Product development involves market analysis, conceptual & product design, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and customer support activities.
These product development activities continue till the end of the product life cycle. Therefore product development is a broader term that involves activities from market research to the end of the product life cycle. And product design is a part of product development.
In this article, we will discuss the difference between product design and development? Click this link to know the product design and development process.
What is Product Development?
Product Development is the creation of new products from scratch. It involves a complete product development cycle from idea generation to the end of the product life-cycle. In other words, a product remains in the development cycle during its lifetime.
Product Development involves the following activities but is not limited to this only.
- Idea generation
- Market analysis: Future scope, competition, consumer base, etc.
- Product specifications and target price finalization
- Marketing
- Concept industrial design
- Detailed Design: Costing, product testing, and value engineering
- Manufacturing or production
- Logistics
- Sales
- Customer feedback and Product Improvements.
- Aftermarket services
What is Product Design?
Product Design Process involves creating new products as per customer need. A product can be a software, solution, service, or physical product such as a smartphone. Product design is a part of the product development cycle. Technical people and area experts are involved in product design activities.
The product design process involves the following activities:
- Concept design
- User experience design
- Architecture design
- Detailed product design: mechanical, electrical, electronics or software design.
- Design calculations: simulation studies
- Product integration
- Prototyping and testing
- Product verification and validation
The product design team is responsible for the following deliverables.
- Product Working according to the design specifications.
- Manufacturing of parts within a given budget.
Example of Product Design and Development
Let’s consider an example of the washing machine development cycle to understand the difference between product design and product development.
The first step in product design is market research. It involves the following activities:
- Understand target market and product consumers.
- Calculate market size
- Understand product requirements
- Bench-marking.
The marketing team creates a business case and analyses company prospects in a particular product from the above information.
The next step is product design, prototyping, testing, certifications, and Production. In parallel, marketing and sales teams work on product promotions and marketing.
The sales team gets feedback from the market after customers experience initial prototypes. Afterward, the product design, development management team analyze market feedback.
During the complete product life-cycle, support teams provide customer support and after-sales services to customers.
Product Design vs Product Development
| Feature | Product Development | Product Design |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Involves activities from market research to the end of the product lifecycle. | Involves detailed product design, verification, and validation activities |
| Activities |
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| Teams Involved |
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Easy to understand your content, kindly keep it and provide more information about industry works
Good quality information on product design and product design and development. Thank you so much.
As far as UX designers are concerned, their primary task is to know how to solve people’s problems with the help of design tools. They focus on constant usability improvement by interviewing people and analyzing their good or bad experiences. We may say that UX is working here and now, solving the current problem, while product design is meant to look into the future, predicting and preventing possible issues. John designs user flows and wireframes and decides where the Buy button goes for utmost convenience. When the first draft of the interface is ready, he tests prototypes through user interviews, and after collecting feedback, John corrects the uncovered shortcomings, improving the app’s usability.