Product Design – Process Summary

Getting started with an MVP

An ideal MVP should deliver a minimum yet viable & valuable product design, and it should:

• Be useful to at least one specific audience.

• Address at least one fundamental problem.

• Have a well-designed UX.

• Be easy to build and launch quickly.

Identify and understand the business & market needs

• Competitive market research – what is already in the market and what are the noteworthy features?

• User interviews – what is happening today? what are some key areas for improvement?

• Business stakeholder interviews – why is this important to the business? what conversations have already happened? are there any requirements the company has already committed to?

• Set a long-term business goal – for example, “reduce the amount of help tickets by 30%”

• Identify what success looks like – for example, “Users don’t have as many questions and the support team is getting less calls & emails.”

Map out user journey(s)

• Identify the user – who will be using the product? (there may be more than one type of user)

• Identify the actions – what are the actions that the users need to take in order to reach the story ending and achieve the goal?

• Identify the story endings – for each user, there will be a story ending. what is the ending (goal) for each user?

Make a pain & gain chart

• Map user actions to a pain & a gain – this will set the stage for prioritization.

• Flag for MVP – actions that add the greatest value.

• Flag for product roadmap – less impactful actions needed for future releases.

Decide which features to include in the MVP

• Utilize a prioritization matrix – decide on what absolutely needs to be included in the MVP, and what features can be included in later releases.

• Lean on The Triad – now is the time to use each other’s different backgrounds and knowledge to help fill out the matrix and agree on priority.

Design the MVP

• Time to push the pixels! – Now that there is agreement on what will go into the MVP, the wireframes or high fidelity designs can be started. If there is already an established design system, designs can get started at high fidelity using the existing UI library. If this is a brand new project without an established design system, wireframes work best at this point.

Iterate on Designs

• Feedback Loop with The Triad – Lean on The Triad for initial feedback and suggestions.

• Feedback Loop with Stakeholders – Most stakeholders need a visual to react to and provide their feedback. While a stakeholders may have already agreed to the features planned for the MVP, it’s not uncommon for someone to change their mind once they see it in pixels. This is where a project runs the risk of getting off track. Explain to stakeholders what you will be measuring for success and keep them up to date on user feedback to build trust.

• Run user tests – One of the most challenging pieces of product design is the copywriting. Running quick user tests with wireframes or high fidelity prototypes can catch areas of confusing copywriting before the engineering team builds the screens.

Build the MVP

• Did The Triad stay aligned? – If The Triad has stayed in lock-step, the building of the MVP shouldn’t have any surprises.

• Write & size user stories – the agile scrum team will write & size the user stories during their established refinements. The Product Designer and Product Manager should be included in those refinement sessions to answer any questions or provide context.

After the MVP

• Collect feedback from the users – learn where the product is lacking and ensure market validation.

• Generate new ideas – now you can make decisions grounded in user behavior.

• Test, learn, measure, repeat!