Product design has become an increasingly technical process, driven by powerful AI-based design software allowing for complex products to be tested in virtual simulations. This virtualization allows for the product design process to be conducted at speed without sacrificing the accuracy or quality of the final product, as well as eliminating the need for expensive and time-consuming physical prototypes.
In this article, we intend to provide some guidance to those seeking advice on choosing a software platform for product design, enhancing the resources available in the UpCity product design knowledge hub.
Why Do You Need Product Design Software?
At the most basic level, product design is a necessary business task that helps your brand align products and services with your mission and business goals. Much of what product designers focus on in designing products, interfaces, and other product elements is the optimization of the user experience for products, with the intention of creating products that help fulfill long-term business goals. Product design software comes in several varieties to support the different goals that emerge throughout the overall product design process. The overall intent of seeking out a product design software, though, is to first cut down on overall production times by speeding up and improving the virtual testing and redesign process, improving cross-team collaboration, and improving your overall bottom line by minimizing production costs.
Throughout the remainder of this article, we’ll cover the following topics:
- What Are the Different Types of Product Design Supported by Software Tools?
- When Should You Purchase Product Design Software?
- Tips for Choosing the Best Product Design Software
- 10 Recommended Product Design Software Providers
What Are the Different Types of Product Design Supported by Software Tools?
The product design work cycle generates several artifacts and deliverables, including user journey maps, wireframes representing interfaces or organizational layout, prototypes, and high-quality models to give users an idea of what to expect out of the final product or service. Creating these artifacts and deliverables was once something product designers generated manually. Modern software solutions, however, have gone far in easing the tasks of the three types of product design that encompass a bulk of the work done in this business niche.
System Design
Systems are created with the intention of satisfying specific requirements. In order to fully address a system’s design, product designers in system design must address the components, interfaces, architecture, and data necessary to meet the stated requirements. Developing a system and iterating through improvements necessitates altering how the system functions through changes to those components created at the design level. The system design process ideally falls within the seven phases of the system development life cycle (SDLC), outlined here:
- Planning
- Systems Analysis & Requirements
- System Design
- Development
- Integration & Testing
- Implementation
- Operations and Maintenance
System design itself can be broken down into an additional eight steps that support the overall SDLC process:
- Identify the design goals
- Decompose existing systems into smaller steps to understand existing processes and identify gaps
- Identify processes that must receive data concurrently
- Determine hardware and resource allocation
- Establish a method of data management
- Handle global resources
- Determine what method of control implementation you’ll deploy
- Set boundary conditions for testing
Process Design
Businesses often gauge success against their ability to adhere to a cohesive vision and achieve targeted performance metrics. Process design is the process of creating behaviors and systems that help an organization translate its vision and goals into measurable results through the use of available resources. Process design can also identify and help an organization acquire the resources they are lacking to achieve these goals.
Interface Design
Interface design techniques are often attached to software and application interface development projects. In creating software and applications, interface designers have to remember that the user interface is closely tied to the user experience and customer journey. However, the UI design process is tied specifically to what you use to navigate and interact with the product. It’s not only concerned with the visual aesthetics of the interface but also with the mechanics of how users engage with the interface.
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When Should You Purchase Product Design Software?
While there might be limitless use-cases for product design software, the overall unifying reason for introducing one into your tech stack is if you plan to do the majority of your product design in-house versus hiring a third party to do the heavy lifting for you. Like many business tasks beyond sales and daily operations, product design is a service that is easily outsourced, and should only be taken on by your team if that is the service you intend to offer your clients or if you’ve done the cost analysis and it is more cost-efficient to train and develop your existing staff to execute product design with the software of your choice.
There is also a use-case even if you decide to go the third-party route for your product design team. Bringing a simple and easy to use design software into your tech-stack with a simple learning curve can allow your team to more easily alter existing designs, improve the accuracy and efficiency of the overall design process, and improve collaborative efforts with a service provider and participate more actively to maximize development time and minimize overall costs.
Tips for Choosing the Best Product Design Software Solution
As with many software products, introducing a new product design software requires you to take into consideration a number of factors to ensure you’re choosing the right tool for the job at hand.
Choose a Software That will Grow With Your Business
Over the course of doing business, your organization’s needs will shift and evolve, gradually becoming more complex. The need to choose a product design tool that can evolve with your business needs and can meet the specific design challenges you could be expected to face as your products evolve and change is crucial. You don’t want to bring on a simple tool with limited functionality if you anticipate that your product will need to become much more complicated in the future to meet customer demands. Choose software that will support the projects you want to create down the road.
Integrated Product Data Management
Data drives success in product management and it’s necessary that a software system includes a method for storing, managing, and retrieving that data. That data management system must also be able to support a collaborative work environment with contributors working asynchronously as well as simultaneously to protect the integrity of the created projects. At any point, a contributor should be able to see and modify the most up-to-date version of the design being worked on by the team.
