Projections show the potential for digitalization to grow to $1,009.8B by 2025. Moreover, Gartner says IT spending will be $4.6 trillion worldwide in 2023, with an increase of 5.1%.
This is the context for the increasingly important role of B2B Design in the context of Digital Transformation. While design can determine if a company succeeds or not, its role in the B2B world is more important than ever.
To be good at it, you need to understand the unique challenges and considerations that go with it. Let’s take a look at complex B2B operations concerning design!
What is B2B Design?
Unlike Business-to-customers (B2B), Business-to-business (B2B) Design is the process of designing products and services for business operations.
In this context, the concept of a product can range from office supplies to software products, and it focuses on catering to the unique needs of business customers.
As businesses are constantly looking for customized solutions for their operations, designing B2B products has some rules that are different from those for B2B ones.
While in B2C products, teams focus on understanding user behavior, which often includes acknowledging emotions and desires, B2B applications are more related to streamlining long-term operations while aligning with each client company’s business strategies.
B2B Product Design Rules
Audience Knowledge for B2B Product Design
Understanding your customers’ purchase decision processes is the core element to delivering the products that help them reach their goals.
B2B users demand trust and credibility from a strategic standpoint, seeking tools and products that meet their specific needs of easing procedures without compromising long-term quality compliance.
The user base of B2B digital products is often made of decision-makers, so make sure you consider their complete workflows to develop the products they can rely on when driving business growth!
Design Applicability for B2B Product Design
When designing a complex B2B product, ensuring an engaging User Interface is key! Yet, you’ll also need to ensure consistency across all touchpoints.
This sense of consistency also needs to convey professionalism. Would you trust a product with lousy UX design with your company’s data? I don’t think so!
Developing a trustworthy design system can be the key starting point to ensure your design communicates centralized streamlined operations and goal achievement.
Business Relationships for Product B2B Design
While driving business growth, the B2B buying process has its nuances, and one of those is that approval processes and product definition take time.
As B2B users undergo several evaluations before the purchase decision, it’s key your digital product can stand up to scrutiny.
There are some key ideas to take into consideration to address any objection in the early stages to ensure your product is the right choice in a sea of B2B applications:
- Understanding company customers' needs and pain points.
- Researching industries, processes, and success metrics.
- Ensuring compliance with reliability and quality requirements.
- Guaranteeing ease of use and integration into existing systems.
- Keeping straightforward UX design that eases goal achievement.
What Sets B2B Product Design Apart?
While it must assess the purchase decision, B2B strongly considers the user base’s journey. Here, User Research for B2B is essential to offer potential solutions to existing problems.
Likewise, B2B applications have a specific complexity related to specific features, processes, and functions that specific niches need to thrive. Yet, simplicity in the UX design is crucial to delivering easy-to-use products that facilitate reaching business goals.
In the short term, your product needs to be understandable for companies and B2B users to work with it daily without interference. Pay attention to your User Interface design to make operations simpler.
While often associated with its final individual users, it’s key to contemplate that complex B2B products must highlight usability for all team members of a company, from a Data Analyst to a Product Manager.
Conclusion
When designing business products, there are a few key things to remember. It’s not just about meeting the needs of a specific market but also considering product ease of use.
Aesthetics can often take a backseat to functionality and usability. Yet, B2B products need to contemplate both!
By focusing on business processes and allowing multiple team members to work with your product, you’ll deliver the solutions businesses worldwide are looking for!
