Product designers without limits!
As product designers, we know no boundaries. Using creativity and experience, we design our clients’ products in a clear and intuitive way. Our UX/UI specialists strive to deliver clear, smooth, and innovative User Interfaces which build a positive User Experience and help accomplish your business goals. Let’s design an app!
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Product design services
A carefully conducted product design process will help you create the best possible version of your product. Our product designer will find all the gaps, bottlenecks, and wrong assumptions in your product idea. By eliminating them at the stage of business analysis, you will avoid additional costs and unnecessary frustration. A quality product design makes great Web & mobile applications that are loved by users.
End-to-end product design
As product designers, we’ll be reinventing your product once again. We start with Product Workshops which results in Business Analysis, market research, and defining the scope of the project. Next we’ll engage in UX/UI design, drawing wireframes, lo-fi mockups, hi-fi mockups, and designing clickable prototypes with motion designs. Our product design team, alongside software developers, will watch over the product launch and will take care of its further development, and maintenance.
Product design experts
A quality product design is not only beautiful but also works in an intuitive way. Our product design experts combine a modern User Interface design with the simplicity of its operation and the clearest navigation possible. As product designers, we can think outside the box and find solutions for all your business problems. Perhaps we may even find solutions for those issues you didn’t know about. With a team of software developers, we’ll build your product as a masterpiece standing out on the market.
Product design workshops
Product design workshops are aimed at developing a project implementation plan, as well as answering specific questions about methods, business goals, users’ needs, target group, weaknesses, advantages, possible ways of monetization (and potentially many more areas). The result is an improved product at the planning stage and the finding of solutions for most problems. The overall structure of the Design Workshops is always tailored to the project’s problems and customer needs. At CrustLab, this process is constantly evolving much like the products we design.
Business analysis
Even the best ideas have some gaps and defects which can be considered to have great business importance. Use business analysis to discover each of them and solve most of your potential problems before the development work begins. A properly conducted business analysis will allow you to gather valuable information on the characteristics of the market, your competitors, the expectations of your product users, the financial side of the project, risks, and possible solutions. Thanks to business analysis, you will learn new things about your project and look at it from a completely different angle.
Product design benefits
Choosing the right product design partner will give you many benefits. The advantages of working with CrustLab are:
A refined product
Our product designers will find gaps in your idea before the development phase starts.
Collected data
During the product design process, you will collect data that will help you understand the market, users, and your product even better.
Risk minimization
Identifying pain points at an early stage will avoid additional costs and unnecessary frustration at a later stage.
Product workshops
For customers whose products are at an early stage and are not yet fully thought out, we offer Product Workshops. During these three days, our product designers will help you discover all the question marks around your product using business analysis. Thanks to Product Workshops, you will discover the needs of your customers, learn about possible product development paths and create a ready-made action plan.
Business analysis
Exposing gaps, and looking for strengths and weaknesses in your product idea, market analysis, and verification of business assumptions.
User’s needs
Defining a target group, describing Buyer’s Personas, conducting research of user’s requirements, and the Customer Journey analysis.
Making a plan
Defining the scope of the product and prioritization of the work based on the collected information. Preparing wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes.
Product Workshops’ elements
The methods we use to conduct Product Workshops are always tailored to the client’s needs and the specifics of the business. After a more general first conversation with the client, we suggest the next steps. A wide range of methodologies such as Desk Research, Business model Canvas, Buyer Personas, Customer Journey, Job To Be Done, Model Kano, and many others, gives us a set of tools for every challenge.
Product Workshop plan
The schedule of each Product Workshop is not fixed. Most often, we adapt the plan to both the client’s needs and to the needs of the product. Usually, however, the workshops last three days. Three days of truly intensive work.
Day 1
- General interview
- Business Analysis
Day 2
- Conclusions
- Wireframes & UX/UI design
Day 3
- Summary & Prioritization
- Development plan
Composition of the Design Workshops
We try to choose the meeting participants so that the following key personnel are present: – At least one person with business knowledge from client side – At least one person with technical knowledge from client side And from our side: – Project Manager – At least one software developer – At least one Product Designer We find that the more people who participate in the Product Workshops, the longer the information feedback loop is and the workshops are much less effective
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The results of product design
Cooperation with our Product Designers is aimed at creating Wireframes, low-fidelity mockups, and high-fidelity mockups in the next steps. Ultimately, they constitute a comprehensive sketch of your product, which is ready to start development work.
Initial and very general product sketches. They present the initial information architecture and demonstrative UI design elements. The appearance of the product may change at this stage.
A more refined version of the wireframes presenting the suggested appearance of individual interface elements and pre-prepared content. The product still may change at this stage.
A final, refined version of the design. It contains the final shape and behavior, the finite content, and the colors of all the elements of the product. At this stage, the product does not require any corrections and is ready to start the development phase.
