Five product design tips to create a 'wow' experience
If you've ever wondered how to achieve that 'wow' effect in your customers and make the on-boarding process way smoother each time they land their hands on your new product, here are some tips that can help you with that.
1. The real world does not forgive
This is the first step that you have to pay close attention to in order to avoid getting a product that only resembles your design on paper. The product design trends and the pressure from the competition on the market can easily create a trap for anyone to fall into. And from this desire to create something astonishing and unique, you might end up with a product that is nothing like that.
This is why it is strongly recommended to check with manufacturers if the design you are trying to push can actually be built and work well with the available technology and materials. This will both save you precious time and cut down extra expenses you will have if you have to go through the design process all over again.
2. Plan the product development process
In order to come up with a product design that is able to create the wow experience for your customers and also allow you to make money, you have to plan all the steps down to every little detail. Don’t worry if this stage takes up some time, because the planning is the most vital part of entire process, especially during the initial development stages.
This plan revolves around three things: the needs of customers that you have identified when you conducted market research, the product design of your main competitors on the market and what you will need in order to complete the development process. Knowing how will you be sourcing each task individually is really important, especially when you are trying to penetrate a saturated market.
A ‘wow product design doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to completely rework the design of the solutions already in use by customers. Listen to them, adding some more resilient material here, and one or two more user-friendly features there, can sometimes be that wow game changer for the product you are launching.
3. Unboxing is half of the 'wow' factor
The design of the product package is an extremely important factor of customer experience and it leads to better customer retention and can also attract more customers. As you may have already noticed the major players in the industry have already set the bar high. So, your designer team will have to come up with something at least equally attractive in order for your product to be competitive.
Keep in mind that customers do desire a wow effect, and if you provide them with one, your customer satisfaction metrics will spike like never before. There are various approaches here that can help you achieve this. For instance, you can design premium, custom packaging in order to meet the preferences of your product’s most loyal consumers.
A good package design, capable of providing the “wow” experience to customers doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated. The simplicity matched with the right colours is sometimes the answer you are looking for. And one more thing closely related to the wow factor that you should keep in mind is consistency.
Customers enjoy it when their shopping experience is consistent. So if you are planning some design surprises, make sure that they are very small so that they don’t change the original impression your customers have, but still be able to add to the wow factor.
4. Reap the benefits of knowledge base software
By providing excellent help documentation for all your products, you will most certainly prolong the wow experience for your customers. A well written and easily accessible help documentation is also something that can make sure all of your customers feel delightful while using your product. It matters for both loyal customers and new ones, because it speeds up the onboarding process of new customers.
This is exactly where knowledge base software can provide incredibly powerful assistance. You can utilise it to create online FAQ pages for your products that you can have printed out on the product page or physical help manual.
Furthermore, it allows you to create context-sensitive help, which is a great way to offer more of that delightful experience to a customer. Specific products can be explained by using embedded tool tips.
5. Think about the future
With the future in mind, you can more effectively plan the design of your products. Users want something that can be used over a longer period of time. And if you provide them with a product that can be used in combination with something they already have, you will hit the jackpot.
Designing the product that can be applicable in various situations with other products, you will certainly provide the wow experience for your customers, which will definitely lead to customer retention. Furthermore, if you truly hit the spot, your product will get mentioned and shared on various social media networks. Yeah, excellent product design is also a great way to get some free marketing as well.
As you can see, a good product design has to come as a result of science and art. And when those two are being combined, one must be extra careful. Some companies take this so seriously that they make a prototype for each of their products before they even remotely consider going into mass production.
Since user experience and product design are very important aspects of almost all industries, make sure to keep up with the latest news and trends by following experts in the field on social media and by reading blog posts on relevant websites.
About Robin Singh
Robin is a technical support executive with a combined experience of six years. He is well acquainted with various knowledge-base tools and is currently associated with ProProfs.
