Design Thinking: not just to meet user needs

 

 

[Editor's note] Design Thinking is a Design concept, and its focus is no longer on "use" itself, instead, by understanding the user's internal mental model, the user's environment, and observing the use behavior under both the mental model and the environment, we can design a kind of truly integrated into their lives, products on which they depend. In simple words, Design Thinking is not only about how users use it, but also about understanding users and their environments.

-- Not only to understand people's activities, also more importantly to understand people and their context (internally and externally) of those activities.

Why Design Thinking pays more attention to people themselves and their environments rather than direct use behavior?

People and their behaviors are associated with the context. only in a certain context can they choose to start such behaviors. This context is divided into internal and external, which refers to the internal drive and natural attributes of people themselves; External refers to the environment in which people are located.

　　

 

For example:

Scenario: everyone is focusing on the discussion. At this time, my cell phone rang.

The context that drives me to connect to a mobile phone is:

Internal: My judgment on the importance of this phone call, my experience on the consequences of not answering this phone call, and so on;

External: The influence of my doing or not doing this behavior on my current environment. What is the impact of this influence on me in turn;

The Dual Internal and external effects determine whether or not I conduct such activities. If my judgment on the external context is: this is an open environment, no one will care if you are answering the phone halfway; if my judgment on the internal context is based on the consequence of my last phone call failure, I 'd better answer it. Then I may have answered the call.

In another case, We will compare the influence of the internal and external context: If the influence of the external context exceeds the internal one, that is, even if I do not answer the phone, the consequences will not be worse than answering the phone, because the boss is yelling at everyone, I will not answer this call.

On the contrary, if you call an important customer who is directly related to the progress of the project, even if the external context is the boss's instruction, maybe I will answer the call.

Design Thinking thinks that if we focus directly on behaviors, rather than the internal and external context of people completing such behaviors, it is very likely that we only focus on "How to use ", for a product that users depend on and love, "how to use" is often the last step. More importantly, "who will use" and "why ", "When and where to use ".

What is the relationship between what you said and product design?

A product is the integration of several user behaviors. Whether a user can use a product depends on the behavior combination provided by the product, the "I want to use" conclusion can be found in the context of "internal" and "external. Take Apple as an example:

Apple's previous failure was that they did not find enough people and found the "I want to use" conclusion in their "internal" and "external" contexts. Apple's failure period is the explosive growth period of the information consumption market, and the explosion base of the Information Consumption Market is a large and standardized hardware and software market; while Apple's practice during this period was that Aza Raskin cited a memoir from Stanford's computer history in an article recalling his father Jef Raskin's involvement in the design of the first-generation Macintosh:

There were to be no peripheral slots so that customers never had to see the inside of the machine (although external ports wocould be provided ); there was a fixed memory size so that all applications wocould run on all macdeskshes; the screen, keyboard, and mass storage device (and, we have Ed, a printer) were to be built in so that the customer got a truly complete system, and so that we cocould control the appearance of characters and graphics.

This kind of integration, high integration, and non-open design is not compatible with the concept of backward compatibility that Microsoft has always guaranteed. Under this design philosophy, when the largest number of consumers maintain a hunger for information consumption, neither internal nor external context is enough to support enough consumers to choose "use Apple.

　　

 

However, a business error does not mean that the design is useless, but Apple's paranoia has been focusing on an unopened market, or a specific territory that is deeply buried in the user context-I am concerned with the value that tools can produce and the comfort of the process, rather than letting people know how many tools I have.

When this idea, which has been buried for many years, gradually becomes the real point of view of the vast majority of people, it naturally turns into an external context-information consumption is a small part of life, and I only need one box, if I say something to it, it can give it to me. If I don't care about anything else, it's just that simple.

Until now, Apple is still paranoid about the quality of its features-the quality of open apps on Android platforms cannot be comparable to that of Apple apps. This paranoia is still based on the assumption of the user context. Our design can make the target consumer group, find the conclusion "I want to use" in the context of "internal" and "external.

Isn't it designed based on user needs?

Indeed, in essence, the ultimate goal of product design is to meet user needs. However, the definition of "satisfying the needs" has changed quite a bit-when we are dealing with a large number of user groups, the complexity of such needs is beyond our imagination, the Requirement List is definitely not a one-paper Requirement List.

The prevalence of consumption has nurtured a big and comprehensive style in product design. This style has become a very clever and extremely low-cost design technique in the context of consumption. The more I provide, the more satisfied you are, the less I care about what you need. Therefore, "multi-functionality" becomes the key word of Product Design in that era.

　　

 

Afterwards, the theory of the maximum number of useless functions (80/20 theory) is derived from the reflection on too many useless functions. The focus on product design is more on the user experience (the user experience is different from the experience, and the latter is wider, the former is more concerned with the improvement of the function itself, which is also facing the arrival of an era full of personality (including the prevalence of minimalism, at the beginning of the modern ideology, the respect for personal experience also began to be introduced into software product design. Therefore, the keywords of product design in this era are "customizable", "my exclusive", "Easy to use", and "simple ".

　　

 

Basically, both of these two design ideas are still not overly concerned about functions-the first idea is that many and wide functions can be used by users, the second approach is to think that fewer and better features can be used by users. But the fact is: Meeting the user's needs does not mean that the user will use it. It can drive the user to use the context between the user and the behavior.

This is the core of Design Thinking, which is different from the traditional Design method. meeting user needs cannot directly lead to software product success. Analysis is the key to driving users' use of software product context.

What is Design Thinking?

The classic Thinking modes of Design Thinking are as follows:

Empathy)

　　

 

The core of Design Thinking is the context in which users use software products. Empathy helps designers shift their emotions to target users, by understanding users' natural attributes, social status, growth environment, and living habits, they can understand their internal and external questions, so as to understand what drives them to use products;

Experimental principles

The purpose of Design Thinking is to "Build to design over design to build". The Design process should be divided into more small experimental units, quickly generate prototypes for the experiment (such as sketch, storyboard, and wireframes) and anything generated during the design process should be quickly discarded as experimental products;

Short feedback Ring

Design Thinking requires a shorter feedback loop. Any activities and decisions in the Design process should be verified and improved in a shorter feedback cycle;

Cooperation spirit

　　

 

Design Thinking is the art of cooperation. Please welcome innovators from different backgrounds and create a working environment that encourages cooperation and innovation;

Link: http://www.tuzei8.com/2011/04/xd%e5%85%b3%e9%94% AE %e5%ad%971%ef%bc%9adesign-thinking/