In the first of our blog posts in the understanding product management series, we outlined the key role that product managers face turning commercial and customer needs into a compelling product. In this blog post, we’ll look at one of the most important – and underrated – tools in a product manager’s arsenal: the visual mock-up, and examine how this can be used most effectively to meet many of the typical challenges which product managers face.
What is a mock-up?
A mock-up, simply put, is a sketch of how individual screens on the digital product (be it an desktop application, mobile application, web app etc.) might look. It is a rough sketch: the point is not to indicate how the site will look graphically, but how it will work functionally. It should contain all the buttons, menus, inputs and other functionality that each screen will have.
Here is an example mockup, one of a series created for a B2B client of ours:
A single mock-up is not especially useful, but a collection of the different screens that make up an application are enormously valuable. That’s because collectively, they can be used to see how a user would step through the different workflows that make up an application. (Indeed some mock-up tools let users connect individual mock-up screens to create interactive prototypes of finished products.)
The value of mock-ups
1. Turning customer and commercial requirements into a digital product: fast
There’s a creative leap that product managers need to make to turn a set of commercial and customer requirements into an actual digital product.
Mock-ups are an excellent tool for making that leap. Because different screens can be quickly sketched out, they make it easy for the product manager to start to visualise how the product might work. Better, because they are so quick to produce, the product manager should be able to put together multiple different versions and explore the pros and cons of each.
2. Building consensus around a digital product design from different stakeholders
The most powerful feature of mock-ups is that they are easy to understand. That means that the product manager doesn’t have to make the creative leap by herself: she can share it with other stakeholders including the management team, marketing and business development teams, engineering team and customers, get their feedback, and even have them contribute their own mock-ups to the process. This increases the scope for creativity, and ensures that the finalised design meets all the different stakeholder requirements.
3. Getting users / customers to input into product development as early as possible
As well as enabling product managers to include internal stakeholders in early product development design decisions, mock-ups (and especially prototypes) enable product managers to start testing designs with customers themselves. This take a huge amount of risk out of the development process that the product, on delivery, will effectively meet customer needs, whilst giving customers a chance to contribute creatively to the product design process and influence fundamental design decisions.
4. Starting the product iteration process before the development process
We discussed in the last blog post how the best digital products are constantly iterated, on the bacl of web analytics and customer feedback. Because customers can be involved earlier using mock-ups, initial iterations can be made based on customer feedback.
Because this happens before the development process has, this gives the product manager the maximum flexibility to take customer feedback on board before committing any development budget.
5. Building a technical architecture that meets workflow needs and is flexible enough to adapt
Mock-ups allow the product to progress through several iterations before the technical team must settle on a technical architecture; this means that the technical team will be better placed to select an architecture that, rather than just reflecting current needs, is flexible enough to evolve in the likely directions the product will develop.
When in the product development cycle digital products should be used?
As early as possible! Generally, product managers should start to mock-up potential designs as early in the development process as possible – potentially even before budget has been committed to a product, to help give stakeholders an idea of whether an idea is worth investing in. Mock-ups are best used alongside user stories, so that different stakeholders understand the motivations for different people using the product, and how the workflow in the product meets those user needs.
How should mock-ups be produced?
There is a wide range of applications that let people quickly put together mock-ups, and indeed, some people use good old fashioned paper and pencil. At Keplar, we use Balsamiq Mockups, because it is super quick, super light, and super simple.
Need help turning your commercial and customer requirements into digital products?
At Keplar, we help clients develop and execute digital strategies, including designing digital products (using mock-ups). For more information, drop us an email.
