The Product Development Life Cycle is the process of taking a product from an idea to a reality. Products that we interact with in our daily lives be it a mobile phone, a shoe, a pen or even a toothbrush have passed through certain stages during their development. Even a tiny toothbrush that we use in the morning has its design as a result of a lot of brainstorming. Every product, physical or digital, passes through 5 stages during its development. We will discuss them one by one in this blog. Let's head over to the stages without any delay.

Brainstorm

The first stage in the list is brainstorming. It is the stage where the team starts thinking of a lot of ideas to solve a user's problem. It is the stage where you have to look for existing user problems in the market and look out for similar products that are unable to solve the problem. Ux researchers are heavily involved in this stage. They conduct interviews to know the users better.

This is the stage that will define the route for the upcoming 4 stages in the cycle. You have to come up with an idea that will solve a bigger problem than the existing products in the market.

Define

Once you have selected an idea to work on, the next step is to start assigning features to this idea and start shaping this idea into a reality. This happens in the define stage. Here, you ask certain questions to yourself like what will your product do? Who is this for? You will finally figure out the specific problem that your product will solve for the users, thanks to all the research that was conducted in the first stage of the cycle.

Design

This is the stage where designers come into the picture. Here, you will be heavily involved in providing a concrete shape to your abstract product. This will be done by creating a lot of wireframes and prototypes of the app that you want to publish or the website you want to launch.

This is the stage where your skills will be put to test as a designer. You will be creating interactions, buttons, home pages, animations, etc. All this will be done in accordance with the specifications and features from the define stage of the cycle.

Test

As the name suggests, this is the stage where your product is put to test with real users. UX designers and front-end engineers collaborate a lot during this stage to finally shape the idea into its final form. They discuss font colors, interactions, animations, layouts, code, etc.

The feedback acquired from this stage is very important. It can be used to further shape the functionality of the app according to the needs of the target users. You can also jump back to the design and test stages after having feedback from the end user, making PDLC a completely non-linear process.

Launch

The final stage of the cycle is launching your product in the market. This is the happiest time for any team as they finally see their abstract idea shape into a reality and see it solve the problem of the users in the real world.

This might not be the end of the cycle. You will always have a chance to collect a lot of feedback on your product and keep improving and updating.

So, these are the 5 stages involved in the development of any physical or digital product that we come across in our daily lives. It can be a book or even a toothpick. So, next time when you have a wonderful idea to work on just keep these 5 stages in your mind and see your idea flourish into a beautiful reality.

All the best to all the thinkers out there!!!!