User Experience Design User research: a good Design code

Article Description: in a word, product design specifications not only need to do, but also need to do timely, once completed, it is necessary to implement, receive feedback, summary deficiencies, continuous optimization. Maito?? /FONT>

Suer remember a long time ago saw the Lang salty flat < mode, the book introduced the fashion FMCG brand Zara "one-stop" service, at that time I was stunned, in line with the actual situation of the production design standards to help Zara build their own fashion empire step-by-step.

There are all kinds of 6-sigma, such as the establishment of consulting companies, and so on, all of which are designed to improve productivity.
As early as more than 2000 years ago, Qin Unified six countries, the implementation of the book with the text, degree of the same system, car with the rail, line homotopy. At that time worked out (I think) the first set of product design specifications-weights and measures, as well as wheel spacing standards, these things let the qin better operation.

The same is true of the state, what about us as designers of products?
The product design specification of the Internet industry, probably is all the interactive behavior of the product, the visual style must follow the usability principle strictly, and according to the company business goal, work out all related control and corresponding display style that covers the product function scope of the company.

This is tantamount to defining how to help the company design a good product. No matter how beautiful your website or app is, you can't make money for your company-----------poor life; products only to make money and ignore the user experience, it is lack of competitiveness, decline is also a matter of time. This is a cliché.

The meaning of design code

Guidance of

What is a good design specification--team members can efficiently produce products that meet the needs of the business and make it easy for users to accomplish their goals. Each company or team, to a certain stage, all need product design specifications to break through bottlenecks, improve efficiency, improve products, so that products and teams can travel light, go farther.

Meaningful and lasting new beauty, contained in the simplicity, in the clear, in high efficiency. The real simplicity is far more than Shanfanjiujian, but in the numerous to establish order. --jonathan Ive

Icon Design specification for IOS 7

When defining product requirements and discussing layouts, designers are often "round" by non-professional professionals. Perhaps we all have a certain understanding of the user experience, and are all for the product is good, but the experience design needs like blood infiltration to each part of the product, it is not random brain violence a few ideas can be solved. The design standard condenses the experience that the designer uses blood to exchange, to the product and the use group's deep understanding, also has the actual use scene comprehensive analysis. After the implementation of the norms, everyone will be able to do their jobs, of course, in the ideal state ...

Effectiveness

The specification must be valid-a specification that doesn't have the click effect of a button is useless. Defining a specification from the perspective of effectiveness is actually a collection of various existing patterns or templates for the product. We need to produce functional requirements based on the business objectives of the product, and then exhaust all possibilities based on user goals and usage scenarios, producing reasonable and usable templates and components.
This can be used to make things, reasonable is the premise, effective is the result.

Then, how do you end up with all the possibilities and evolve the specifications? That requires us to deepen our understanding of the company's product objectives, refer to advanced competition, listen to feedback, sum up the shortcomings of previous versions, and so on, perfect existing models, or create better.
For example, the "Praise" feature is already a basic element of product socialization, and users can enhance interaction with the product itself and with the common user by manipulating the "Praise" button.

Even if you are beautiful, even if you will automatically disappear, it is only a window.
Previous operation feedback is always too simple and rough--the direct window tells the user "operation success!" ”。 I always thought it was like giving the user a slap.
Now the technology is changing constantly, so we can design a very elegant effect.

Tumblr's "Praise"

In the process of designing a specification, we need to think about all the possibilities: how much feedback should users get by manipulating the "awesome" button? Do you really need these? Have you considered all the circumstances? If the server is in error or the code is inefficient, resulting in a delay in feedback, is it necessary to change the feedback to advance amount? For example, Instagram, the user point of praise, it regardless of whether the user has no network, are first with cute animated feedback told the user has been successful operation, and then the background to detect the network is available and send data.

In thinking about the user's use of the scene and habits, while the company's own products in the background to take care of the right, and need to make appropriate responses, such as the praise of the data should be categorized to where, the operation of the students there is no more demand, will add more interfaces in the future? Development students need to be prepared to cope with the sudden "demand", even if the development department does not have the relevant specifications, should also be clear to the chest, or directly into the product design to fan.

Reusable

The design must be simple and elegant to be able to be new and lasting. --smashing Magazine

Design can be repeated in all branches of the product line, which is the essence of design norms, can not be reused norms are not good.

What are the benefits of reusable specifications for companies and products?

For visual designers, the button only needs a limited number of dimensions, different product lines or function points only need to change color or even directly apply. Grid system, page head is the only global.
For the front-end engineers, just like Bootstrap, according to the visual specifications produced 1 CSS files, the entire station to refer to this file, different products to each other, special circumstances can only define a few code.
For the company, these two colleagues have improved efficiency, and the overall efficiency of the company is certainly a higher level. On the other hand, if there is a flow of people, simple norms can also enable new students to quickly start and integrate into the product design team, while reducing the company's risk and loss.
For users, a simple few style A to wear the entire product, not only reduce learning costs easy to use, but also allows users to focus on content, this is the user experience of the important principle of "consistency", a lot of related articles, here will not be launched.

Of course, all of these are in the ideal state ...

Less and sass are the standard tools for front-end engineers (Pictures from dribbble)

Constraints

The norm itself has no constraints or limitations, and constraints often come from people. --I said.

Constraints on the specification itself

Many students see the norms will say, Zeo, too backward, how old with this thing to get?
Oh, scold well.
Who told you to get an antique-grade spec? Who put you in the same rut? Also mentioned above, the design should be concise and efficient! This can be quickly iterative, continuous improvement. The process of making norms is inherently a process of optimization and precipitation.
Good design to fan also need to stand in a certain "height" to define the product, "height" to be controlled properly, not too general-generalities said is tantamount to not say, also can not be too meticulous-many topics or independent products need their own space. Is the so-called "stand high, see far", with a certain forward-looking, to guide the product to go further. It is difficult to convince colleagues to adopt our specifications without advancing with the times and using advanced results and techniques.

Outside the specification

The constraints and limitations faced by design norms do not necessarily come from the design itself, but more from the "people".
For example, there is a Picture Carousel module on page A, is the front-end engineer 1 and visual designer 2 design, and then at the same level another page B also needs the same module, responsible for this page of the front-end 3 and Visual 4 agree: I can also write/draw, do not need to apply the existing code/PSD.

OK, I know you are good, this is undeniable. But the most brilliant masters are often buried in the depths of work and name, the front-end master can write the code that the designer can read, let the successor see the code as if it were written by himself, which is called Zen coding, and the visual master directly invents the substitute of the wheel without needing to use the existing wheel.
Am I clear enough to understand that?

Dieter Rams, 1964, Braun FS80 TV

Time

In a word, product design specifications not only need to do, but also need to do timely, once completed, it is necessary to implement, receive feedback, summary deficiencies, continuous optimization. Maito AH.
Standardization is not revolution, because inadvertently will be the product of the life of leather. When the product itself is not ready to launch, it will only increase the burden, reduce efficiency.
Standardization is "Evolution", in the product of the iterative process of precipitation accumulation, eventually formed a set of excellent design methods.

Title map from Dribbble contributors: Suer original address: Make it simple