Introduction to Product Design Course (How To)

Over the last 10 years, design has proven to be essential to the success of a business. With the rise of the internet and more software being created, and as start-ups and tech companies realize the impact of design on the business and on digital products, there has been an increasing need for design. This course will help you understand and get familiar with product design, the role of design throughout product development and delivery, the different components of product design, and the process of designing digital products and experiences.

What you'll learn

• Understand “What is Product Design” (high level overview)
• How to take fundamental design principles and apply them to product design
• How to understand your user
• How to design for your customer

What is Product Design?

The definition of a Product Designer is something that’s constantly evolving within the tech industry. In the context of creating software or a digital product, the role of the product designer spans from defining the problem, investigating and validating it, then exploring all the possibilities for solving the problem, designing the experience and the product, and then testing and shipping the solution. You’ll be learning about the various components and skills of a product designer and you’ll also be given a project throughout the course so you can apply and put some of these things into practice.

Chevron 3 steps

• Welcome to Product Design

  3:13

• Disciplines of Product Design

  3:19

• Product Design Review

  7 questions

Design Principles

What makes an interface intuitive? How do you know that one design works better than another? We’ll be going over some of the fundamental principles of design, including the principles of UX design, visual design, and interaction design. In addition to universal design principles, we’ll talk about the importance of having design principles specific to your company. Company design principles are the guiding light for a product or a brand. They define and communicate the key characteristics of a product to both users of the product and those creating the product.

Chevron 4 steps

• Universal Design Principles

  1:59

• Interaction Design Principles

  1:55

• Company Design Principles

  4:50

• Design Principles Review

  5 questions

The Design Problem

When it comes to the design process, you’ll find that there are various processes and different design terminology to describe these processes and methods. We won’t be getting into the details of that here but rather, we’ll be learning about the broader product design process and going through each step with a project that will help you apply what you’ve learned. For the project, imagine that you are a product designer at Craigslist, and you are starting a new project with the mobile app team. For the project, you will be creating a mobile app for Craigslist.

Chevron 4 steps

• Discover

  8:01

• Definition

  1:46

• Ideation

  3:06

• The Design Problem Review

  5 questions

The Design Solution

Now that we have established what the problem is that we are attempting to solve, we will look into the tools and processes that a designer will use to work toward solving the problem.

Chevron 5 steps

• Solution

  5:16

• Test

  3:44

• Ship

  0:46

• Next Steps

  2:43

• The Design Solution Review

  5 questions