File Formats Matter
Integration and compatibility are the names of the game when it comes to working with software platforms, and you want to make sure that your software of choice creates files in common file formats to allow collaboration no matter the software’s core branding.
Easy to Use
You don’t want your team spending more time trying to use a tool than it should take them to fully develop a new product with it. Explore the tutorials, ensure the platform has an easy-to-navigate interface, and learn about the support community and developer support for the software to ensure you will have the resources at your disposal to get through any challenges or roadblocks.
Powerful 3D Modeling Functionality
Most of the benefit and reward of using software for product design is the ability to create 3D realistic models of a product you intend to create and sell, and then run that model through virtual testing and iterative development. Find software that allows you to truly run a product design through its paces virtually before the product design ever goes through your 3D printing setup or production line.
10 Recommended Product Design Software Providers
In tracking down and establishing leading product design tools, we found that several major brands were behind a number of tools in use, showing just how modular and flexible product design packages have to be in order to provide users with the value necessary to carry out proper 3D design modeling and manufacturing. We’ve presented our top picks grouped according to the parent company when there was one, with several options being stand-alone, end-to-end solutions.
Autodesk’s Modeling and Product Design Solutions
Inventor CAM is part of Autodesk’s product design and manufacturing package, which includes Inventor and associated Inventor plugins as well as cloud-based access to Fusion 360, another design tool on this list. Autodesk was founded in the early 1980s and has since grown its range of design products around the AutoCAD brand into some of the most powerful product design tools on the market today.
Used in conjunction with Autodesk’s Inventor, Inventor CAM allows the user to transform ideas for machined parts into realistic manufacture-ready models. The tool is specifically geared towards 2.5- and 3-axis milling, as well as 4- and 5-axis milling, as well as traditional turning and mill-turn functionality.
Pricing: Pricing for the required package of solutions starts at $355 per month, with discounts for paying for the year or multiple years upfront.
Trial: 30-day free trial period that requires the use of Inventor, which can also be downloaded for a free trial.
Fusion 360 is another of Autodesk’s powerful design tools focused on 3D modeling and product design that integrates with other platforms to extend the design capabilities or enhance the types of products that can be made. Fusion 360 is considered an integrated CAD, CAM, and PCB software that combines and streamlines workflows under a single interface.
Pricing: For Fusion 360, pricing is similar to the model in place for Inventor CAM, with monthly costs of $60 per user on a monthly billing model, $495 paid annually, or $1335 billed every three years.
Trial: 30-day free trial period.
Long considered the gold standard of product design tools, AutoCAD is the flagship mechanical design product of Autodesk. Over the years, the AutoCAD platform has been updated and customized for modern design challenges, and includes automation, scheduling tools, workflow management, and toolsets for jobs of all types, and has even in recent years been expanded into a mobile application. The newest version of the software has been improved for cross-platform work and collaboration and integrates seamlessly with other Autodesk products.
- Pricing: Autocad costs $220 per month, $1775 per year, or $4795 for a 3-year license.
- Trial: 30-day trial.
3DS Dassault Systemes Modeling and Product Design Solutions
SOLIDWORKS is one of several products on this list created by 3DS Dassault Systemes. The international organization focuses on sustainable design standards and the need for powerful virtual modeling tools to support the sustainability messaging. SOLIDWORKS is part of the organization’s overall 3DExperience platform, a dashboard approach that melds business management and design innovation into an operations-focused tool for transformation.
SOLIDWORKS provides users with a solid 3D computer-aided design (CAD) solution that supports the entire design process from conceptualization through to validation. The product’s site links out to the user community and includes a User Network link to work with other professionals to improve your skills and experience with the tool.
Pricing: SOLIDWORKS pricing model is folded into the overall pricing for 3DS Dassault Systemes. Interested parties can contact the sales team for a demo and a breakdown of services to meet your needs, or you can shop a la carte style and choose the roles in the product design workflow that best match your needs for those products and services.
Trial: None is listed.
CATIA is another product within the 3DS Dassault Systemes portfolio. CATIA is unique in that in addition to allowing users to model products according to project specifications, the platform allows the product to be modeled within the context of real-life usage and behaviors, taking into account then the experience of using the product in the design process. The online collaborative tools allow design teams to work in real-time together and the tool is easily integrated into the workflow of other design tools.
Pricing: CATIA’s pricing model is also folded into the overall pricing for 3DS Dassault Systemes. Interested parties can contact the sales team for a demo and a breakdown of services to meet your needs, or you can shop a la carte style and choose the roles in the product design workflow that best match your needs for those products and services.
Trial: None is listed.
