Interaction Designer: Five small principles to help you determine whether your needs should be answered or not

How to judge the demand of Product manager? Today @ asphyxiation Red Leon through their own thinking, consult predecessors, listed a few product requirements whether the "small principle", hope that these basis to help themselves judge the rationality of demand.

For large teams, interaction designers often have access to different product lines, such as I need to work with four or five product managers in the first two weeks. The product manager is the demand side, they will bring idea and PRD documents to find the designer, tell us the specific content of the requirements, objectives, scheduling and so on. However, because of limited design resources (as well as development resources), it is not possible for all requirements to be handled, so when the product manager puts forward the demand, the designer also needs to have its own judgment on the rationality of the requirement.

The rationality of the demand depends very much on the familiarity of the interaction designer with the business, but the newcomer is in the least. If there is no need to turn to demand, or to help the product manager to improve the content of the demand, pointing out the unreasonable part, it may be busy for a week to find that they have no time to think, really become a pure "performer." Not to say that the executor is not good, but the irreplaceable is weaker, if each phase of the work can not be linked together, can not achieve the same goal, it may be difficult to complete the business goals, of course, it is difficult to reflect their own value.

Through their own thinking, to consult predecessors, I enumerated a few product requirements whether the "small principle", hope that through these basis to help themselves judge the rationality of demand. However, the so-called "small principle" is not absolute, the work can never be too stubborn to think that not meet the needs of a certain principle must not be done, a few principles need to be integrated into consideration.

　　Principle one: Meet the requirements of the main business objectives

Most teams convene a mobilization meeting (also known as kickoff) at the beginning of the year and quarter to announce business priorities and objectives for this phase. For frontline designers, the main business objectives of the team should also naturally be their own focus and benchmarking work. Therefore, a deep understanding of the team's business center of gravity or development path is a seemingly virtual but really very important thing, only understand the team ultimately want what results, can adjust their work in the direction.

In fact, this is a preferred way to consider the rationality of demand. When faced with the needs of the business side, first ask yourself:

Is it consistent with the team's overall goals?

To what extent can the attainment of this goal be improved?

Is it possible to cooperate with existing modules to produce a linkage effect?

What is the continuous planning and arrangement?

And when a requirement deviates significantly from the team's business objectives, it must be boldly pointed out to the product manager.

The hardest thing is that many of the requirements in everyday life are not simple, black or white, or just true and false like code. Therefore, in the actual work must always pay attention to business dynamics, to avoid only small focus. At the same time, often doing competitive analysis can also help you make decisions.

All in all, the need to meet the overall direction of the team business is definitely a priority.

　　Principle two: The demand that interferes with the main target of the user is not answered

It is important to have a quality that is known as "middle-middle power" in such a position as an interactive designer. In short, the business side often pays more attention to the business or product line that it is responsible for, and it is possible to overlook the main function of the product and the main goal of the user in the product.

What is the main function of the feed stream on the home page-is to browse the dynamic of the object of interest, is essentially to find their own interest in the topic, what is the main goal of Taobao next single page-is to understand the baby payment information, logistics information, and complete payment. Then, if the needs of the business side can only meet its own business objectives but affect these major tasks, it needs to be treated with caution.

Space is not unlimited, when in a limited number of pages highlighted or added to a certain content, it is bound to affect other functions. If the prominence of new content can help the product as a whole or upgrade a certain data without affecting other functions, that's a good requirement. However, if the demand too much emphasis on their own goals, to occupy the space of other functions, too much interference in the user's normal use of the product path, should not be answered.

Therefore, to undertake the needs of the designers in daily work often served as "middle Office", to determine whether the different needs of harmony, whether it affects the main line, whether or not penny wise. It is also an important criterion for judging whether the demand is reasonable.

　　Principle three: The user is tiny but the cost big demand does not answer

Some of the requirements are very reasonable, but if it can only meet a small number of users, but it may cost a lot of research and development, design costs, it should be prudent. One of the reasons why we often say not to think of ourselves as a typical user is that the appeal from the individual is often not representative, and this is another common mistake.

For example: I used to design a lot of interesting little improvements to the information precipitation of the micro-group, even including the function of the chat in the group. But in fact, many of these functions may be beneficial only to the Community operators themselves, or to a small number of overweight community players, and most of the ordinary community users just think of this as a place to chat.

In this case, do you say that the demand is not correct? It must be true. But if you spend a lot of manpower and resources to meet the needs of that small number of users, the majority of users do not have substantial benefits, it is clear that it seems very "not cost-effective".

Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the input-output ratio clearly.

　　Principle four: the need to develop weak or mutual interference is not answered

The need for expansion and independence is a pair of seemingly contradictory but in fact tightly binding attributes.

The so-called extensibility is that some designs may not only be effective on the current page, but may also be extended to other places later. For example, the electrical products, we designed for the home product design of door-to-door installation services, that specific in the order page requires users to fill in the installation address as well as a series of other requirements.

Later, in addition to home decoration, may be large electrical appliances also need door-to-door and installation. Therefore, in the early design of the time must consider that the following may also be used in the business of this function, but also to consider the different business pages can be properly placed new features.

When it comes to whether the new function can be properly placed in different business, it is the requirement of design independence. Different business scenarios will have different visual rendering, perhaps a new requirement in a scene by adding a tab can be implemented, but to expand to B scene after the b scene has been very crowded, completely put down this tab. Then we will say that this tab design independence is not good enough, or that the interference is easy to occur. Therefore, when designing the requirements in a scenario, you should consider the scenario of B scenario in a comprehensive context.

In a comprehensive sense, the need for good scalability and weak interaction can be prioritized, and designers themselves can improve the performance of these two attributes by designing solutions.

　　Principle five: the need to significantly enhance the individual's ability to meet

Before work joked that small companies do business is to see a direction to run again, and large companies are selected in 10 directions first run, as long as there is a run right to earn. After all, small companies have limited resources, all forces must be used in the blade, while the big companies pay attention to speed, quick trial and error quickly occupy the market. So, if unfortunately in the team ran a wrong direction, is this phase of the work is meaningless?

Obviously not. After trial and error, the team gained valuable experience, and more importantly, the individual gained growth. Fortunately, the big companies are not just asking you to contribute to the team, each performance review will also ask what you want from the team.

Therefore, it is also very important to consider whether the task is only mechanically completed, or whether it is possible to excavate more individual abilities in order to take part in the demand. It's also good to say that challenging tasks help people grow. It's an effective way to grow quickly in the face of working with a more powerful co-worker, or contacting a business scenario you've never been involved in, or using new tools and new design techniques creatively.

In the face of the need to improve the individual's ability obviously without violating the previous principles, don't hesitate to jump in!

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