Product Brief

Problem

Definition

A short, succinct definition of the problem (or job), and why its worth solving for both the user and the business. If you can’t explain this in one or two paragraphs then chances are you don’t yet have a clear understanding of why this is something our customers need. Tip: Think about what job the user will be hiring you to serve. You can also frame this using a high level Job Story.

Validation

Qualitative and Quantitative data that proves the above problem or need exists. Intercom, Amplitude, Lookback are all tools that will help with this process.

Solution

User journey map (current experience)

A series of steps a person goes through to accomplish the job/s listed above. For this journey, we focus on current experience (either in product or out) and the pain points they face along the way. These pain points will help us redesign this flow and interactions later on.

Job stories

Create a list of job stories by looking at the journey map above focusing on the pain points along the way. Where are people struggling

When ___ I want to ___ so that I can ____

Competitive analysis

How are competitors doing solving this now? It’s possible the above journey map is of a competitor. Who does it well and where are the opportunities to improve?

How might we

A series of questions each starting with how might we designed to kick start the creating thinking process. Look at the user journey map above and the pain points to identify opportunities. e.g. How might we remove the need to type notes?

Brainstorming

Consider the existing journey, the pain points, the job stories and how might we to start throwing up ideas on a wall. This idea is all about exploration and exploring all paths and is not low level design thinking. e.g. A solution to getting from point A to point B might be a horse and cart, but it could also be a car, a plane, a bike etc Pick one or two to focus on moving forward.

Design principles

A set of principles that will shape the experience. e.g. Invisible.

Golden path (new experience)

A user journey map that is the simplest possible path to satisfy the jobs outlined above using the solutions picked in brainstorming. Consider the existing journey, the pain points, the job stories and how might we. We will eventually use this path to help us create wireframes.

Success metrics

A checklist of KPI’s that prove the solution you’ve created is the right one for the job.

System considerations

How does this fit into our current system? Are there any overlaps? Is there an opportunity to simplify? e.g. A note and a moment are the same thing. What modifications to our system will be required? This will unblock engineering while design focuses on interactions. Tip: Highly recommend reading about “situational segments” here, and systems thinking here.

Wireframes

Use the golden path we defined above to create low fidelity wireframes that will help us explore various interactions along each step.

Prototype

A high fidelity version of our wireframe, created in Figma. We'll test this with our users before touching any front-end code.

Test

Give our #vip customers the above prototype and ask them to achieve a specific goal. How did they do? Any areas we can improve?

Build

Releases

By now your project is well defined and you’ve validated the need for its existence, you also have a solution you can move forward with. Now you can break it down into smaller problems using “Job Stories” as a way of framing them. These stories should be able to be released independently of each other and ideally within a single sprint/cycle. There are three big benefits to this approach:

You’re adding value to your customers more often
You can prove out some of your early assumptions and make any adjustments without committing too much.
Smaller chunks of work are easier to estimate.

Each release relates to a single Jira Story / Basecamp project / Trello card

Tasks

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Market

Bring marketing, support and sales into the conversation early so that everyone is aligned around why this work exists. These departments should start putting together their respective plans around how to best announce and introduce the above releases.

Marketing checklist