What you need to know about digital product development: strategies, pitfalls, and best practices

Due to the digital age, businesses interact with customers in a completely different way today. It is not enough just to set up an online store or a website to go digital. You should integrate user experience, processes, funnels, services, and product deliveries.

Innovations like automation, digital platforms, and open-source software are changing the fundamental nature of work. Artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, data analytics, and the Internet of Things are among the technologies that influence these processes. Many companies seek large-scale change efforts to adapt to these technological developments or remain competitive. All these led to the necessity of digital product transformation, which gives the vision and destination of the product.

In this article, we will examine the core stages of the digital product development process, potential pitfalls, and best practices of DPD. But first, let's dive into the relevance of digital products.

What is considered a digital product?

What is the most distinctive characteristic of digital products? Any digital product brings together the concept of products or services, providing value through the interactive point of view.

The term digital product refers to something that can be created, sold, and purchased online. The delivery of digital products is usually instantaneous after you buy them, instead of being shipped in a box with packing peanuts.

For creative entrepreneurs, digital products provide a fantastic monetization option since they can often be scalable indefinitely. You don't have to create new digital courses or ebooks each time you sell one. Paywalls allow users to access digital products. A creator has a huge advantage here.

However, their simplicity should be understood. There are many digital products on the market, but making a good one takes a lot of work and pitfalls. The digital product market needs to be more saturated, so slapping anything into a PDF and putting a price tag on it will likely attract few customers. The best digital products must be well-researched, well-executed, and constantly improved.

Also, the common types of digital products include mobile apps, SaaS (Software as a Service), software-augmented hardware solutions, and IT solutions.

What is digital product development?

Digital product development transforms an innovative digital product concept into reality by leveraging the best technology to develop and deliver exceptional designs.

The goal of digital product development is to develop an authentically helpful application that serves your customers and provides the most value for your business. A digital product agency with engineers, designers, and project strategists working towards a common goal can help you carry out this work with purpose and confidence.

Investing in digital product development will allow you to provide your end users with the experience they want and need, regardless of whether you are launching a startup or running a successful business.

The digital product strategy - the basis of your business

Creating valuable products and implementing digital transformation requires a digital product strategy. 

The ability to predict the future lifecycle of a product, its value proposition, and the product's target audience allow businesses to make better decisions that will benefit both shareholders and customers.

The path for developing a digital product can help businesses create unique, scalable products. 

On the other hand, vague digital product strategies can impede project development, contributing to the failure of 95% of 30,000 new products launched each year. 

Digital product strategies today include numerous standard components that are considered best practices. The following are some critical aspects of this strategy:

• The product's ability to address the pain points of customers
• Launch details 
• The way it attracts and retains customers
• The method for the product to grow rapidly and sustainably

Anyway, a digital product development approach includes a wide variety and encompasses all the steps of a software product. So, let's take a look at the critical phases of DPDP.

The core stages of the digital product development process

Stage 1: Discovery stage

At this phase of digital product development, the general ideas of the project, the scope of work, the project's terms, and the future product's competitiveness should be determined.

Testing of ideas

In this step, you must determine whether your business idea is viable. It is vital to gather marketing requirements, and analyze your needs and demands, as well as competitive solutions, to define your potential users, avoid possible risks, and make your product unique.

Gather requirements

You should prioritize features and functionality based on your essential needs. In this way, a project backlog and vision are defined.

Defined priority backlog

With accurate detail elaboration, it describes the stack of features and their implementation to meet the needs of end users.

Project vision

It describes the entire project idea. Detailed descriptions of features and essential characteristics will be provided, as well as benefits and strengths your product will offer, along with a short competitive analysis.

Wireframing

When you have the project requirements, you are ready to start creating the product visualization. In most cases, it represents the initial product concept, page structure, layout, information architecture, user flow, functionality, and intended behavior. Furthermore, you can view the minimum level of product styling, color, and graphics.

Infrastructure Architecture

Depending on your business needs, you can choose the best infrastructure architecture. Various modules and development environments enable the operation of a system, the ability to scale, or the capability to support mobile devices.

Estimation of the project

By analyzing your requirements, you can determine the project's cost, time, and resources. Identifying potential risks is crucial for optimizing the budget and minimizing its effects.

Stage 2: Development stage

In this stage, a product is tailored to the client's needs based on the technology stack.

Proof of concept

The purpose of a proof of concept is to test whether the idea is feasible. A minimal working prototype lets you check if the future product's key features will work with the proposed technology.

MVP development

During this stage, you develop a product with only the most essential features and scalable architecture. As a result, the product can be tested, users' feedback is gathered, bugs can be resolved, and the end-users suggestions are integrated into the final product.

Stage 3: Delivery stage

The final stage is where the product is tested, deployed to the production environment, and provided support for the product.

Testing process

A comprehensive testing process is included to ensure bug removal and smooth system operation.

Continual maintenance

All necessary upgrades and improvements will be provided for your digital products. A modern and innovative strategy will meet the needs of a fast-changing business environment and a digital transformation.

Digital Product Development Services

Products develop a business perspective to increase a firm's market share to meet consumer demand. Customer-focused value can be gained by offering quality goods and services to customers.

Digital products help companies become technology companies by providing innovative product teams that deliver digital solutions that can be easily marketed and implemented. The experts help businesses scale up their software business through various services.

The digital product development process includes conceptualizing, designing, prototyping, developing, and delivering new digital experiences to an organization's customers. To make these services effective, users must first understand existing needs, then use technology in new ways. 

Regarding innovation speed, digital product development services offer the most significant business benefits. Fast and agile innovation in sustained product engineering is crucial to engaging customers in a fast-paced and elegant environment. Prototypes for user testing can be developed quickly with effective digital product development services.

EcDev Studio takes your best ideas and makes them real using proven methodologies and research within the realm of design thought and UX/UI. Our engineers know the way users think. Our digital product development can be completed efficiently and effectively. The digital world is not limited to geographical terms. An excellent digital product development firm will increase your visibility and grow your brand globally.

Also, read How EcDev Studio prevents 6 most common problems in software outsourcing

Final thoughts

Digital product development is the architecture of successful products, and their successful execution depends on an aligned operation between managers, designers, engineers, and marketers. An effective digital product strategy must be meticulously and inclusively prepared. It must be premised on factors and variables from different stages of product development, including the team members involved.

While technical requirements are the most challenging, low-code plugin solutions are viable tools to circumvent complex product strategy and development processes, getting companies to plan, build and bring their product to market faster. 

Contact EcDev Studio's development team if you want to create a scalable digital product with effective and easy-to-integrate low-code APIs.