In the previous chapter, I spoke about the various types of companies you can apply to. In this chapter, I'm going to focus specifically on product companies because that's where I often see designers having the maximum career growth.
Now before I get started, I want to make something very clear. This chapter is about identifying if a company values design. This means that if you want to apply to these companies and get an interview, you need to be worthy of getting an interview.
Your skills need to meet the industry standard. You need to show a variety of work in your portfolio that showcases many skills. To reach this stage, it requires you to invest a monumental amount of time and energy.
If you aren’t able to showcase your skills, then there is no point in identifying which product companies are worthy of applying. You have to take what you get, be it good or bad. Beggars can't be choosers right? Don't take it in the literal sense, but I hope you get my point.
It’s not fair to expect a good product company to give you an interview if you don’t meet their standards. If you want an interview with a good company, you need to earn it.
So with the assumption that you have learnt the required skills and your portfolio shows the work the industry expects from you, let’s understand more about how to identify really good product companies.
Of course, everything I say is based on patterns I’ve observed during my entire career although I have seen exceptions as well. However, the exceptions are pretty rare in today’s world.
There are primarily 3 factors to look into.
· The nature of the product
· The design/product team
· The leaders running the company
The tricky thing is that it’s not possible to learn about all the 3 unless you interview with them or you’re an employee of that company.
However, even though you can’t know everything, there is a lot of research you can do to understand before you apply to the company. You will even be able to get a lot of information during the interview process when you’re talking to the various team members. They could be engineers, designers, product managers, or leaders.
In this chapter I will focus on the nature of the product. I have a dedicated chapter in this module where I talk about the interview process and help you understand what are green and red flags.
The moment you understand the nature of the product and how the company makes money, you’re already halfway there in understanding if it’s a company worth applying to. Let’s take an example of a Telecommunications Services Company.
We all use a service provider for our mobile data and wifi at home. But ask yourself why you picked that specific service provider for your mobile data or wifi?
The answer is pretty straightforward. It’s either the cost, customer service, data, or wifi requirements. You never made the decision based on whether they had a good website or mobile app. But why is that?
That’s because of the nature of the product.
You see, when a Telecommunications Services Company has to increase revenue and acquire more customers, design is nowhere in the equation. It all comes down to product offerings, pricing, marketing, etc.
Users don’t care about the experience of the mobile app/website. As long as it’s functional, users are fine with a poorly designed mobile app/website. Users are barely going to open the app for a few minutes once or twice a month to perform a very specific set of actions.
Thinking from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense for the company to invest a lot of money into this since it doesn't have a significant impact on the business goals.
I understand that design can help every business in many ways. Could be saving costs, could be reducing customer support tickets, or anything else.
But the question is how much impact does it really make for the company? The impact of design varies in every company.
If the company doesn’t believe that design can make a big impact, it will not invest in building a good design team. In the end, the company wants to save costs and maximize revenue. If you’re not contributing to either of them, then you are not going to be valued enough.
Your value is proportional to the level of impact you have on the company as a designer.
It’s important to understand where customers make decisions.
When customers are researching the pricing and product offerings of the company and comparing them with other service providers, they often visit the landing page. That’s where a lot of the decision-making happens. In fact, a lot of customers also visit the nearby store and talk to a representative there. It doesn’t happen on the website always.
For example, most people prefer going to the nearby store when they want to get a new SIM card or Wifi
connection. They trust the offline process more. The same happens with a traditional bank.
When existing customers have complaints or problems with the product or service, they need to reach out to customer support. While many issues can be solved in a mobile app or over call, many prefer to go to the nearby store. A significant set of users don’t even use a smartphone and depend on the representatives at the store to help them.
So when a majority of the decisions are happening with human intervention and not a digital platform, it proves that having a well-designed product isn’t significantly important to the company. Of course, it does add value, but again the question is ‘How much’?
Let’s take the example of IKEA.
Today, IKEA has plenty of offline stores, but they also have a well-designed e-commerce website/app where you can purchase their products. A lot of people shop on these platforms on a regular basis.
When we talk about the nature of the product and the decision-making of the customer, it’s fair to assume that a lot of products such as beds and modular kitchens need an offline experience. However, you don’t really need an offline experience to buy things such as a clock or a table lamp.
In a scenario like this, it makes sense complete sense to have a well-designed digital product. But there’s more.
One of the most interesting customer journeys I’ve come across is that a lot of customers visit the store to view even the simplest products like a table lamp. But oftentimes they buy a few products and not just 1 or 2 products.
When they are at the store and check out the products they want to buy, they use the web app or mobile app to buy it right there inside the store and have it delivered to their home. I myself have done this plenty of times because I don’t want the hassle of carrying everything back home.
So it’s very important to understand when, how, and why customers would use a digital product and how much it meets the user's and business's needs.
The team at IKEA is also trying a lot to innovate and improve the digital experience for their customers through AR and VR experiences. This definitely shows that IKEA cares about a customer’s experience and needs exceptional Product Designers.
When considering the above 3 factors, you can truly learn about how much a company values design.
The design industry has always fought for a seat at the table and told the entire world that design needs to be given more value. But the reality is that not every company needs exceptional digital products to grow.
It’s like forcing a vegetarian to eat meat just because everyone needs to consume protein every day. A vegetarian can be equally strong and healthy as a non-vegetarian without eating meat.
When you look at companies that run a business through a digital product and there is extremely low human interaction or offline experience, they often have a well-designed product. Airlines, Neobanks, Online investing platforms, Transportation services, and Hotel bookings are just a few examples.
Design matters even more in specific industries such as fin-tech for example. Since there is no offline experience for customers, building trust through digital products becomes incredibly important. Design plays a monumental role here because when you please the user with a well-designed product that works as they want it to, you gain trust.
In the next chapter I will talk about how you can judge a company even more during interviews.