Product managers should be good at discovering the "shortcoming" of life

In an Internet product team, people often think of UI designers if they want to ask who the most artists are: because they tend to graduate from art colleges and design professions are immersed in colors, proportions and compositions each day , Layout work , plus a lot of designers in the living habits and costumes also maverick, so people will naturally be designers and art ranger linked. In my opinion, although designers in terms of professional division of labor has a very clear artistic atmosphere, but the team's most artistic Fan children, in fact, should be the product manager. In a mature and experienced product manager who should reflect the outstanding artistic qualities.

The product is a work of art, no matter whether it has the ultimate experience and sought after by all. At most, a failed product can be equated with a crappy artwork. The essential interlinkability of products and works of art allows us to view the development of products from the perspective of an artistic creation and put the practice of product managers from the characteristics of the artists. Stones from other hills, can learn. As Taleb pointed out in his book Anti-Fragility, people have the disadvantage of being independent in their fields, that is, they understand one truth only in one field, while in the other field the same truth is ignored or impossible Recognition. So, let's re-examine the product with an artistic vision and discover the commonality between the artist and the product manager. From this it is not hard to understand why the product manager must have a range of art children.

1, artists are good at discovering the beauty of the world, product managers will be good at discovering the "shortcoming" of life

"There has never been a lack of beauty in the world, but a lack of the sight of beauty." Rodin's famous phrase tells the difference between artist and ordinary people. In nature, the simple law of "natural selection and survival of the fittest" has evolved into such an intricate condition as today that all things in the world have their own existence beauty after a long period of evolutionary development. The so-called masters are those who can see what they have seen with their own eyes, find beauty out of the commonplace of others, and, based on such discoveries, can create outstanding art through autonomous expressions works. Whether painting, sculpture, or music, dance, literature and other art categories, the truth is true.

In the human product world, also has a similar evolutionary law with nature. The ideal state of the product should be to solve the user's troubles and problems with a simple, smooth and natural experience, but not complex, obscure and contrived. Product managers need through their own eyes, to find life is still common "defects", and the "regret" through their own products, into the ultimate life perfect. For the average person, the conditions in life, the trouble seems to be the case, they turn a blind eye, although sometimes complain, but nothing more. Product managers need deep insight:

This insight allows him to think empirically and understand dilemmas from the user's perspective so that what the user really needs is not what other people think the user "needs" to do;

This insight enables him to trace the source, from the user's surface needs, progressive, and direct the core needs of the essence, and thus not be confused by the ever-changing user scenarios;

This insight allows him to get out of the shackles and dare to think creatively about the possible future, thus providing a more perfect solution for the user and guiding the user rather than being guided by the user.

For product managers, looking closely at life and creating something beautiful as an artist is a seemingly simple goal that needs to be doubled.

2, the artist works to express emotion, exchange of ideas, product manager through the product to show personality, connecting users

Works of art generally carry the artist's personal imprint, is an expression of the author's catharsis, pinning ideas. The artist communicates and communicates with the external audience through the works, while the audience through the works to understand and feel the spiritual content of the author, which is actually a recessive dialogue. True artists often have independent personalities that are not subject to interference and restraint by outside influences. Therefore, uncompromisingness, impromptu, and vulgarity are often the hallmarks of some excellent works of art. They do not try to please everyone but only accept, understand, appreciate, and resonate with some of their audiences. Only this part of the audience can establish closer ties with the artists, while others are just hurried away.

For products, it is an external manifestation of some idea that product managers and their teams have, and it bridges the gap between product managers and users. Product managers through the product itself to demonstrate the team's personality, appeals and vision, and in order to gather the ideal target user base. Product distinctive personality, reasonable appeals, good vision, it will attract many like-minded partners. But do not expect it to make everyone happy and satisfied. According to the 20/60/20 ratio, no matter what you do or what to do, there will always be 20% of the people who oppose it. So, grab 20% of users who like you unconditionally and try to win as much as 60% of users in the middle ground , Your product will have a pretty good user base. Conversely, deliberately to meet the public taste, accommodate and pleasurable majority of suspicious users, will make your product become mediocre and lose their personality.