What do our designers do?
The work of a product designer touches upon various aspects of product development. Often this is concept development work that requires in-depth research and business analysis. Other times, it focuses on designing graphic elements. And sometimes the need is to create animations. Whatever your needs, our product designers are waiting to help you!
We will design your product from scratch, bearing in mind the specifics of the business, user needs, and the latest product design trends. If you already have an idea, we will help you refine it. We will expose weaknesses and indicate possible solutions.
Designing a clear user path within your application. Our goal is to create a positive User Experience so that your customers are more likely to use the product and are willing to recommend it to their friends.
The process of designing the User Interface is creating the actual layout of your application. Prepared mock-ups present the shape and color of individual elements, and present the content, creating a full product design.
The concept and UX / UI design elements allow you to create a clickable prototype of the designed product. The prototype takes into account not only all graphic elements of the product but also animations and transitions between individual screens.
Product design platforms
We design products for various platforms. Our project designers work every day on the design of custom web applications, native mobile applications, and hybrid apps. We are happy to undertake IoT projects that require design adaptation to work effectively with smart devices.
Web apps
Mobile apps
Tv app
Wearables
IoT
Product design tools
Sketch
Prototyping, vector-based tools for user experience design.
Xd
Prototyping, vector-based tools for user experience design.
Figma
Prototyping, vector-based tools for user experience design.
After Effects
Visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing.
Lottie
Visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing.
Adobe CC
Set of apps and services used for graphic design.
Software development company case studies
Have a look at some of our product design case studies. Please note that due to confidentiality agreements we cannot show all of the work we’ve completed.
Cooperation models
Depending on your needs, we offer different models of cooperation. If you do not have an in-house IT department, we can recommend you hire a Product Development team, which is a great way to save time and money and give you peace of mind resulting from the awareness that experts do your product development. For companies that have their own IT department, we recommend Staff Augmentation which fulfills a lack of knowledge of a specific technology, experience in a given industry or wanting to speed up development work and increase efficiency.
Product development
An agile team covering all the skills is needed for valuable custom Digital Product development. Hire experienced team of Web & Mobile Developers, Project Managers, Designers, Testers, and DevOps who understand how to solve your business challenges.
Staff augmentation
Strengthen your team with external software development experts. We offer a pool of talented programmers, designers, testers, managers, and others ready to join in and boost your software development!
Trusted by leading brands
There is no better recommendation than the opinion of a satisfied customer. See what founders and managers say about cooperation with CrustLab.
CrustLab consistently adds value to our organization in many ways. We’ve received very positively feedback on the system CrustLab has delivered. Our customers regard it as an excellent product. Our experience working with them has far exceeded those of other vendors.
CrustLab’s implementation of our solutions has almost doubled our revenues. All aspects of cooperation were very good. I felt that we were treated as very important clients because we received a very high standard of service. The team delivered the results at the time and budget.
CrustLab successfully delivered a product that was able to maintain its performance despite some sudden surges in the site’s traffic. Thanks to their experience and ability to predict problems, we found solutions and built the project on time.
We take advantage of CrustLab’s experience in the field of payments, new functionalities, and user-friendly design. The development process itself ran smoothly and according to plan. It was important for us to complete the project on time, so I cannot imagine a better partner for this project.
We are really satisfied with the cooperation with CrustLab. Very good technical skillset, good communication, and work done on time! After creating a customizable widget, we entrusted them with redefine of another application, and the results are splendid.
The team provided professional services that added value to the core functions of the business. They were fast and felt like our internal IT department, working during the night when we were deploying important features. That was fantastic, and I’m happy they’ve worked with me.
We finished an MVP in 3 weeks. It was very valuable that CrustLab was able to evaluate the feasibility of our solution and estimated the effort and cost that was required to request the funding. CrustLab can be a business partner in addition to an excellent software development agency.
I was looking for a design team that had experience in sports betting. CrustLab helped me complete a full UX design project for my product. It was a very collaborative process, which is what I wanted. When I’m ready to do my next project, they’re going to be my first phone call.
The best part of working with CrustLabs was their attention to detail in every development process step. They were great about taking the initiative to suggest new enhancements and features that our product owners hadn’t thought of and sharing with us the best practices.
We hired CrustLab to introduce several modifications to improve one of the Pocco Finance apps and integrate it with the new version of the SDK. The project was completed on time and in line with the planned budget. I strongly recommend CrustLab as a software partner.
This team is hungry, sharp, “on it” and very customer-focused. I had no idea that I could find such great help from the other side of the world – especially a firm that could understand our product requirements even though I’m not a tech product manager.
Our cooperation with CrustLab concerned body leasing. They offered us highly skilled and experienced Android developers. I am fully satisfied with the ease of contact, the speed of completing the formalities, but most of all of the man they recommended to us.
