We see this foundational step skipped more often than it should be. By clearly stating the problems that we’re going to solve, the opportunities that we’re going to harness, and what tech we’re going to build to achieve these goals, we’ll gain a clear direction for our strategic vision.

This process doesn’t need to be complicated. Still, it’s important to be thorough so that we avoid having to backtrack down the road.

At the end of this stage, you’ll emerge with a Solution Definition document. Whenever we begin working with a new client, we offer a completely FREE working session to go through this process together and create a preliminary document.

Now we approach a key decision point. Are we innovating on a brand new digital product? Or are we building a solution that addresses real problems for your organization or your customers? These may include web portals, internal tools, marketing dashboards, and more.

Now we look towards the end. Once we’ve clearly laid out the innovative idea and how we’re going to turn it into a product, we look at it from a purely business perspective.

By planning ahead for launch, monetization, and all of the other non-tech factors that will make your product a success, we can then focus on building innovative technology from the ground up.

We move quickly from low-fidelity wireframes to a working design prototype. The most important part of this is just getting an idea out there.

We need to make it into a tangible design so that we can take it to users as quickly as possible and make sure that we’re on the right track. At the same time, this is also when we need to start to optimize the user experience so that we end up with a product that’s easy and intuitive to navigate.

If Henry Ford had asked people how to improve the horse and buggy, they would have never come up with the automobile. When it comes to innovation, people need to see it and use it before we can get honest feedback.

Once we have a working product design, we put it out there and see how people react. This gives us the information that we need to iterate upon and improve the product before launch. It also validates the concept of the product itself.

An important corollary of this step is that we now have a prototype that we can show to investors. Demonstrating a tangible product resonates more deeply than a concept alone.

Equipped with an understanding of what our users need and how our product should function, we hand the design off to the development team so that they can get to work building it into a full-fledged digital product.

We then complete the loop by going back to the end users. We’ll conduct surveys, interviews, and other methods that will help us to understand what they need from our digital product. We then take that research and feed it back into the design and development processes to create the next product iteration.

We begin by understanding your user personas, their pain-points, and how they already use technology in their lives or their jobs. We’ll conduct interviews, ask users to fill out surveys, and develop a picture of how we expect the target user base to use the new solution.

Skipping this step is a common mistake. Because it’s so much easier to make changes and iterate on the design at this stage, it saves tons of money down the road.

With a clear picture in mind of what your users need from a digital product, we begin a series of rapid design and development sprints that iterate upon each other.

We bring in trusted talent and move quickly from concept to prototype to minimum viable product (MVP) so that we can validate the product, bring it online, and realize a maximized return on investment.

Once we have a product in hand, we go back to the users. We watch them use it, ask them questions about the user interface (UI) design, and then make changes that optimize the product to work for them.

Digital product design is always an iterative process. We move quickly so that we can figure out what works, what doesn’t, and move forward.