the point of view of user and business goals, everything is also good, and developers will be able to complete this function on time.

And here is the final decision. A function for paying tips has been added to the application in such a way that, taking into account the interests of the user, we realize our business goals and fit into technical limitations. Of course, improvements can be continued further. For example, reward users with achievements for leaving tips. For example, write to the client who left a tip that the courier has saved up for the trip and send a photo of Alexander from Thailand (if he doesn’t mind).

Perhaps I did not take into account many nuances, and many important design stages were omitted. But I hope I was able to show the most important thing with this example. Namely, how does the role of a product designer differ from the role of an interface designer, who puts the user at the center. And how a product designer finds the optimal solution to a problem using an iterative approach and collecting feedback.

In conclusion, I can add that although we solved business problems in this example, ultimately the changes made should improve the user experience. After all, if we achieve them, we will attract more motivated couriers, receive information to improve the service and build a more friendly atmosphere. And in the end we will make the product better for everyone.

Thank you for your attention.