How will users understand your product? How does it feel in their hands and how do they feel about using it? Here are some tips to keep in mind when developing your product.
Take one step back and review your work as if it wasn’t your own, let others go over it, experience your product as if you were the one buying it, not the one who made it – detaching yourself from something that you have put so much sweat and hard work in is not easy, but product design is an essential tool on your way to perfecting your product and with it ultimately your brand and business success. After all, if your product doesn’t deliver on the promises you make, customers will not return.
GrowthAfrica’s product designer Stanley Gichobi will be our mentor at the Sankalp Africa Summit. He will be discussing with startups and entrepreneurs how they can improve their products and why product design is so important – get a first glimpse into the subject here.
GrowthAfrica’s Stanley Gichobi believes that user experience is often overlooked in the product development process in East Africa. Together with GrowthAfrica, Stanley is hoping to bring the benefits of product design to more East African entrepreneurs.
“I turned to product design because I realized there was a gap in the industry, as businesses often didn’t take into account the user experience and due to the lack of options the market was flooded with products that at best were not user-friendly.” Stanley’s job often is to remind entrepreneurs that their product is only as good as it makes the customer feel. The challenge is to be open and actively court feedback. If you continue making tweaks to your product as you go along, every negative comment your product receives could be what will set you apart from your competitors in the future.
Simply put product design involves coming up with a product the market needs and wants, and the more the product is tailored to a smooth user experience, the more successful the product will be. All entrepreneurs want to create products which will have traction in the market. Taking user experience into account will more likely attract consumers. It should be considered early on because it will ensure that the product has the characteristics and performance the customers desire, thus reducing the risk of creating a product that does not reflect the customers’ demands, while cutting the costs and helping establish a reliable and respectable brand. How will users understand your product? How does it feel in their hands and how do they feel about using it? These are just a few questions that product design evaluations will aim to answer.
At GrowthAfrica Stanley works with entrepreneurs to improve their products and the experience their customers will have whilst using them. He has worked on prototype development, user experience research, innovation, product co-creation, and monitoring and evaluation.
At the Sankalp Africa Summit this year, Stanley will be advising entrepreneurs on the dos and don’ts on product design. “I am really excited to speak to promising, enthusiastic African entrepreneurs at Sankalp as well as to a fruitful exchange with diverse people from around the globe.”
Join GrowthAfrica and Stanley Gichobi at the Sankalp Africa Summit to participate in inspiring and thought-provoking debate on social entrepreneurship, socially responsible investment and inclusive development. The summit’s umbrella theme this year is “Spurring the Entrepreneurship Economy”.
Get in touch with Stanley and GrowthAfrica at the Sankalp Africa Summit or online @GrowthAfrica and @GichobiM
