Expert interview: usability experts talk about the key to successful website design

Expert profile:

Fan wangbin, who lives in Beijing for now, is known as an availability engineer. I am always happy with the regular "website scanning": I have collected e-books related to "User Experience" or a series of materials on other themes, and then I have done in-depth system reading and research, and occasionally I will show up with my friends. Blog: http://oleboy.blog.sohu.com

Reporter:What do you think is the key for a successful website project?

I have never worked as a website product manager or a project manager. I can only talk about my experience from Ding.

I think there are three important points:
1) You have to think and have a soul when you are doing a website. You must be sure that this is a thing for the bosses. The goals and values of a website cannot be influenced by the people at the operation layer. In many cases, we can only "boil down" the website to "The Boss ." Maybe when the website is successful, we can sum it up as wise to the bosses.
2) I think it should be the true implementation of the "beautiful" product from the bosses yy. That is, not only do you have to think well, but you have to do well. Put a good idea into practice. But it does not seem easy to do this.
3) communication. This is more like a continuation of the first point. This is because, in the implementation process, good ideas are often distorted in the communication process, not because of insufficient ability at the execution layer. I think "small steps and fast run" can avoid "distortion" to some extent ". That is to say, to express ideas in a timely and visualized manner, to verify the feasibility of the ideas in a timely manner, and to assess and revise the implemented product functions in a timely manner. I recently focused on how to integrate agile ideas into the process of improving user experience.

Reporter: there are not many website development companies in China. which form of communication do they use to understand the customer's needs?

Communication is not only a good Mandarin, but also a poor mouth. I don't know much about Chinese website development projects. I can only talk a little bit about it. In fact, the best way to communicate is to face-to-face conversations, supplemented by prototype or other visual demonstration operations. There are two common situations I have seen: one is to blindly rely on documents. One group of people glared at their heads to "write" documents, and the other group looked at the documents with a frown; another situation is the "zero" document-based operation. The two people talked very well and made a splash, and then they went back to work with each other. They were very surprised when they met each other next time, "What I asked you to do is not like this, yes ......" "The last time you spoke to me, it was like this ......, Why are you changing now ~!! @ % ** (*) % ......"

Reporter:On the blogs of designers or information architects, we often see articles about "how to effectively break the line chart" or "What shape is needed to draw the flow chart, but no one has ever fully discussed what makes the design document really useful. Why?

This may be related to the development level of the domestic website design field. But I am also trying to find a deeper reason. Now I will try to explain: It is said that people's right and right brains are good at different jobs. If you remember correctly, the left brain is good at text and the right brain is good at graphic processing. I often attempt to cite some psychological phenomena or facts. Unfortunately, my psychology skills are not solid and I am often "Exposed" by a friend of psychology ". However, this reference should not be too outrageous. In addition to experience accumulation and level issues, I think no one can fully discuss design documents because people who are good at design are not so delicate in terms of text expression. Of course, it is unrealistic to design empty discussions only for good text. Therefore, in view of these two points, few people can fully talk about design documents.

Reporter: in the design process of website construction, we need to try a part of the website, and we cannot test it before the design is complete. How did you solve this problem?

Haha, it seems like we are talking about "chicken, eggs, and eggs ". In fact, what is design? Design is the process of constantly discovering and solving problems. It is based on assumptions and facts to continuously provide solutions to problems. Any design starts with assumptions, and then tries to provide a solution based on such assumptions, and then verifies it with facts. The design process is the process of constantly replacing assumptions with facts. In this way, the website design is completed step by step. Therefore, when you feel that you cannot start, you just need to practice your hands and finally become a master!

Reporter: many companies need a small-sized company website. After one month of planning and sorting out, the desired package is given to a company. Two months later, the company submitted a demo. But when the boss saw this demo, he patted the table and shouted, "What is this? Come back to me !", Does this story happen frequently? What do you think is the root cause of this help?

(You do not know where to answer this question .)

Reporter: What are the importance of "document" design in websites? I wonder if you can briefly introduce some important deliverables?

Many times, the "document" mentioned seems too heavy. It seems that everything on paper will make people feel like a "contract". Everyone seems to be able to vaguely think of the handprints that Yang bailuo sold xier. In fact, in addition to the "contract" function, the document also has two roles.
I. unified thinking. That is to say, everyone should unify their ideas and reach an agreement. Because a person's thoughts are distorted after he expresses them. When someone else hears them from his mouth, some information is distorted, then, the information is greatly discounted from the fact that the listened content is truly accumulated in the mind of the listener. Therefore, we need to repeat what others have heard and understood, and then, through these rounds, we will reach an agreement. The document can be a good way to visualize this two-way communication process. In addition to the "contract" and "unified thinking", the "document" also plays a role in "recording historical changes ".
2. record history. The document can record the design history, record the design basis behind each design, and avoid unnecessary mistakes in the future. The recorded design history also helps the Later users of the project to understand the ins and outs of the project as soon as possible.

Reporter: I wonder if you can recommend several books that have influenced your website design and availability projects?

It is my great hobby to regularly search for e-books on the Internet. There are hundreds of e-books on the "User Experience" collected, which is a considerable number in a relatively immature field. Not all of these books have been intensively read. I have carefully read 30 or 40 books, and others have a general view of their respective content topics. I will continue to study these books in depth when relevant content is involved in the future. After reading these books, I have two experiences: 1) reading books is like watching women. At first glance, they are all beautiful women. After reading them carefully, they can discover freckles. 2) reading books is just reading people. Of course, I am not saying that every author is a freckles girl. Otherwise, I am too ignorant. Let's talk about the first article. reading a book is like watching a woman. In fact, what I want to say is that every author cannot fully express his thoughts through text or books. Furthermore, from the perspective of his own reading, what he cares about, it is not necessarily what the author wants to explain. Therefore, reading this book will make you feel uncomfortable, but you will always find their highlights. Article 2: Reading refers to reading. In the past, search for information was based on keywords, Google
It, Baidu. However, the information obtained here is uneven. Now, if I think a book is more appealing to me, I will search for all the author's materials, including non-professional ones, for example, for Constantine, author of "application-oriented software design", I found that he has done a good job in music and psychology in addition to being a master in the computer field, I can have a deeper understanding of the points mentioned in his book.
Well, I would like to recommend you some books that I have read very well. "Elements of user experience" is often new; Alan
Cooper's "about"
Face is a good reader, but the old guy's level of Writing seems to be much lower than the level of interactive design. Constantine's "use-Oriented Software Design" advocates "use-centric" rather than "user-centric" blindly, in a model-driven manner, the software is designed to be interlocking, and I am very useful; Jeff
Patton, he should have inherited Constantine and carried forward the agile user experience concept. He is writing a book titled agile user
Experience design, I read a draft online and a book worth looking forward.
Interface, translated by windy in the design mode, and packaged page elements to provide you with a solution; don't make me
Think and design books for everyone should belong to fast food books, which taste good, but have limited nutritional value and are suitable for solving the problem. Win in users has a lot of experience from the author, you can learn how it is learned. Web Information Architecture is written by people in library intelligence. From the perspective of information classification, we can talk about websites, let me look at the website from another perspective. Oh, by the way, there is also the ten pieces of design communication I translated. The author has written well and I have worked hard on translation. Let's take a look at it and it will be helpful for the level of design documents, I 've got a lot of comments. Let's take a look at your taste on Douban.