How To Become a Product Designer? - Explained Everything

The services and products that are available in the market for consumers to explore require mindful designing, which addresses structural issues, utility-related concerns, user safety, and many more aspects. Product designers are the professionals who are responsible for envisioning and further designing prototypes for the envisioned products. With several subdomains to venture into, product designers are highly demanded professionals who play a crucial role in enhancing user experience and quality of life. 

As a career domain, this field is quite vast and diversified, and is open to aspirants from both technical and non-technical backgrounds. The ease of entry into the field, the lucrative career opportunities available, appealing compensation etc. are some of the key reasons to consider this domain. Through this blog, we delve into each of these aspects and analyse whether the career of product design is the right fit for you. 

Why Choose a Career in Product Designing?

Product designing is quite a vast career domain which is open for entry to both non-technical and technical professionals. Additionally, it offers a number of professional advantages to professionals which make it a choice worth considering. Some of the prime reasons making product designing an attractive career choice are enlisted below. 

• High Cross-Industrial Demand: The demand for product designers are as high and varied as the products available in the market. Hence, a product designer has employability in the FMCG sector, technology and IT related domains, healthcare, fashion, automotive industries and so on.  
• Lucrative Compensation: Product designers are quite lucratively compensated in both India and international markets, making it a financially appealing career to consider for stabilizing your future. 
• Integration of Technology & Creativity: Product designers get the opportunity to put their creative skills and competence to use by blending it with technical competence to create impactful designs.   
• Scope for Entrepreneurship: Product designers have an enormous scope of coming up with innovative design and product ideas capable of making an impact on the quality of life of customers and can start up with their own entrepreneurial ventures, thus keeping both full-time employment and entrepreneurial opportunities open for themselves.  
• Multiple Specialisations to Explore: Product designers can explore diverse specialisations including those like industrial designing, manufactured products designing, digital product designing, automotive product designing and so on. 

Roles & Responsibilities of a Product Designer

Having explored why one should consider taking up a career in product designing, we shall now look into the primary responsibilities associated with this role. Primarily, as the job title suggests, a product designer is involved in the various stages of developing a prototypical design for a product (technical/non-technical), deploying it for the creation of the actual product, and further improving upon the prototype to address user concerns and pain points. In the diagram below, we have listed a few of the prime responsibilities associated with this job role. 

Key Skills Needed for Product Designing

The required competency profile which make a candidate suitable for this role includes a combination of both technical and non-technical soft skills. Product designers are professionals who require both creative and technical prowess to succeed in the role, and this section taps into the major skills needed to succeed in this profile. 

1. Technical Skills & Knowledge to Succeed as a Product Designer

While non-technical professionals can also explore product designing opportunities, a basic degree of expertise is needed by them to succeed as product designers, including the ability to work on designing software to come up with attractive and appealing 2D and 3D designs. Elaborated below are some of the prime technical skill areas for this role.  

Key Skills	Specifications
Designing Softwares	Having thorough proficiency using designing softwares like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, AutoCAD, Fusion 360, etc.
Prototyping & Wireframing	Being skilled in the development of 3D prototypes as well as physical prototypes for the testing of designs
UI & UX	Having conceptual understanding of the key domains of user experience and user interface (UI-UX), along with areas like humane designs, usability testing, etc.
Manufacturing Processes	Having a robust understanding of the nature of materials, standard manufacturing processes, best practices in the designing industry, etc. (Critical for Industrial Product & Physical Designers)
Graphic Designing	Ability to use designing softwares and tools to create visually impactful and appealing designs for prototypes of products.
Frontend Development	Being familiar with the basics of coding and frontend development for working on digital products (Critical for Digital Product Designers)
User Testing	Using various testing methodologies including the likes of A/B Testing, Heatmaps, user surveys etc. to gather user inputs and feedback about the product and validate the design to match user needs.

2. Soft Skills to Succeed as a Product Designer

In addition to competence in technical areas, a product designer must also possess certain key soft skills.  Creativity and innovation are at the heart of this role, along with effective skills of interpersonal communication. Further details about the crucial soft skills for this role are elaborated below. 

Key Skills	Specifications
Creativity & Innovation	Being able to envision solutions and come up with novel and creative ideas for the designs of products which further drives innovation.
Problem-Solving Aptitude	Being adept at interpreting problems and brainstorming to identify the best potential solution to them, as well as effectively implementing them to drive success and seamless delivery.
Collaboration & Teamwork	Coordinating and communicating effectively in cross-functional teams to enhance the efficiency of problem-solving harmoniously.
Communication Skills	Being adept and articulate in the communication of design ideas to stakeholders and persuading them to obtain their buy-ins.
Attention to Detail	Being attentive to fine and macro aspects of the product design, quickly identifying errors, and ensuring accuracy and precision in the designing of product prototypes.
Time Management	Managing multiple deadlines for product deliverables as well as managing multiple product designs simultaneously without compromising the quality of outputs.

