The future of product design has never been more exciting. Generative design algorithms promise to fundamentally change the design process, forcing humans to take a step back and merely set parameters, instead of getting down into the nuts and bolts. And big data is also making its effect known by increasingly setting the agenda, often contrary to the instinct of designers themselves.

Nobody is suggesting that product designers are going to be out of a job in five years (or even ten). But if you want to get to the top of this competitive field, you’ll want to significantly up your game.

Here are some of the ingredients of a successful product design career.

Apply Long-Term Thinking

Product designers often feel like they need to create a product of the moment. But when you look around at the world’s most successful consumer goods, you typically find that they change relatively little over time. The original designers stumbled upon a form that worked, leaving subsequent generations to iterate on it slowly.

The best example of this is probably the humble drinks can. The fundamental design remains practically unchanged from fifty years ago because nobody has been able to come up with anything better. Sometimes simple is best - and top product designers recognize this.

Get Training

Product designers aren’t artists working in a vacuum. Instead, they’re specialists who need to understand the structure of their craft.

Taking a GD&T course online, therefore, can substantially increase your skill and value. The more you understand about tolerances and processes, the better able you are to craft designs that scale.

Get Feedback

Designers shouldn’t work in a bubble, only sharing ideas with each other. Instead, they should seek out feedback wherever possible to make sure that they’re on the right path.

Product designers aren’t just working to create great products that fulfil a function. Instead, they need to create objects that will appeal to their target audience more than their competitors.

Take the motherboard industry, for instance. Mainstream manufacturers simply churn out boards with no consideration of aesthetics. They are going to be inside giant servers, so who cares what they actually look like? - so long as they work.

Niche brands that cater to the enthusiast market, however, must pay close attention to how their products look. Many gamers have computer cases with glass panels they look through to view all the juicy, high-quality components inside.

Don’t Confuse Advantages With Features

Designers will often conflate advantages with features. But when it comes to selling a product in the market, consumers love the latter and couldn’t care less about the former.

Creating a product with advantages is easy, but not always what customers want. Samsung learned this the hard way in its battle against Apple in the smartphone market. Consumers wanted phones that provided particular features, not those that loaded games half a second faster. More powerful components simply weren’t relevant to them.

Being a great designer, therefore, is all about staying useful and focused on the task. Think about the needs of the consumer and the manufacturing process.