How do you get inspiration for product design when it comes to designing a new product?

Inspiration depends on what we're building, but the worst thing we can do is only look at what competitors are doing. That's how you build a faster horse. At BILL, we pull from two places: Within the industry. Competitors tell you the baseline, what users already expect. Useful for parity, not differentiation. Outside the industry. This is where the interesting stuff lives. If we're designing a complex workflow, we look at how consumer apps handle the same cognitive load. If we're building notif ...Read More

Designing a new product is so cool, but also daunting cause it's just a... blank... canvas. Understand the user’s world: I believe inspiration begins with empathy. Try to immerse yourself in the user’s environment and tasks. If possible, I’ll shadow potential users or simulate their day-to-day. For example, when working on a product for sales reps, I actually sat in on sales calls and used a CRM for days to feel their pain. This firsthand experience often sparks ideas for design – you notice “Wo ...Read More

The most successful products I've worked on – and especially 0 to 1 products – have come out of a close Product-Design relationship, from start to finish. Instead of feeling that you have to have a full-fledged layout to hand over to your Design partner (per the question subtext), why not bring them into your mind space and design it together? Manage your own defensiveness. Allow biases to be challenged, gaps to be identified, and conceptual pressure testing from a different functional perspecti ...Read More

It sounds like you're potentially looping your designer in too late. They should be there early to help you think through competitors, potential inspiration in the market, and help you learn from users. Getting a user's first explanation of their painpoints is one thing, but you will develop your understanding of their painpoints by showing them potential solutions (that you and your designer work on together). That all said, if I'm short of immediate inspiration, I like to look laterally, outsi ...Read More

Once I've gathered and documented a summary of user insights, market and competitive context, and product requirements, I focus on mapping out the key user workflows. This helps clarify what the product needs to do and frames the conversation with design around function and flow.If the product is part of an existing platform, I reference similar internal patterns or flows to maintain consistency. It also gives us a concrete starting point, rather than beginning from scratch.Before jumping into f ...Read More

Even before visuals, clarify what experience needs to exist for the user to succeed. Write a “day in the life” narrative for your user, showing how they’ll use your product to complete the job. Draw a low-fidelity journey map with key steps and emotions: What should they feel at each point (relief, confidence, momentum)? Explore Adjacent Product Spaces. What tools does your user love and trust - what tools do you love and trust? Think about the patterns of onboarding flows, core experience, valu ...Read More

I am not a product designer by trade, but do find in PM you need to understand what UX taste is and create compelling products to achieve your business outcomes. I find that the way I get this expertise is by experimenting with all different kinds of apps, tools, and software. I have a journal where I note "beautiful experiences, automatic experiences, terrible experiences, and avoid experiences". By noting what I love to use and why I can recall these patterns for when I need to craft a solutio ...Read More