Contact us and get a free project estimation!
Let’s talkFrequently Asked Questions
In this section, we have collected questions that are repeated during conversations with you, our customers, and using these questions, we have explained some key terms that may raise doubts. We hope you find the information below helpful. If you have any questions, please write to us!
- What is a product design service?
The product design service aims to create a final product for a business that will be sold to its customers. By creating a product one should understand much more than the development process itself. This term also includes the phase of ideation, which consists of a thorough analysis of ideas and assumptions of the project, such as specific functionalities, methods of monetization, or a promotion strategy and reaching a selected target group. Only knowing these arrangements does the product designer design the graphic layer by creating the User Interface, and arrange all previously selected functionalities in it. Product design requires close cooperation of a graphic designer, developers, and the owners of the project, which may or may not be the client himself.
- What are the stages of product design?
The product design process may vary in different companies. In CrustLab product design consists of several phases and includes activities such as:
- Verification of project ideas and assumptions – defining the proper shape and functionality of the product, division of work into individual tasks, and determining the order of their implementation.
- Design of the MVP version – this stage does not always occur in the process, but often the creation of a Minimum Viable Product is the starting point for further product development.
- The design of the graphic layer – is related to the frontend layer used by the end-user, it includes the colors and shape of individual elements, but most of all it consists of designing a positive User Experience and nicely looking User Interface.
Once the product design stages are done, all project assumptions depicted by the designer in the form of mockups or clickable prototypes with user interactions and motion design, are passed to the developer (or team of developers) who writes the code and creates the actual product.
- Who is involved in product design?
A group of several people with different skills and roles in the project usually participate in the product design process. Among them are:
- Customer – a person who has an idea for a product.
- Project Manager – a person working on the software house side who manages the entire product design process and all team members.
- Designer – one or several depending on the size of the project – the person responsible for prototyping and UX/UI design.
- Developer – a technical person who uses the knowledge of the technology selected for the implementation of the product to write the source code.
- Tester – a technical person who checks the product written by the developer using manual or automatic tests, looking for errors or inaccuracies in relation to the planned solutions.
It is not a rigid division of roles. It happens that all these people work together, but depending on the project, some positions may be filled by employees of the client’s internal IT department or, for example, the design may be prepared by an external agency. At CrustLab, we provide full product design service with the support of specialists in every area.
- What is the difference between Product Design and Software Development?
Product Design and Software Development are the phases two custom software development interfere with each other. Once Product Design is finished, you should expect to receive the following:
- Product Canvas
- Description of personas
- User Journey Map
- Prioritization chart
- Clickable prototype
- Visual Design – User Interfaces and Motion Design
Based on that materials developers act as a key team during the Software Development phase. In a timeline, Product Design needs to be started before the Software Development phase but it does not have to be finished – developers could start the creation of your mobile application, web service, or some custom software before the design phase is complete. On the other hand, the design could change a little during development, based on technical feedback from the software developers.
- What do your design team and their experience in app design look like?
CrustLab employs graphic designers with more than 5 years of experience in designing mobile applications and UX/UI design of platforms operating in a web browser. Their experiences coincide with the focus and portfolio of projects implemented by CrustLab. Our product designers not only worked on betting, health care, e-learning, and financial app design but also on apps for other industries. Technology-wise, they know how to design UX/UI for iOS apps, Android apps, and Web services. When we design apps for an industry in which we do not have enough experience, we support ourselves with the help of constant and proven external partners.
- Should I choose one company for product design and further development?
This state of affairs definitely makes work easier. Designers and developers are often two completely different personality types and work styles. The problems of communication between these two groups are nothing new, although they usually do not arise from the malice of one or the other. By outsourcing product design and further development to one company, you can be sure that you have done everything to facilitate cooperation between designers and developers. It is much easier for them to communicate when working in one office. If team members have experience in working together and know what mistakes to avoid.
- Will you implement the project if I have ready-made mockups designed for the application?
IT companies do not always decide to implement such projects, however, development based on mockups prepared by the client is possible. This type of project will require cooperation between developers and designers who designed mockups. Communication, regular meetings, and shared tools to track project posts will be important. On the other hand, communication problems in such cooperation may be associated with extending the work on creating a product and increasing the total cost of the design product.
- What is the difference between web app design and mobile app design?
The main difference between web app design and mobile app design is the type of device it is run on. The first one works directly in the browser, so the web app design must primarily be adapted to high-resolution monitors. However, mobile phones also use browsers, so web app design should meet Responsive Web Design assumptions. Another difference is technology. Web applications are mainly created using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5, while mobile applications, depending on the operating system, use technologies such as Kotlin, Java, BLE, Swift, SwiftUI, Flutter and React Native. Mobile app design for iOS or Android may differ and require a different skillset from UX/UI designers as well.
