What is a ‘Digital Product’? And why many people concern about it?
What is ‘Digital Product’? In as human speak as possible — in the style of trying to explain to our mother what we do — here goes…
A Digital Product is a software enabled product or service that offers some form of utility to a human being. And digital product design involves creating software based products through research methods, art, and psychology for a variety of industries and markets. Using these methods and practices allows a digital product designer to create a better experience for customers and users.
Here are real world examples. Everybody knows Gojek and Grab (In Asia) or Uber (Globally). Gojek, Grab and Uber is defined by Wikipedia as “a peer-to-peer ride sharing, food delivery, and transportation network company” but we might better describe it as a very clever agency, who creating no value other than connecting people with what they want, when and where they want it.
The complexity in this ‘things’ example is ‘which is the product?’. Is it the taxi ride or the application? As far as the customer is concerned the product is access to the ride, the ride itself and how it’s paid for; for the driver it’s access to customers, how they get paid and the terms and conditions of ‘membership’. Gojek, Grab and Uber has inserted itself into a complex ecosystem involving a ready-made infrastructure of roads, taxis and their drivers, payment services, mobile phone networks and mobile phones. Gojek, Grab and Uber’s success derives from its ability to create a marketplace that balances the needs and negotiating power of buyers (riders) and sellers (drivers). In theirs (Gojek, Grab and Uber) case, this involves smart software that exploits the features of the mobile phone, clever business design and a degree of coercion. Let’s stop right there. It’s complicated because digital products don’t sit still. But… let’s make it simple. Some products and services are made up mostly or entirely of software. This is the software that is eating the world as almost all businesses come to be digitised and run on software.
The digital touchpoint through which a human interfaces with said product or service can sit on many types of platforms and devices. Things are slowly moving beyond the visual interface towards the more natural form of conversational interface. Such examples are speaking with your Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant or accessing services in written conversation in your messaging app. As you are interacting with the product it does more than simply display information, as say a marketing website does. Complex interactions take place between the part you use (the front — end) which is integrated into the wider system that runs the service in its entirety (the back — end). This means software is core to it all.
This is why digital product is becoming so popular. With digital product literally can do everything in once such as digital products help us find things, help us do useful work, help us to play & learn, alone or together, can provide agency, access and exchange, and enable us to sense events in both the logical and physical world and to respond and so influence outcomes.
Last words…
Almost all ‘clients’ are becoming heavily and more concern about software driven because user or buyer loved it. So, client demand has shifted towards the actual delivery of digital products and services into market, rather than just the strategy behind or marketing of them. In addition, ‘design’ has become recognised as a critical factor in creating successful products and services.
Contributor: Deta ayudhia sari
