Design concepts guide

Products are defined by economists as made, or manufactured, objects, typically created in a factory setting. They tend to be single-instance interactions between buyer and seller. If you go to a coffee shop and buy a coffee every day, each purchase of that coffee is a new event; the coffee is the product, and the product is new every time you buy it.

Economists as a group broadly define products quite literally as something you “can drop on your foot.” This definition, while appropriate, does not address some of the most important things we interact with every day: digital products.

Product-service spectrum

Like the coffee and coffee shop example above, many products and services coexist and serve each other as different parts of systems. Before further exploring the relationship between these two concepts, we can further break products into two broad categories: tangible or traditional products, and digital products. Digital product design has emerged as more and more parts of life are carried out on computerized platforms.

Tangible products

Tangible products are the traditional playing field of design. They are what most people think of when they think of design in general. Tangible products require manufacturing in some way, and can be used in three dimensional space. In the private sector, they include items like coffee cups, while in the public sector, they can be items like driver’s licenses and passports.

Digital products

Digital products include items you may use everyday like word processing programs, photo sharing applications, or database applications like your contacts lists. Government examples include the digital filing system from the US Patent Office, USAJOBS website, Library of Congress’ digital archives.

Products & services work together

In order to determine whether your project needs a product, a service, or a combination of the two, it’s important to recognize and categorize some of these interactions. There are three ways to parse different product-service interactions in the public sector: products that set constraints around categories, products that give access to services, and products that augment services.

Products that set constraints around services

Products like these are used to scope a service so that consumers can use it in pieces, or at certain scales. In the private sector, they include things like insurance services, which can include a certain package of services at a certain price point. In the public sector, they include things like drivers’ license classifications. The service of licensing drivers is the umbrella offering; the classifications allow people to use that service at different levels. For example, CDL drivers are licensed to pilot vehicles over a certain number of axles or a certain weight, while a class C license limits the driver to smaller vehicles.

Products that give access to services

Products like these are necessary to access services. One private sector example is a video streaming interface: without the interface, the video streaming service might exist, but no one would be able to access it. A public sector example is a city’s 311 service (a call center that routes incoming non-emergency requests from citizens via phone calls as well as a mobile app). Without the products of the phone line or the app, the city might offer services for non-emergencies, but residents would not be able to access them.

Products that augment a service

Products that augment a service are not necessarily needed to constrain or access the service, but they do make using the service more delightful or easy. A private sector example is a to-go coffee cup: while coffee can always be served in multiple-use cups, to-go cups, whether multiple or single use, create a different way to use a coffee service. A public sector example includes the Welcome Kit from the Department of Veterans Affairs, mentioned in the “In their shoes” design phase principle. While the Welcome Kit is not strictly necessary for accessing all of VA’s services and benefits, it certainly makes those services and benefits easier, more delightful, and shows higher rates of navigation success for veterans entering the VA system.