Introduction to Product Design
This past summer, I was a member of the inaugural Youth Council at Character Lab, a nonprofit organization that advances scientific insights to help kids thrive. As an aspiring product designer, it was an invaluable opportunity to work with the product team at Character Lab and learn what it takes to create a new platform from scratch.
Our task was to help design and create the Character Lab Research Network (CLRN) to help connect students with important research via surveys. Throughout the process, I took note of my biggest takeaways from the internship that every aspiring product designer should keep at the forefront of their work.
Honesty & Communication
Prior to this experience, I was a big fan of always giving no-bullshit feedback. Sugarcoating has never been my style and I knew that I wanted to keep that mindset while approaching this project.
I found that my fellow council members also shared this same mindset and we often had our most productive conversations while communicating our honest thoughts and opinions. We weren’t afraid to call out language that could alienate teens or make them uncomfortable. We confidently told the professionals above us at Character Lab what ideas honestly sucked and what felt like the golden ticket to success.
User-First Approach
Always always always consider the user first before anything else in the design process. It was important to me to keep asking myself, “What are the user’s needs? What are the user’s desires? How do we keep the user engaged on the platform?”
It was tempting to consider just what I would personally enjoy or what would be easiest to deploy on the platform. However, that would set the product up for failure. My favorite exercise we did to combat this was seeing Character Lab and the platform from the point of view of our friends, family members, etc.
How Could This Fail?
It is healthy to have lots of optimism and shoot for success while working on a project. However, if you don’t consider what could go wrong, all the hope will be out the door. One of our final exercises on the council was to do some imagining.
“Let’s pretend that the Character Lab Research Network failed. Why would it have failed?”
I had never taken this approach before with other projects and I found it extremely insightful. I was able to call on my no-BS feedback skills and truly explain what the potential weaknesses in the company were. This helped everyone on the team identify longterm weaknesses, not just what seemed like bumps in the design road.
Emphasize Having Fun
One of my favorite parts of the Youth Council sessions was our ice-breaker intros. They were often silly and unhinged activities that brought the team together virtually through Zoom activities. Not only did this start the ideating sessions off on a light and creative note, it also built trust between the team. This allowed us to really believe in each other’s design thinking abilities and know that we were helping to suggest ideas that could alter the success of the project.
Always Be Improving
Always. Be. Improving. Your product is never going to be perfect. It’s going to be ready to be launched at some point but it will never be perfect. The thing I appreciated the most about the team at Character Lab was their willingness to apply our feedback. I have worked with other companies before where serious feedback I gave was only taken as comments instead of suggestions. The team at Character Lab genuinely wanted our help and feedback. They were constantly taking notes on our feedback and ideas and implementing them along the way.
It was truly amazing to see the collection of all our feedback, ideas, and hard work at our last session and reflect on how much we had already improved the product. While the Character Lab Research Network still has a ways to go before launching, I am so grateful I could be a part of the initial process and learn all the ins and outs of product design. I am so excited to see the future of the CLRN and the amazing research that it will help conduct.
