5 steps for building digital products

Perfect formulas do not exist, but having suitable, disciplined and avid professionals allows us to get very close. The future of work has arrived, the world has become digital and IT talent is the king of this new scenario. 

New technologies have opened new horizons in the universe of freelance and on-demand work. Today, we can find a wide range of disciplines and specializations  that are developed exclusively in the online world dedicated to building digital products focused on satisfying and / or solving different needs.

The start-up world evolves very fast and if you do not have the necessary flexibility you can be left out of the market very quickly.  The key of a digital product is to find the moment when it is known exactly the added value you bring to the customer and  they  perceive it in the same way. It is at that moment, in which you understand how to talk to them, what to say, how to sell and what really matters to them, when you can start to devise a digital project.

Designers, programmers, data experts, developers and project leaders are the necessary links to develop a successful digital product. However, talent alone is not enough; it is recommended to follow a series of ordered steps, without avoiding any, to achieve a successful digital product.

Many software companies tend to aspire to develop their products as quickly as possible in order to release them to the market immediately. However, the hurry sometimes causes skipping some of these elementary stages, which could provoke some misfortunes in the short or long term.

Talent validation is a very important preliminary step that acts as an efficient filter to lay the solid foundations of the project. 

Now, what are these steps to achieve an effective, agile and successful digital product? The following are the 5 unavoidable and unalterable stages through which a product under development should pass:

1. Product thinking: in this level  the focus must be on devising and clearly defining the scope and functionalities of the product you are looking to develop. Thinking about what to communicate to users and what technical requirements to consider should be the first part. In addition, it is essential to identify the audience’s problems in order to create meaningful solutions that add value to customers. Also, the scenarios in which the product will be used are defined as a result of a research process and competition analysis.

2.           Product design: in this step, UX and UI experts explore different ways to achieve a fluid and dynamic interaction between the product and the user. Ideally, different mockups are created to simulate each interface of the product before starting to develop it. The ultimate goal of the product designer is to create the best version of a requested product, with the available time and resources.

3.           Software development: it consists of using the best practices and technologies to create a consistent product based on what was defined in the previous stages. The software developer is the one who translates into programming code what has been previously agreed with the rest of the team.

4.           Deployment: this is the last level of the process. It consists of making the final adjustments to finally launch the digital product to the market and enable its use. It is here where all the previous steps are executed by the action of the users.

5.           Maintenance: the final and key instance. This analogy helps to understand this stage: digital products are like living organisms that change, evolve and require a lot of attention to take care of them. Based on user interaction, changes that can be made to further improve the consumer experience are defined. Everything must work perfectly. Flexibility and strategic vision to define future steps derive from a thorough analysis of this level.

 Creating a digital product is not easy, there are many professions that converge and work simultaneously, remotely and asynchronously, all in pursuit of the same goal. So following these steps help to order and achieve good results.

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