Deciphering the Role of Product Designer

The recent Runroom LAB brought together experts in the field of product design to share their knowledge and experiences. The conversations among the speakers, Sarah Romero from eDreams ODIGEO, Cesare Tamagno from Holded, Sergi Castillo from Wallapop, and Jorge Valencia from Runroom, provided a deep and enriching insight into the role of the Product Designer in today's business world. Through their interventions, several key themes and fundamental learnings were highlighted that are essential to understanding the dynamics of this role and its importance in product development.

Below we share the main learnings:

Career Path of a Product Designer

The career path of a Product Designer can vary depending on experience and acquired skills. Sarah Romero shared her transition from web design to research and the importance of encompassing a wide range of skills. Jorge Valencia highlighted that in his experience, the role of Product Designer has evolved to focus on understanding both business and user needs. A product designer must know how to balance this more strategic part related to user and business needs, with the technical part, which involves visual skills and the use of design tools.

Most Used Tools by a Product Designer

The tools vary depending on the company but focus on 4 main areas:
-Design: Figma for designing, and Miro or FigJam for ideation
-Communication: Slack or Teams to stay connected with the team, Figma Slides, Keynote or Google Presentations or Docs to share information, Loom for asynchronous communication.
-Information repository: Notion or GDocs to store info, Analytics or other user data tools

What is a Product Designer?

The definition of a Product Designer varies depending on the company and its context, but generally, this role encompasses much more than just designing a product interface. In general, the work of the Product Designer involves making decisions that impact the business. This means working closely with Product Managers and engineers or developers to achieve an exceptional user experience.

At Runroom, the role of Product Designer is broad and can encompass aspects such as research, tool usage, content design, and more. Although there are specialized roles, all Product Designers have the ability to advance autonomously with solid knowledge and seek help from specialists in specific areas when necessary.

Relationship with Developers

The relationship between Product Designers and developers can vary depending on the company. Cesare Tomagno is convinced that the process is smoother when technical contributors are integrated, allowing for the avoidance of development delays. At eDreams, it is key to have solid data to support proposed ideas, and for this, the implementation of a “challenge culture” in the company is crucial, which involves questioning all reservations and anticipating possible questions before presenting a new idea or functionality. Effective coordination and collaboration between Designers and developers are fundamental, especially in large organizations where design decisions can have a significant impact on various areas.

Design Culture

The design culture can be more or less mature. For example, Holded experienced a transformation from the lack of a design culture to significantly improving the flow between idea and development, thanks to the incorporation of Designers and Product Owners in the process. At eDreams, they have a robust and established design team with more than 40 designers. This team has a great impact on the experience, but despite its size, there is still room to improve the design culture. This means that being a designer in a large company sometimes involves defending and convincing others of the importance of design.

The Importance of Data and Storytelling

The importance of data in product design was also highlighted in the conversations. At Wallapop, for example, designers started as visual executors of leaders' directives and later developed a Data department to validate their decisions with concrete information. Similarly, at eDreams and Holded, they also rely on data to validate the impact their designs have on product users.

These data serve to argue decisions to stakeholders, however, everyone agrees that it is not enough to show graphs and numbers. To effectively convey this information, it is important to tell stories. Both in product companies like eDreams and service companies like Runroom, storytelling is fundamental. Therefore, we talk about real users and how our decisions impact their customer journey.

In summary, the Runroom LAB event offered an enriching insight into the role of the Product Designer. After all, the position itself is just a label; it doesn't matter if we call ourselves UX/UI Designer, Interaction Designer, or Product Designer. The essence of a digital product designer goes beyond any label. The obsession with titles can distract us from what really matters, which is generating impact on users and the business.

Through the experiences and knowledge, it also became clear that being a Product Designer involves much more than just designing interfaces. It requires multidisciplinary skills, adaptability, and a deep understanding of business and user needs to address challenges in digital product design and contribute significantly to the success of their companies.