Discussion on the work flow of interactive design in product design

As the user experience of the product becomes more and more demanding, the role of the interaction designer becomes more and more clear. In addition to their own basic skills, the interaction designer also needs to have a normative process to make the work complete and orderly.

Fig. 1 Flow Chart of interactive design in product design

First, version plan

A version plan is a general planning of a product or project when it is planned, usually including the requirements and objectives of the product, such as what functions can be implemented and how performance is. This process, the interaction is rarely directly involved, or attend a release version of the project, the plan is aware of the situation. The interaction can look at the historical version, comparing the relevant products within and outside the industry, as well as the future of the product of a hope: practical, convenient, beautiful ...

Second, demand analysis

After the release plan is completed, the product manager breaks down the version plan and collates it into a requirement copy to the interaction designer. When the interactive designer gets the demand draft, it starts the demand analysis. When you find that some logic is not reasonable, or that there is any lack of clarity, you need to negotiate with the product manager. At this point, the interaction can use a variety of principles and methods, such as based on the product's historical user data for user research, and developers to carry out a number of implementation effects of communication.

In the process of communication with product manager or development, you can write down or draw various functions, effects and requirements at any time in your own convenient way. Interactive design is a product design in the process of changing requirements into models, product managers are the core of product design, in the interactive design process as long as there is a problem, seek product manager to resolve or coordinate. But their main job is to do what needs to be done by a good interaction designer, and product managers are often not easy to do.

Third, interactive design

The preparatory work was done, and it entered the interactive design stage. At this stage, the interaction needs to use prototype tools such as Axure to transform the product from abstract concept into a model concept that can be demonstrated.

The interaction design can be three small steps to go. The first step is to comb the interaction process, which is to comb the interaction process with a flowchart. For example, in the design of a mobile phone automatic question and answer stock securities function, the process needs from the portal, the first use of samples, inquiries, answers to the sharing of answers. At the same time, we need to pay attention to the use of a variety of unexpected events, such as network connectivity, server anomalies and other problems prompted, there is no answer to the question of how to give a response.

Figure 2 Interactive Process sample diagram

The second is to complete the functional requirements of the product, that is, the basic skills of the product through a complete demonstration of the prototype to achieve. This process, you can use a wireframe to express, for each effect can be made, if you do not come out, use the words to explain the callout. This step out of the low-fidelity prototype is completed, you can demonstrate to the product manager to confirm whether there are omissions. A prototype with a full interactive effect to communicate or to play a convenient intuitive advantage, to the development of the demo, so that testing as a basis for evaluation, but also more efficient than a lengthy article communication.

Figure 3 Prototype presentation and description

The third step in interactive design is to decompose the complete prototype into each step of the action. Development, testing care how each step is done, vision will also be designed according to each step. In the design, the ideal effect of bold expression, of course, there is no shortage of your wide knowledge. There is no need to understand the technology too deeply, but need to know which effect is easy to implement and consistent with the overall style, which effects are extremely difficult to achieve, and these insights will strengthen communication with the development. Of course, the basis of the vision is also to have a variety of layout design in the product overall visual style, otherwise the visual design changes will be relatively large.

Fig. 4 decomposition and explanation of interactive action

The audit of Interactive manuscript requires the joint participation of research and development personnel. In the audit process, seize the main line of demand, from the user's point of view, mainly from the basic software interaction rules discussed. The product must be forward-looking, not an afterthought. The subjective feeling is also one aspect, but the weight cannot be overweight.

In short, the interaction design after the completion of the output needs to meet two conditions: the completion of product requirements, decomposition to each step of the action. These two conditions have, is a good interactive document, diagram and action plus instructions, than any of the dense documents are intuitive.

Four, visual design

Interactive manuscript through the research and development personnel audit, to the development before, need to carry out visual design. Visual designers not only to complete the design of picture icons, but also to mark the background color, font, size, spacing and so on. Of course, in addition to the design of the icon class, font, spacing, alignment, and so on, interactive designers should be guided by the normative document, in the interactive manuscript has been reflected. But even if there is a perfect specification, can only complete 70%-80%, a lot of things need to change in the scene when the appropriate adjustments.

V. Development

In the process of product development, the main task of interaction is to follow up. function, testing nature can be checks, but the interactive aspect, even if the early communication is again good, development will inadvertently or will give discounts. If it is too difficult or really problematic, development should take the initiative to negotiate with you. So, under the influence of irrelevant performance, as long as can let the user experience rise a little bit, don't with development too much compromise.

VI. Testing

The test is your good helper, the interactive manuscript is done in place, the test will help you to turn off well.

Vii. version Release

When the test completed a variety of product verification, the version will be released, at this time the interactive participation of the research and Development has basically entered a closed loop.

Viii. User Feedback

After the release of the product, through the system, telephone and other means to receive some user feedback, it is possible to directly modify the interactive manuscript, or directly with the development of the mutual effect of the update, the version of a number of improvements. Of course, after just released a period of time, into a stable period, is really completed this version of the interactive work closed loop. The feedback that follows will provide a reference for the next version.

It is important to mention that the design of the product does not necessarily have a specialized visual participation, just as the product design process does not necessarily have a dedicated interaction designer. This time, the interaction designer must have certain visual design ability.

Summarize

In short, the interactive design process is shown in the following illustration as a summary of this article.

Figure 5 Interactive Design Concise process diagram