Design starts with the finishing

Collation, a seemingly and design-related behavior, compared with the creative spirit of designers, she always gives a more negative impression. And many designers also believe that the task of sorting out purely manual labor is a creative work that relies on brainpower to do the opposite.

This is not the case, through sorting, we can find the nature of things, find new ideas, see something hidden in the surface of things. By sorting, the problems in our vision will become clearer and more positive to discover.

Back to my real work, interactive design has never been from scratch, only in recognition of the user's ultimate goal, the application of fundamental tasks on the basis of the key points to find the problem, to the point of the design of the project innovation.

I used to tidy up some disdain, but after reading Soto "super finishing" back to look at their own projects, found that "finishing" and "design" in the solution to the idea is consistent, clear clutter clues → find the source of the problem → put forward practical solutions. When the design of the solution to the root of the problem, you can make stakeholders satisfied, effectively promote the implementation of the scheme. So here, combine some cases and share some of the ideas of finishing (Anin in Beijing when he told us about brand design). The finishing operation is divided into the following three steps:

Master the situation
Import Ideas
Set up a project

　

Grasp the situation (communication needs)

　　Don't rush to show information when organizing information
　　Presenting hypotheses to correctly understand information

This is the first step in finishing. Product manager with a lot of demand to find we provide solutions to these needs, they often put their own plans or paper prototypes to the interaction designers, let us follow this line of thought to do; designers also often in the demand communication stage, can not help to use the experience of the program to describe the problem. Impatient to eat hot tofu, whether product managers or interactive designers, this stage is the most important thing is to sit down and organize each other's thoughts, the concept of the idea of the implementation of the visible text information, that is, thoughts of the information process. Any scheme is not suitable for communication at this stage, because there is still a lot of information not to be processed. There is a mountain of information that we want to convey to our users, everything we want to achieve, but on mobile internet devices, users cannot understand and accept everything as we wish, so we have to sort out all the problems so that we can prioritize them and find out the nature of the problem.

Take the Mobile Information application for example (Figure 1), if the requirements communication phase of the product manager came up with his concept of the prototype and discuss, this preconceived concept will inevitably affect the two sides to focus on navigation, ignore the essence of the problem, in the end users use information this application is to do? What is the core task and core content of the application?

Figure 1. Requirements Communication phase do not attempt to speak in a diagram to avoid losing the chance to discover the nature of the problem

In the thoughts of information, but also good to put forward hypotheses to confirm the real ideas of product managers. This is to improve communication accuracy so that interaction designers misunderstand each other's true intentions in the presentation of information. After you've probably understood the other person's ideas, turn your ideas into words and ask them, "Do you mean that?" If wrong, then give the content of the rebuttal to change the direction of the finishing, try other hypotheses. Through this constant repetition, the product manager's real idea will be more and more clear, both sides of the product understanding can be highly consistent.

　

Import point of view (find the point of exerting force)

　　Priority of arranging information
　　Put forward the viewpoint about the essence of the problem

After mastering all the information, we should start to prioritize the information and clarify the causal relationship between the information. In the stage of mastering the status quo, all kinds of information appear confusion of the accumulation state, designers need to change the position of these information, set priorities, discard redundant information, find the internal relationship of information, organized into an integrated information. This stage is the most important, but also the most difficult, because the introduction of ideas is to find out the nature of the problem, if the point of view does not touch the core, then the plan will inevitably have flaws.

Also take the information application as an example (Figure 2), scenario A for the traditional information application home design, if our new point of view is only more direct display of information content, convenient for users to switch between the mailbox, then scenario B is to meet the conditions. But in fact this is not the most concern of users in information applications. The idea we are importing is not at the heart of the problem, so the solution based on this view does not address the user's core problem, although it has improved in usability compared with programme A. So how do you import the most accurate points of view? This is not by words can learn immediately, need in the actual project training on the priority of information prioritization, accumulate enough experience, in order to accurately identify the nature of the problem. Here Soto and gives three suggestions: from outside the product objective view, discard self-righteous, conversion viewpoint, from each angle observation.

Figure 2. Two kinds of information application schemes

　

Set up a project (design plan)

In the process of importing viewpoints, the accurate prioritization of information is found, the core of the problem is identified, the direction of progress can be determined, and the actual scheme is designed to solve the problem. In fact, you can recognize the direction of progress, the project completed half.

Also use information as an example (Figure 3), the user is most concerned about the exchange of information, so the content is very important, and the classification of information items should be linked to the center of the organization, because this conforms to the nature of information (information exchange is contextual). Android and the iphone are designed from this point of view in information applications, but I think it is also possible to consider further that, in the Android Information conversation page, users are not only concerned with the content of the information, but also in the follow-up to the information, because the information is presented for better communication. In an existing scenario, there is only a reply-to edit box, but the action for a piece of information also requires a long list item, so you can add shortcuts (forwarding, calling, deleting, and so on) at the bottom of the most recent message, and ensure that there is always a quick action key on the page.

Summarize

We disdain to tidy up, the idea will disdain us. Design from the beginning, she can open the door to creative inspiration, help us find the nature of the problem, identify the way forward, choose a suitable route to the destination. If you haven't started tidying up, start with your desk, tidy up and you'll find something new!

Design from the start, but also just the beginning!

　

Appendix: Legend of Soto and finishing (the following image is drawn by the CDC based on the original artwork, with some changes to the expression of the information)

1. In order to find out the nature of the problem, we must first ask the customer. List information obtained as -0 (B→C)
If the information only exists in the client's mind, in order to visualize what is not visible, it must be the previous step, that is, the thought of information began (A→B)

2. Swap all kinds of information, discard unnecessary information, eliminate the vague and ambiguous parts, discard the meaningless little -0 and repeat the content (d). Then pour out the point of view and clarify the causal relationship of information (d→e). This way we can recognize the nature of the problem.

3. Set the problem to be identified as a topic and solve it everywhere (F→G). If the essence is positive, think about making it shiny and regroup, emphasizing the advantages that have been left to bury, and if the essence is negative, reverse thinking, reverse negative, and find the charm.