- What is a Responsive Web Design?
RWD is a way of designing web applications and websites, thanks to which they work regardless of the device. The layout of such applications is flexible and adjusts its shape to the size of the device used on an ongoing basis, in order to maintain a clear and intuitive User Interface. Responsive Web Design aims to provide users with access and comfort of using their favorite applications at any time. RWD is a response to the popularity and importance of smartphones in our everyday life.
- What are product workshops?
A product workshop is a service during which software development experts from CrustLab work with you on the vision of your digital product. Depending on how advanced your idea is, we help you develop a design, clarify individual functionalities or advise you in choosing the right technology. Product workshops can also be helpful in developing the assumptions of the strategic product side, developing a budget, or selecting a team. Product workshops are a good opportunity to meet and test specialists from the IT company you have chosen to collaborate on product design. Such meetings are usually divided into several meetings for a few hours and are attended by designers, developers, product owners, and the client with employees.
- When do I need product workshops?
Product workshops are a great solution when your product plans are not fully defined yet. When only an idea sprouts in your head, but you do not know how to monetize the product or how to reach the target group, ask specialists who have designed applications many times for advice. During the product workshop, you will learn which technology to choose for the project and which of your ideas are too expensive. Product workshops are also a good and relatively cheap way to test the skills and work style of the company you want to hire to design a product.
- What is UI design?
UI design is an area of design that focuses on the appearance and usability of user interfaces. UI design is often used in the design of web or mobile applications and wherever the user has to deal with the interface, i.e. in most cases when it comes to digital products. Good UI design is thoughtful. It allows you to interact with the product in a simple and intuitive way and makes users use the interface features instinctively. A good UI designer, in addition to a sense of aesthetics, knowledge of trends and graphic programs, and design skills, should also have skills such as: conducting research, data analysis and statistics, and a lot of empathy.
- What is UX design?
UX design is a field of design that complements the concept of UI design. It is very similar, but in its essence, it focuses not on the interface itself, but on the impressions of users who use this interface. The main challenge for UX design is to make using the application smooth, intuitive, easy, logical, and pleasant. UX design is often used in the design of web and mobile applications and everywhere on the Internet, but not only. UX design is used in various aspects of our lives and is designed to make it easier for us to use devices of various types so that we can leave a pleasant feeling after it.
- What is a mockups design?
Designing mockups is an inseparable element of product design. It is a service that can be performed by product designers working in the software house, who is responsible for the overall implementation of the project, or by an external design agency. Designing mockups can be divided into two rounds. The first is the design of low fidelity mockups, which only indicate the location of individual elements. The second is the design of high fidelity mockups, which are much more accurate and show not only the placement of elements but also their exact dimensions, colors, and mode of operation. Based on the designed mockups, developers write the source code of the application or software and create the final version of the product.
- What is mobile-first design?
Mobile-first design is a design approach, which aims to help index the application or website in the Google search engine. According to Google reports, more and more people use the Internet using mobile devices every year. As a result, Google introduces a requirement that each website or web application should be optimized so that it can be used with a smartphone. Mobile-first design is a way of designing web applications with a view to correctly displaying the product first on a mobile device, and then in a web browser.
- What is MVP design?
MVP means Minimum Viable Product and this is the initial version of your product which only contains the functionalities necessary to launch the product to the market. MVP design is the process of designing such a version of the product. It is used in many cases, including when you want to test your idea as soon as possible and collect feedback from users to be able to create the next version. Often, MVP design is used in situations where the client has a limited budget and can only afford the basic version of the product, thanks to which he will try to raise funds for further development.
- What technologies do you use for product design?
There are a lot of tools, also free ones, for prototyping applications and preparing mockups of digital products. When we work on the design of a product, we use various tools, depending on the project, the preferences of the people involved, or the arrangements with the client. The permanent sets of technologies that we use in product design include Adobe CC, Sketch/Adobe XD/Figma, After Effects/Lottie, and more.
- How does product design help in business?
Compliant with the principles of UX/UI, thoughtful and carefully made design can bring a lot to your business. You can use the design product in the design of websites, web applications, and mobile applications. Thanks to the product design service, you will successfully plan not only the appearance, functionality, way of implementing your application but also its business goals, strategy to reach the target group, or possible methods of monetization. At CrustLab, we have experience in designing web and mobile applications, sports totalizers, self-service cash registers, free-standing terminals, and slot machines.
- How much does the product design cost?
There is no single answer to the question of product design costs because each project is priced individually. The price of a product design is influenced by several factors, but most of all it results from the size of the team and the working time that individual specialists have to spend on its implementation. Product design costs will be different if we involve more than one designer. If the project concerns a mobile application, the entire process will be different, depending on the technology that the customer decides. For an accurate quote for your product, please contact us.