What Does a Website Product Designer Need To Know?

Until recently, the title product designer represented someone who created a physical, tangible product. The digital world has progressed so quickly and importantly in the last decade that digital products are just as relevant, even if not in a pure physical sense. As a result, those creating such electronic creations are much more than just web designers as there is so much more involved with creating the best digital products.

What Is A Digital Product?

Website designers were called just that because almost all of their duties included electronic pages and layouts that were used by companies to sell services or products. The job of an internet professional has changed drastically in recent years with many different features now involved in creating a good functioning internet appearance and other digital material that does what it is meant to do, far beyond the point of just appearance.

Internet work now includes target audience research, performance from a user standpoint, optimization to attract that audience, and brand reputation. So the title designer alone no longer covers the actual expansiveness of the position. In reality, anything that requires the amount of research, planning, and testing that an efficient and functional website requires is much more than just putting code on the internet – it is the creation of a product.

Today's Creative Requirements

Knowing that web design involves much more than simply aesthetic quality but rather many more tasks, following are some of the responsibilities that are typically handled by an internet designer.

Understand Business and Client Needs - This means much more than simply understanding what the client wants for a final website product. The effort now involves spending much more time with clients to learn about the business, its goals for the future, the industry it is included with, and much more.
Mock-ups, Specifications and Testing Protocols - After researching and spending time with the client, it is time to plan out specific ideas in a preliminary form so that a client can understand the ideas being suggested and see how they appear. While mock-ups are largely visually related, it is almost more important to create a user-friendly website that includes testing for success in this area.
Parts of Complete Website Construction - The internet professional of today must understand SEO, social media, brand recognition, and much more and how it affects the project's success. It is becoming more standard for designers to handle all of these details as part of their job, which has led to the finished website being referred to as a digital product. It is so much more than just creating a layout!
Effective Work – With more tasks and more skills now included, product designers must be able to quickly put ideas into function to get websites published right away. Part of the planning includes details and mock-ups of the original page, work completed to launch, and then replacement of the temporary page with the final one.
Performance and Usability Testing - Once the product has been created, it is necessary to monitor the performance of the website to be sure that it is achieving desired results, which is done by implementing user testing. With results from such observations, necessary changes can be made, and monitoring and testing resumed until the final product is performing as planned.

A web designer’s job now incorporates much more than ever before, directing an internet presence from inception to market research, planning, and then the final result – which makes the title of digital product designer much more fitting. The finished product is more than just appearance - it is a virtual tool that wears a company name and like any other tool, must be done correctly and effectively by a website product designer!

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Chris Hunter is an expert in Web Design, Search Engine Marketing, and Reputation Management. To find out more about Texas Website Designer, go to the main website at: www.webunlimited.com.

Posted on 2013-10-23, By: Christopher Hunter *

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