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Product design complexity

As explained in Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure

Product design complexity is the effort required to design effective and user-friendly product features that address unmet user needs.

Product design complexity measures the effort required to turn discovered unmet user needs into effective, user-friendly features. Effort varies by need and may remain uncertain until design work begins. section 10.2.2

Assess product design complexity by considering:

  • The amount of design exploration required to address the need effectively. section 10.2.2
  • The user-friendliness of proposed solutions, rather than functionality alone. section 10.2.2
  • Input from product and UX specialists when estimating the work. section 10.2.2

Business property tax

Addressing an unmet need in business property tax can require months of wireframes and user testing, illustrating that product design complexity may involve sustained experimentation before a usable feature emerges. section 10.2.2

How Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure covers it

How deep it goes
Explains variable effort and specialist assessment, but stops short of prescribing a detailed estimation method.
Examples
Uses business property tax, months of wireframes, and user testing to illustrate prolonged feature design.
What it assumes
Assumes unmet user needs have been discovered and teaches that designing their solutions can still vary substantially in effort.
What you can do after
Evaluate design effort with product and UX specialists before committing to feature solutions.
How it connects
Connects user needs discovery complexity with domain model design complexity.

Related concepts

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.