In product development, the terms “Product Design” (PD) and “Product Experience” (PX) often get tossed around, sometimes interchangeably. But there’s a distinction that catches even seasoned professionals off guard. Many people believe they work in PX or PD, but the responsibilities they describe often belong to other functions, which shows a gap in understanding. I want to look past the surface-level idea of outputting artifacts and clarify what these terms actually mean: the strategic roles these disciplines play in balancing user needs with business objectives.
Product design
Product Design is a highly objective discipline that balances the needs of the end user with business objectives. Unlike UX Design, which primarily focuses on creating optimal user experiences by prioritizing ease of use and satisfaction through the main lens of the end user, Product Design says “Yes, and,” to all of what UX does. PD must also focus on balancing critical business goals such as market fit, profitability, and, often most importantly, scalability. This dual focus on the end user and the business means Product Design is inherently cross-functional and needs close collaboration with teams like revenue operations, growth, marketing, engineering, sales, and customer support.
The primary emphasis in Product Design is on functionality, reliability, usability, and convenience, with aesthetics playing a secondary role. Many a skilled Product Designer working with a mature design system may go months without outputting many visuals, while still making a large measurable impact on business and end-user outcomes.
Product designers use rigorous research, testing, validation, and measurement to make sure the product solves user problems and fits the business strategy. That means building prototypes, running user tests, and iterating on quantitative and qualitative data. The design process is systematic and grounded in a deep understanding of real user challenges, and it aims for products that are reliable and usable as well as memorable and meaningful. Product Design combines user-centred design principles with business sense and strategic thinking. The goal is solutions that meet both user needs and business requirements, with measurable outcomes and a coherent product experience.
Product experience
Smaller, immature, or low-need organizations may start or exist for a long time with just Product Design. In fact, these days, a department of Product Design is often the first to emerge regarding design-related functions, although some organizations may employ a UX department or similar. Eventually, other organizational and end-user needs are likely to materialize.
Product Experience (PX) is a broad function that brings together several disciplines, including:
- Product design (PD)
- User experience (UX)
- User interface (UI) design
- Interaction design
- Information architecture (IA)
- UX writing (UXW)
- Localization and internationalization
- Service design (SD)
- Product content
- Design operations (DesignOps)
- And more
The list is ever-evolving.
The primary goal of PX is to create a cohesive and satisfying user experience as they interact with a product while achieving business objectives. This involves understanding and anticipating customer needs, behaviours, and emotions, generally influencing their behaviour somehow. This influence is productized or otherwise harnessed and aimed for some purpose contextually important to each organization and its goals.
PX teams use data, user research, and cross-disciplinary collaboration to make sure every part of a product, from the first encounter to long-term use, is easy to use, engaging, and valuable. PX runs on a continuous cycle of feedback and improvement, so the people who work in it have to be highly communicative and collaborative.
PX professionals aim to deliver products that meet functional requirements and also mean something to the people using them. Usability, desirability, and experience are the realms of PX.
I want to work in product design, what should I focus on?
I give a lot of advice to junior folks, emerging professionals looking to break into product design, or even those who have worked in the industry but don’t understand why they’re having trouble getting another job. Here are a few simple tips to summarize:
No surprises
There’s no big reveal in PX/PD. Try to unlearn the habit of trying to impress and instead focus on building up collaboration skills while driving decisions, not with narrative (although a good story goes a long way) but with objective evidence.
Consistency and efficiency
Avoid creating one-off designs without considering reusable components and consistency. Focus on understanding and maintaining design systems, UI patterns, component libraries, and including collaborating with marketing on style guides, to ensure not only consistency across products but also high efficiency in the visual aspect of the creation of designs so as to allow the focus on larger problems and opportunities.
Objective decisions, not subjective
If you’re trying too hard to convince, then you probably don’t have enough evidence. Product Design is more scientific and engineering than it is art. That means prioritizing functionality, reliability, usability, and convenience in design decisions, not aesthetics first. You need to understand how design affects the overall user experience and how well the product works.
Outcomes > outputs
If you think your job is to create artifacts like “designs,” then you’re focused on the wrong things. What matters is your positive effect on outcomes. Measurable impact. Read more on this in my recent post.
This goes double on your resume. Hiring folks want to know less about what you did and more about the impact you had doing it.
Advocate
You will often be in the position to champion underserved populations.
Whether there is a business opportunity there or not, and what size, you will be at the forefront of the responsibility and accountability to your fellow people. A product designer who does not exhibit empathy for others is a danger. If we focused solely on business value or caved to waterfall decision-making, we could risk greatly harming the world and those around us.
Start with accessibility principles and standards like WCAG to understand what true accessibility and inclusivity can mean, going beyond designing for the “average” user. Talk to those you service, not just proxies like customer success teams. Continue to push and advocate for those with diverse needs and abilities and underserved or mistreated populations in general. Demonstrate ethical fibre in your design decisions.
Parting thoughts
That’s my take on PX, PD, and the basics of what it means to be part of this exciting, high-impact group of business functions. Drop me a line on LinkedIn and let me know your thoughts.