Design-Led Product Visioning

The why’s, what’s, and how’s of crafting a product story

Photo by Matt Noble on Unsplash

Whether you call it a product vision or north star, crafting a story of where you‘re going and why you’re going there is crucial to the team’s success. Luckily, designers are in a unique position to not only craft this vision, but also bring it to life.

Reasons for crafting a product vision

• Create a shared reference point from which to craft a winning product strategy
• Inspire the team and help make sense on how their individual contributions ladder up to a larger whole
• Surface questions earlier on and open up space for key discussions
• Obtain buy-in from leadership, particularly important when discussing allocation of resources and further investment
• Spark potential collaborations with other teams when communicated broadly

What a product vision can look like

North stars don’t have too be one-size-fits all, depending on your strengths as a designer, they can take the following forms:

• Lightweight post (a couple of paragraphs)
• In-depth article (perhaps a Medium post!)