Coming up with product ideas is easy (and cheap). The hard part is actually implementing those product ideas and bringing them to life. This is where a seasoned designer or agency can be helpful.

If you’re a builder, the design process can be overwhelming and present challenges, as it’s not always linear. This is why it can be a smart move to receive guidance from a Web3 product or UI Design expert like Avani Miriyala, the owner of Matcha Design Labs (MDL), a remote design agency based in Austin, TX. Avani and her team have worked on many Web3 product design projects throughout the years. These are the 3 most important questions they ask when creating effective product designs.

What problem are we solving?

The first aspect of a product design that Matcha Design Labs addresses is clarifying the problem that the product is solving. It might seem obvious, but it’s easy to fall off-track during the design and build process as teams dive into the nitty-gritty. This is why clearly defining the problem and agreeing upon it as a group is crucial.

Not defining the problem could mean the team ends up solving for the wrong thing. For example, if a builder wants to “upgrade their Send Transaction flow” on a decentralized exchange, the Matcha Design Labs team will dig into the specifics… 

What is wrong with the existing send flow? What issues is this flow causing? Are there points of frustration or confusion? 

These questions help give the Matcha Design Labs team a good foundation to then clearly define the problem. In this case, the problem might be written as such: “Users of Decentralized Exchange X need the ability to quickly digest the Send Flow and send transactions in under 10 seconds.” 

What are the key features?

Answering the “key features” question helps in prioritizing what the team should work on. It prevents designers (and builders) from wasting time focusing on the wrong areas within the defined problem.

To continue with the “Decentralized Exchange X” example from above, the Matcha Design Labs team may want to decide what the appetite of the project is. That means, what are the key features to work on that will solve this problem, and what is out of scope for now?

The appetite could look like this…

Key Features: 

• Ability for the user to know where they are in the process of the Send Flow
• Collapse number of screens to make the flow seem shorter/faster 
• Ability to see a transaction summary screen at the end so the user can confirm the action they are about to take
• Ability to share final transaction details when complete

Out of Scope: 

• Ability to undo a transaction
• Ability to resend or reuse past transaction parameters
• Ability to create repeating transactions 

How does the user experience this?

The third question to keep in mind during the product design process is all about the user’s point of view. One of the best ways to do this is to actually experiment with and try out the product that has been designed. The Matcha Design Labs team is always playing around in dev environments of projects that they’ve designed to truly experience what the user experiences. This technique has been dubbed “empathetic modeling” or “dogfooding.” 

And there you have it! The top 3 questions the Matcha Design Labs team asks themselves in order to create the most effective designs in the Web3 space. To learn more about creating the most effective product designs, you can read the whole article here.