3, the charm of art begins with technology and ends with the connotation of the product begins with energy and ends with cool

From the material carrier of art, nothing less than some simple techniques and rules. The oil painting we see is made up of a series of colors, lines and blocks according to a certain perspective, collocation and combination. The music we hear is also composed of finite scales, rhythms and harmonies According to a certain melody, speed and balance of the relationship between the sound; we study the calligraphy, it is also a few simple strokes, brushwork, ink law according to a certain structure, layout and gestural relations and write; literature , Dance and other art categories are also similar. These microelements are themselves mechanical, boring and easy to grasp. However, when they are presented to the audience macroscopically and holistically according to the author's intention and with certain artistic rules, their connotations are essential Leap, you can pass a very rich spiritual information, so touching. Kevin Kelly quoted a copy of Browning's verse in "Out of Control": "Constructed from three scales (triads), not the fourth, but the stars." Art is not difficult to get started, as long as those skills and rules are learned, but it is hard for art to achieve the desired mood because it requires long-term practice and insight.

The same is true for products. To meet a user's needs, the product is broken down into multiple design points, such as network connections, data storage, business logic processing, UI displays, and more. These single points of function seem insignificant and insignificant, but they carry the whole connotation of the product in the same way as the basic techniques required to complete a work of art. Product managers need to make these features first available, and then continue to refine, until the extreme. Only under the premise of superb technique, the product will have the same meaning as the artwork. This kind of connotation is the subjective feeling that the product conveys to the user, it can be a exquisite appearance, it can also be an ease of use, but also can be avant-garde idea, even a little bit of fun and sense of humor. These feelings are we can not predict and can not control, it depends entirely on the product itself to bring the user's subjective experience, is a combination of chance and necessity. Whether the product is attractive or not depends not on whether it is usable or not, but whether it allows users to cool.

4, art emphasizes uniqueness, the product also rejects the simple homogenization of copying

The vitality and market value of artwork are mainly reflected in its uniqueness and non-replicability, just as we can not "step into the same river twice". The birth of a work of art depends on the authors in the random situations at the time, such as his personal environment such as emotions, health, ideological concepts and individual skills, as well as the social environment such as industry development, national background and the characteristics of the times. It is because of this random state that this piece of art will be uniquely created and taken forever as a snapshot of all the circumstances of the moment, forever frozen at some point in history. No one can completely reproduce all of this. Even if copy and imitation are merely superficially imitating its external techniques, it can not be duplicated to the inner creative thinking and inner feelings. Even the author himself can not produce exactly the same two works, such as the "parasol woman" Monet once painted, because of the passage of time, each piece of work only reflects the world at that time.

In fact, the product also emphasizes personalization and differentiation, excessive homogeneity products often lead to competition among the gangsters. In addition to the product's success depends on the product's function and design, the presence of external marketing products, word of mouth, team operations, user maturity and other uncertainties are also indispensable. Similar to WeChat, millet, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and other popular red box success stories, do not have a simple copy: the function is easy to copy, but "weather, geography, people and" this situation is met Can not ask.

Regardless of uncontrollable factors outside the product, we should avoid simple duplication of functionality and design even for the same product, because products are inherently different in different user usage scenarios and require different considerations . Taking a video conferencing client as an example: We need to consider the impact of user experience due to differences in user input devices on different platforms, using the remote control in the conference room and using the mouse / keyboard on the desktop , But the mobile device is through the touch screen handwriting input; we need to consider the video and content of the meeting Shuangliu show whether there must be two outputs, the large-screen terminal in the conference room must have, on the desktop terminal can have, But not necessarily on mobile devices. There is also a need to consider layout layouts that support both horizontal and vertical screens on the mobile terminal, but not necessary on other platforms. These differences in detail, are reminding the product manager not to simply copy, all the actual use of the product scene prevail.

In addition to the above points, it is easy to find out more about the connection between art and products if we have a chance to understand and pay attention to some basic questions about art more fully. Such as the non-standard art, the imperfection of art, the relationship between art and perceptual and rational art, the relationship between art and regional culture and so on. These basic questions about art can help product managers to take a broader view of product design and development, and make better use of some artistic principles to carry out the product's practice. Product managers with a certain artistic accomplishment may find it easier to grasp the essence of the product and carry it forward or break it. Picasso has a famous saying: "Learn the rules like a Pro so you can break them like an artist". In addition to learning rules, the rules are still used to break. In the film "The King of Comedy", Zhou Xing Chi with a "self-cultivation of the actor, solemnly told the people around:" In fact, I am an actor "; maybe one day, the product manager also took A "product manager's artistic accomplishments, solemnly told the team:" In fact, I am an artist. "