Consulting Design & Product Design

Lets talk about two different models of design – consulting and products. They are essentially involve different levels of involvement, thinking and approach. The more I have interacted with designers from consulting firm the more I’m appreciating the product design (this is my personal view).
One basic difference that I see in product is the ‘sense of ownership’. Don’t take that word lightly but it really shapes up the way you think about products/design.


Tracking design
Generally when we talk of design we essentially talk of the process of design – doing research -> brainstorm -> design -> launch. And then it ends. We never talk about what happens next.
While what goes up next is really important; this is where only the product designer get the ‘opportunity’ to work. We all put in biases – make assumptions; after launch is when you get you insights; things that work or don’t. And there is no there way to know it other than post launch (or a bucket launch) research.
There will be cases where you don’t know what is going on. That’s the most challenging part of design. Use both qualitative (User Research) and Quantitative (Data) to track design. This is the best design education you will get – to see your design fail!


Design for future
As a product designer you need to innovate. The product needs to be ‘competitive’, its not a solution to a problem (unlike consulting). It needs a ‘placement’ in the market place. To have an identity and uniqueness as an aspect of design, really makes it interesting (especially if you have Google as your competitor ;)
The product needs to be bult for the future – when it gets launched; it has a shelf life. It needs to stay there for that period of time - gaining and not loosing its customers/consumers, be relevant, be competitive and be useful.


Scalability
“Its your mess and you need to solve it”. Its very important to foresee the future of your product from a UI point of you. What if there are more feature add/a new tab/a new action. If you don’t think about it now, eventually you have to in future. So better be now than land up in a situation where your UI can’t be scaled. Personally I have seen a lot to redesign project taken just because the earlier UI was not able to scale – add new requirement.
Don’t just think about design as it is; think of scale. Is it the difference between a good design vs a great design? May be :)


Experience
User experience in products goes beyond the UI. It starts from marketing to packaging to instructions to support. Design is a strategic – and it goes beyond.


Selling design
If you are a product designer you not only have to sell your design to the stake holders (which itself is a pain), but also to you consumers. A better understanding of your user; along with market, competition etc is handy. What it essentially means is - ‘you need to be more aware of your product, user and market’.
And this requires time, effort and a lot of experience in that domain.


What next?
‘Now that I have launched a product - what next?’. As a designer you have to find an answer or help others find an answer. What is the next best feature that will be really important to your users/product.
This sounds like ‘tracking design’? Well the difference is this is larger strategic question. You not need to find problems with design (tracking design) but also think of the future development (of the product not only just UI).

So, ‘personally’ I find product design to be more challenging and exciting.