PTC Modeling and Product Design Solutions
The Onshape design software platform is a product of PTC, a technology service provider that includes in its portfolio design tools for CAD, PLM, IoT, and AR technology through a hybrid service model with on-premise and SaaS elements. The company focuses on industrial design customers, helping them to improve efficiency and maximize profitability.
Onshape combines the SaaS service model for product development software with business analytics and collaborative tools to truly fine-tune the relationship between vision and the final product. Onshape also integrates security and audit controls and combines them with reporting functionality to maximize the impact of the data the program collects.
Pricing: Three levels of pricing are available depending on the size and scope of your operation:
- Standard plan includes a single user per year and costs $1500.
- Professional plan designed for consulting businesses that require CAD development platforms, release management, and data management; per user per year cost is $2100
- Enterprise-level plans for larger organizations require a sales consultation.
Trial: The mid-tier Professional plan offers a free trial, but no time period is listed on the site. Other plans include a free Student plan and a free public plan for beginners who are looking to become hobbyists and makers.
Creo is another PTC product designed to help businesses achieve their product development initiatives. Specifically, the Parametric 3D modeling software has been created, along with a plethora of extensions, to help share and model designs across the development team and down to the client. The Parametric modeling toolset allows Creo users to create additive manufacturing projects, IoT devices, augmented reality (AR) experiences, and use a model-based definition in the design process, all through the use of an intuitive interface known for its streamlined workflows.
Pricing: Creo comes in 5 different packages: Design Essentials, Design Advanced, Design Advanced Plus, Design Premium, Design Premium Plus. Pricing requires a consultation with the sales team to determine which level of Creo meets your design needs.
Trial: As with other PTC products, plans include a free Student plan and a free public plan for beginners who are looking to become hobbyists and makers.
Standalone End-to End Product Design Solutions
Alibre got its start in the late 1990s working alongside Microsoft to create a web-based collaborative CAD software environment. In the years since, the company has worked to ensure educators, entrepreneurs, and innovative design firms have access to professional design tools.
Alibre’s Design product is a business-class CAD program intended for pro-level design work and provides organizations with design, documentation, collaborative and communication tools, and the ability to create and maintain a branded engineering portfolio. The platform supports a parametric approach to design, allowing users to control and manipulate models via variables.
Pricing: Alibre has opted for a licensing cost over a subscription service-based model. Depending on which versions and components of Alibre you choose to incorporate, you can spend anywhere between $399 for a machine workshop product to $750 for a professional design tool. The premier Expert edition can run up to $1452. Pricing on the website currently includes a 25% discount on some products.
Trial: 30-day trial period.
Solid Edge is a full end-to-end product development portfolio created by Siemens Digital Industries Software division. The division is focused on digital transformation and supporting future products that help businesses achieve new levels of automation throughout the development process.
Solid Edge supports Siemen’s focus on helping businesses integrate virtual testing into the physical production of objects across hardware, manufacturing, design, and software industries. Considered a high-end commercial solution, this affordable platform can be easily deployed for use in mechanical and electrical design as well as for data management and online collaboration between development teams.
Pricing: The platform comes in various configurations designed for specific purposes
- Basic 3D CAD subscription starts at $75 per month on an annual billing plan.
- Complete 3D CAD subscription starts at $185 per month on an annual billing plan.
- Advanced 3D CAD subscription starts at $230 per month on an annual billing plan.
- Ultimate 3D CAD subscription starts at $329 per month on an annual billing plan.
- Contact sales for a perpetual license that fits your organization’s needs.
Trial: 30-day access to the full commercial solution.
The Rhino design software was developed over twenty years ago by Robert McNeel & Associates, an international privately-held company that specializes in sales support and product development. Rhino was created for designers, engineers, fabricators, and support staff.
Rhino is a tool used to create, manipulate and otherwise modify mathematical representations of 3D forms, giving designers pinpoint accurate control over their designs. It boasts an affordable suite of free-form 3D modeling tools that are compatible with most design and illustration tools on the market. Cross-platform compatible between macOS and Windows.
Pricing: Pricing models included for school, students, and teaching professionals. For Commercial usage, Pricing for a single license starts at $995.
Trial: The trial can be evaluated for free for 90 days, at which point a license key must be purchased.
Your Product Design Team Needs the Right Tools for the Job
Whether you’re wireframing out your next mobile application or putting the finishing touches on the 3D model prototyping your next big product to hit the market, you need to ensure you have the right tools for the job. Marketing professionals often are only concerned with the packaging or the user interface, but as you can see from some of the product design tools on the market, being able to design a product and virtually test it helps to maximize the user experience, leading to a better interface before the product’s even gone into production. Learn more about product design and connect with a service provider if you don’t have the in-house chops to tackle 3D modeling on your own.