Product Design writes specifications from which Product Development builds the actual software solution. Product Management writes market requirements, Product Design writes UI specifications of the user behavior, branding, and common look-and-feel and Development writes system specifications for the development of the user interface. Wireframes, use cases, and/or a prototype should be evaluated with the customers’ end-users for usability issues—effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction—prior to final specification.
Usability evaluation and UI specification should be completed in the first phase of development. The UI specification along with Product Management’s requirements should communicate to Development who we are building our solution for and what problems we will be solving for our market, customers, and end-users.
Product Development builds the solution based on requirements and specification provided by Product Management and Product Design. Product Design partners with Product Development in terms of the UI and presentation layer detailed design. Technology issues require revisions to the presentation layer user interface and UI specification, in which case Product Design and Product Development partner to determine the best approach on a case-by-case basis. Product Development tests and fixes bugs in the final phases of development. Product Design reviews the UI design in the development testing environment and may request changes to ensure that the design developed follows the UI specification. These UI change requests could be informal or formal depending on the size of the team and the company’s software development process. Depending on the relationship of the UI Designers and UI Developers, Product Design works together with Product Development to find the best solutions to the fixes concerning the user experience and interface design.
Conclusion
Product Design works with Product Management and Product Development throughout the product lifecycle. In many cases, Product Design elaborates on the solution that Product Management provides for Product Development to build. Product Design partners with Product Management early in the product lifecycle to quantify, analyze, and validate solutions, and partners with Product Development to design, build, and test the solution, thus fulfilling its role as a bridge between these two functions.