Design of mobile product design

The biggest difference of mobile product design is the change of user's use scene, the change of scene has caused the change of interactive way, which makes the information presentation way different, plus the difference of hardware equipment, finally makes 2 different. Therefore, the design of mobile product design should start from the user's use of the scene, at the same time consider the user's hardware equipment differences, combined above 2 points to help users complete a task.

According to my understanding, scenes, tasks, users can be called the three elements of design, each design is actually trying to help users in a scene to complete a task. The same design encounters different scenarios, from web design to mobile product design.

Once a friend asked me, from web design to mobile product design, you feel the biggest difference point is? I think the biggest difference lies in the user's use of the scene changes, the changes in the scene caused a great change in the way the interaction, which also makes the presentation of information different, plus the difference between hardware and equipment, ultimately makes 2 different. Therefore, the design of mobile product design should start from the user's use of the scene, at the same time consider the user's hardware equipment differences, combined above 2 points to help users complete a task.

Of course, from the ecosystem point of view, the mobile ecosystem is also different from the Internet ecological Circle. A mobile ecosystem can be imagined as having many layers of systems, each of which relies on other layers, and their interdependence constitutes a seamless end-to-end experience.

Operators at the bottom, they are the basis for the normal operation of the mobile ecosystem, they are responsible for infrastructure construction and maintenance of relationships with users; operators operate wireless networks, while network capabilities are also subject to the type of devices and antennas, and the biggest challenge for mobile ecosystems is that different devices have different interpretations of industrial standards , mobile device fragmentation, software and services to operate on the device need to have a platform, mobile platform mainly divided into authorized platform, proprietary platform, open source platform, which we are familiar with Java ME, iphone, Balckberry, Android, etc. ; Mobile platforms are usually tied to the operating system he runs, such as Symbain, Windows Mobile, iOS, and Android, and developers typically have access to the application framework of these platforms and develop applications in different languages.

In the process of mobile product design, we also often intentionally or unintentionally involved in the ecosystem of a certain level, and even if the user only want to do in the mobile end of the extremely simple things such as "Visit my blog", must go through these layers, so this makes the whole mobile environment is very complex, The whole mobile product design needs to have the ability and the quality is also relatively more.

Changes in the use scene of mobile product design

(Photo source: tapworthy)

There is no comfortable ergonomic seat, only crowded carriages or the hot sun in the street; without a flexible mouse and comfortable keyboard, only the shaking of the screen and the button between the square inch; you're not just brushing the page while you're on the side of the song, but hoping to quickly find the store you want to go to; But will often worry about this month's flow is not exceeded the standard ...

The change in this scenario presents us with the constant consumption of fragmented time on mobile devices and the growing impatience of users. This may seem bad, but it's actually a good thing, and this change in usage will force you to give up the idea of doing product design similar to web-side all-inclusive. Instead, you will focus on addressing the user's needs in a fragmented time period. This more focused "single core thinking" needs to run through the design of the entire mobile product (see: More restrictions, simpler designs).

Changes in equipment for mobile product design

What devices will your users use to access your application? The problem is that every designer needs to think at the beginning of the design. The devices that your users use need to be considered from a number of dimensions, such as operating systems, the network environment used, and the resolution of the devices, which must be considered and eventually applied to the product design. Yes, this is the notorious but playful "fit" in mobile design. 2 people using the same Android phone may experience a difference between heaven and hell when they use the same app, even if they use the iphone but experience it differently in different network environments. These, all need to consider ...

Of course, there is another problem I think we can explore, that is the different platform of direct design for reference and transplantation. My feeling is that iOS and Android can be designed in exactly the same set of architectures, just to do it on a specific interactive basis, depending on the characteristics of the platform. The same is deleted on iOS that is left and right to slide on Android is long pressed.

In addition, the change of this hardware device is also a big difference between the design of mobile product and web product design. In the mobile product design, must make full use of the equipment itself to complete the design. Relative to web products, mobile devices themselves provide a lot of hardware capabilities, such as light, reluctance, gyroscope 、.... the use of these capabilities is the starting point of mobile product design (see: Mobile product design hardware capabilities).

The change of interactive mode of mobile product design

The interactive process of the whole mobile product can be summarized as, the user triggers a task to interact with the client, the client feedback the task to the server, the service end of the request data and do data stitching and feedback results to the client, the client will display the final results to the user. Of course, some complex tasks actually require a client to concurrent several requests to the server.

Considering the interaction with the server side is not unique to the mobile product design, but it is the interaction that requires the designer to "design" in the process of mobile product design. Because this is about 3 things, the consumption of user traffic and the fluency of user operations, but also a test of client performance. This is what I think the current mobile product design user experience the most important and fundamental place, to ensure the stability of client performance, users can operate under low speed conditions, while helping users to save traffic, while the UI level experience problem is second. Twitter and Foursquar don't have fancy interfaces on iOS and Android or even symbain, but they're still the best apps I've ever had in mind.

At the same time, from the keyboard machine to touch screen machine to multi-touch even the current voice assistant, we found that the mobile end of the human-computer interaction mode is evolving. At the same time, we also found that the more high-end mobile device users "inertia" is stronger, users expect to be able to use a lower cost of interaction faster completion of the task, this is the mobile product design must face the same time is also a mobile product designers the most fulfilling place.

Finally, in terms of handset-side product design, the choice of mobile platform

The iphone's 2-year momentum has been so intense, in addition to the promotion of a single industry chain relatively complete, so the iphone client design, promotion are very easy to take effect and great effects; Android is too open, the direct result is a complex channel but no one can control the potential, so the promotion of laborious and ineffective, Small teams can follow through after opening up the iOS battlefield and having a productive start; Symbian? If you can, give up quickly! WP7 Momentum is impressive, but at present it is not suitable for small team admission, large team can do reserves first.

Source: http://www.ikent.me/blog/3957