Beyond aesthetics: Why go for a full-service digital product development agency
The world has become digital-first, and today, technology plays a major role in our lives. In response to this shift, businesses are increasingly investing in creating ever-better digital experiences that go beyond functionality.
Competitive advantages between businesses have long ceased to be primarily technological — today, functionality can make or break even the soundest value proposition. This is where the fancy, all-poetic concept of being user-centric comes in. By prioritizing user experience and incorporating features that make a digital experience seamless and enjoyable, businesses elevate their chances to succeed.
If you are a business and you’re wanting to create a solid, consistent foundation for your product, design, or code base, with less hassle than building in-house and with expert quality, agencies are definitely your best bet.
Today, everything is a digital experience
A digital experience can encompass a wide range of elements like visual design, user interface, information architecture, and user experience as a whole. The goal of creating a digital experience is to allow users to complete the task they set themselves to do in the most effective, frictionless way.
If, by now, you think that by digital experiences, I mean some fancy, watershed-like experiences, think again: digital experience is any given action we perform on a digital device. It can be ordering dinner while you enjoy Friday evening on the couch, buying office supplies, or managing your business from your phone.
The bottom line is: if the user experience and the product are remarkable (and a million other factors we won’t consider here for the sake of sticking to the purpose of this article), you have a chance to change the status quo and redefine the established order in your industry. Of course, not all digital products are disruptive, but my point is, do you still remember the world before Uber? UberEats? Airbnb? Netflix? These are all examples of digital products/experiences that redefined the way we live. And they did so, not only because of the technology created, but also and maybe mostly, because of the user experience that backed the technology.
A digital experience is more than a nice-looking interface
Creating a good, or better yet, a memorable digital user experience, is so much more than just building a nice-looking interface — it means, first and foremost, understanding the user’s journey and anticipating their needs and pain points. It requires research, testing, and iteration to create a product that truly meets — and hopefully — exceeds their expectations.
Take, for example, the ‘Skip Intro’ and ‘Jump to Next Episode’ buttons on Netflix. Adding these options to the platform was a big leap in improving the user experience altogether. When the company realized that viewers often binge-watched their favourite shows and fast-forwarded through the opening credits manually — the type of insight you get when you carry out sound User Research –, Netflix catered to the needs of its users, making the user experience smoother and more seamless. These buttons have since become popular features on the platform and have been adopted by other streaming services with a big impact on the industry’s user experience trends.
The fast track to creating digital experiences
Building a digital experience typically involves a multidisciplinary team that includes designers, illustrators, front-end developers, back-end developers, and project managers. The team works together to build a cohesive, enjoyable experience that meets the needs of the target audience. Hiring such a cross-functional team to build a digital product is a daunting endeavour, and that’s where full-service digital agencies that do product development make a difference.
Full-service digital agencies that specialize in creating digital products, like mobile apps, web apps, native apps, e-commerce apps, and websites, come in all sizes and shapes. They are the go-to choice for businesses looking for a consistent foundation for their product in terms of design and/or code base.
Working with a full-service digital agency in product development provides a business with a compound set of skills dedicated to the project that they would otherwise have to hire separately — web design, product strategy, web development, mobile development, back-end development, and the list goes on. Experienced agencies also offer the experience of being in the digital product development game for a long time. They have been there, they have done it, multiple times. Most likely, they will be able to anticipate problems way before they actually exist.
Strategy, the fundamental starting point
The best digital agencies take into account a business’s needs — they look into industry trends, research through data, and talk to users. They make data-minded decisions to create products based on a business’s business model, but mostly the needs of users. Each product has different audiences with different needs, different emotions, so every project is unique. There are no templates, no frameworks, no shortcuts — everything is created from scratch. After the product strategy has been fine-tuned, it’s time to start building — the designers then start creating wireframes, visual designs, and user interfaces for the product, which developers implement by writing the code, testing, and integrating the different software components that may be necessary to that specific product.
From ideation to product launch
One of the main advantages of working with digital agencies is that they provide end-to-end solutions: from product ideation and strategy to the design, development and launch of the product. To this, add expertise in each of the product development stages, and your odds of creating something memorable escalate. The ongoing support and expertise in the entire product development scope (strategy, design, development, launch) that agencies provide are usually major incentives for hiring a digital agency.
Another major incentive to work with a digital agency is that it allows for a faster time-to-market. A full-service digital agency has all the necessary resources — human, technological and skills-wise — in-house, usually with a dedicated Project Manager. This makes them more agile and capable of delivering faster, which can be especially important for companies looking to launch a new product or service quickly.
In essence, if you are a business and you’re wanting to create a solid, consistent foundation for your product, design, or code base, with less hassle than building in-house and with expert quality, agencies are definitely your best bet.
Significa is a digital product agency based in Porto, Portugal. We take ideas and product concepts as input and work with our partners to develop the entire product lifecycle. To learn more about our portfolio and the services we provide, please visit our showcase. We are proud of the work we have done and look forward to continuing to create innovative digital products.
Follow up for more matosinhos.tech content✌️
