Ready for testing or ready for market?
As a designer, it’s tough to decide when a design is complete and ready for market. Tze shares how testing is an important step in evaluating a design’s readiness for market, and how there needs to be a balance between innovation and pragmatism.
Summary
- It’s difficult to know for certain when a product is complete and ready for market, which is why testing is an important step
- “The more opportunity that’s given for us to test, the more confident we are of its readiness or what are the challenges to market.”
- The reality of all projects is a time and budget crunch, which means risks have to be collaboratively managed by both the designers and the client (e.g. finding a balance between a product’s level of perfection and a timely release to market)
- When determining if a project is “complete”, Tze talks about having to evaluate based on the balance of sufficient innovation and creativity within pragmatic constraints
Full Transcript
We can have an almost perfect product in market, but it will take so long. By the time you get to market, you’re way behind the competition, and people will expect you to be on your V2 already.
DESIREE
So as a designer, do you have any key criteria that you follow in determining when something is ready or has been sufficiently designed and ready to be either marked as complete or released to the market or something? How do you how do you tell when?
TZE
I mean, I wish I knew, but the reality is we don’t always know for certain right, which is why we test. Which is why we test. So in any project setup, the more opportunity that’s given for us to test, the more confident we are of its readiness or what are the challenges to market. So that’s always the case. But as with all projects, the reality is there is a time crunch, or there’s a budget crunch. So along the way there have to be some risks, which are managed collaboratively by both us and the client saying, hey, you know what, we can have an almost perfect product in market, but it will take so long. By the time you get to market, you’re way behind the competition, and people will expect you to be on your V2 already.
So sometimes it is to concede that at a certain point, you have to have something out in the market so that you can gauge response, that you can gauge things to be improved, and also that you can have something out at reasonable cost in terms of product cost and development cost as well.
DESIREE
Is ignoring this—maybe it’s not right to ignore completely the market factor, the business factor—but maybe as a designer, is anything ever completed? Is there ever a case like okay, I’ve done enough for this design, and it’s done, I won’t go and touch it and try to improve it again?
TZE
We kind of evaluate design, right? We have these very pragmatic constraints behind products that need to be useful, not just for the user, but also useful for the businesses and the brands that are putting it out there. And then we’re balancing like, okay, within that, within those constraints, how creative can we be, how much innovation can actually influence aspects of this product or its communication or the way that technology is being used? And I think that’s that tension, right?
You have like these really pragmatic constraints. And then you have these things like okay, within those constraints, how much that cool stuff can I squeeze out of it?
THE STUCK IN DESIGN TEAM
Desiree Lim, Kevin Yeo, Matthew Wong