What are the Career Opportunities in Product Designing (Types of Options available in Product Designing)

As already highlighted, product designers can choose the specific domain that they wish to specialise in, which can range from technological product designing, automotive products and parts designing, interior designing, manufactured products, software designing and so on. As a result, there are multitude of career opportunities available to product designers to explore. Both technical and non-technical domains in this field are well-compensated for freshers as well as experienced individuals, making it an appealing domain concerning available opportunities. 

The field has accessible entry, as creative individuals with due technical skills can explore roles in product designing in their chosen industry. Enlisted below are a few of the major job domains in this field that one can explore as a product designer. 

Career Option	Average Salary (Per Annum)
Industrial Designer	INR 7.45 LPA
Product Designer	INR 11 LPA
UI/UX Designer	INR 5.5 LPA
Interaction Designer (IxD)	INR 9.5 LPA
Visual Designer	INR 7.5 LPA
Design Researcher	INR 15 LPA
Design Consultant	INR 7 LPA
CAD Technician	INR 4.49 LPA
Interior Designer	INR 3.07 LPA

Career Analysis: Scope of Product Designing

In addition to analysing the nature of the job, it is also of due importance to look into the industrial trends and demands around the role before one chooses their career path. In this section, we walk you through the scope of a career in product designing in terms of its industrial demand, the financial investment that goes into becoming a product designer and the scope of growth over years for this profile. 

1. Fees & Cost Involved in Becoming a Product Designer

When it comes to education in product designing, there are a variety of open-source courses as well as full-time courses available to upskill in the domain. Several renowned online courses by well-known institutions and organisations are also available to pursue free of cost on MOOC platforms, while colleges and universities across the nation also provide full-time degrees like B.Des and M.Des in this domain as offerings. 

The financial investment required to become a product designer is contingent upon the type and level of the course that you take up, the institution from which you pursue it, as well as the mode you choose. Several online degree courses in UI/UX designing, product management, product designing, game designing, etc., are available in India to pursue in the fully online mode, with fees that are relatively more pocket-friendly than the offline counterparts. Some of the popularly available online courses in product designing are listed below. 

Product Designing Courses	Approximate Course Fees
Bachelor of Design (B.Des) in Product Designing	INR 3,50,000
Master of Design (M.Des) in Product Designing	INR 6,00,000
Microsoft UX Design Professional Certificate	Free to Enroll
Online Certificate in “Product Ideation, Design, and Management Specialization” by the University of Maryland	Free to Enroll
Advanced Certification in UI UX Design by IIIT Bangalore	INR 1,06,200
Professional Certification in Product Management by SPJIMR	INR 1,64,999
Online UX/UI Bootcamp by CalTech	INR 1,06,000
Online Executive MBA for Digital Product & Design	INR 2,00,000
Online M.Des in User Experience	INR 6,50,000
Online Master’s Certificate in Game Design	INR 1,40,000
Google UX Design Professional Certificate	Free to Enroll

2. Career Growth Trajectory of Product Designing 

The career trajectory through years that a product designer can expect is quite appealing, as the salaries one draws can grow by upto 100% over a decade. Furthermore, with added years of experience and expertise in one’s niche, one can expect to get appealing hikes in compensation over time. The expected career growth trajectory for the role of a product designer has been illustrated below based on current statistics of compensation. 

Career Navigator: What Course to Pursue for a Career in Product Designing?

Students and aspirants from both technical and non-technical domains can consider venturing into the domain of product designing, and there are courses at the UG and PG levels available to pursue this. At the UG level, one can consider taking up degrees in a relevant specialisation like designing (for technical and non-technical backgrounds), engineering, and technology (for technical backgrounds). Additionally, one can also consider taking up courses at the PG level, like M.Des, online certifications, executive courses, or PG certifications. 

The career pathway to venture into product designing has been outlined below for students and aspirants. 

Across India, there are a number of design institutions which offer courses at the UG, PG and professional levels for students and working professionals to pursue. Both private and public institutions in India offer courses such as B.Des and M.Des to students to pursue. Some of the eminent design institutions of India have been listed below. 

Conclusion

Product designing is a multidisciplinary and dynamic career domain that offers students and aspirants the opportunity to blend their creative skills and innovation with technical knack to come up with designs of products that can enhance user satisfaction and quality of life. This field is apt for individuals who are looking for a financially stable career, have scope for future growth, and allow an outlet for the creativity of person.