What does your dream product idea have in common with your dream relationship? Honest advice from a UX/UI designer

According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, over 30,000 new products are introduced on the market each year, with 95 percent of them failing. This reminds me that over 85% of dating ends up in breakups. So, how can you get into a long-lasting and successful relationship with your idea? Let’s find out. 

The world is ever-changing, hence, trends and visions suffer transitions as we dive into our solution-making process. It is overwhelming and can lead one to start neglecting the single most important component of any product's life: the people for whom it is built. 

‘It is the slow development... the ineffective marketing... or the unattractive user experience’, they say. Well, it might be, but most of the products fail due to ineffectiveness. Basically, people don't really need them. The products don't alleviate any pain and don’t offer enough comfort for the user. 

The bumpy road to fully understanding your client

Designing for the user means addressing your customers' pain points. You must first answer the question: What is their problem? Right after, you start looking for solutions and you will probably find several. You might think that all is set and done, but is it really? No, it is just the beginning of it all. Having done this, you have to put your ideas through various validation stages. Only then, you can start writing with confidence the story of your product.  

Now that we have a problem and a validated solution, the success of your idea lies in the hands of your users. Suppose you got through the first 3-4 dates and things are starting to look promising. What should you do next? Well, as a UX professional, I have only one word for you: empathy. Make sure you truly understand your users and fully customize the experience for their needs. Get in their shoes and make them feel heard & special, because they are, after all, the universe of your product. 

In terms of business, empathy can really generate more money, more conversions, sell-throughs, and customer retention. I think it’s pretty clear why it is an important part of the Design Thinking process. I will not get you through the whole methodology, but always remember this: your solution is for people, so your product should always have a human-centered core which can only be achieved through good design and content suited to your user personas.

Research and the right team are the secret ingredients

The obvious risk of not including the UX/UI design and marketing from the very beginning of the process is as simple as it can get. Just imagine you found the perfect match and you have a reservation at a restaurant that happens to have the word “dynamic” in its name. Your instinct tells you that it’s a sports bar, so you go out on a date dressed as you have just finished a running session. What does that say about you? Well, it certainly does tell me that you haven’t done your research. Coming back to product development, situations like these can be avoided with ease by simply having the necessary experts on your team from the beginning.

Keep the user in mind at all times

Research, design & test is how the preach goes - and then again. Each step has its role and a big impact in the creation of the product. Spending a larger amount on the preliminary research actually helps you reduce the overall expenses. It can cost you about $10 to modify a design, which means $100 once it's got to the development stage. Basically, the closer you get to development, or launch, the more expensive any change becomes. 

Your strategy in order to improve the ROI should always stand in designing based on data. You should use various KPI tools, A/B testing methods, qualitative and quantitative usability testing approaches in order to validate as many assumptions as possible. Study the behavior of your users and bring to life a product that actually helps them and gives them a great experience. A study shows that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. 

No product is successful without the validation stage

I know it may all sound like a really time-consuming and complicated process, but the idea validation step cannot be overlooked. From my experience, the most common mistakes when developing an MVP without proper research and validation are:

1. Not having a market research report that assures you that there is enough desirability for what you are about to develop.
2. Not understanding your target audience and their needs regarding the functionalities, the interactions, and comfort needed within the use of your product (do not overcomplicate flows, put creativity above usability, design without content, go for unintuitive user actions, etc).
3. Not investing enough time and money on risk assessment in order to make sure that your solution is feasible.
4. Not analyzing the viability of your product in the market.
5. Not integrating from the very beginning of the ideation and validation stages all the experts required.

When discussing with entrepreneurs or product owners about validating their ideas, I often get the feedback that it sounds great but it takes too long. For this reason, I got excited to discover there is a quick way to place a credible prototype in front of real users and validate. Five days are just enough. From that point, things are getting clear about what potential customers actually expect and what they need.  

Defining the real problem and meeting users' expectations requires expertise and an open mind. For anyone who wants to make sure they set their product for success, keep the following four steps in handy:

• Always invest in research, validation, development, and testing 
• Trust that the experts are there to do their job in the making of a great product
• Learn from the mistakes of others
• Having an idea is easy, launching a product takes time, effort, and a team built for achieving success

Bringing a product idea to life is similar to dating. It needs time, trials and errors, validation, and testing to make sure you get along. And for sure, ignoring essential stages will cost you more than the time you would have spent considering them.

Building a new product and going to market can be challenging, time-consuming, and needs investment. Through such a journey we prepare to make fast decisions and manage risk. Building and launching several products has taught us the relevance of validation ahead of making any major investment. Gathering feedback from the market and users can save effort, resources, and money. Submit your idea application here and win your 5-day validation idea. Bring your idea to the market now.

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