Sketch Design (i): One of the most liberal design methods

"In the blink of an eye has been living in the CDC for nearly two years." From an E-commerce graduate to a professional interaction designer, experienced a lot of ups and downs. Often face all kinds of difficulties and pressure, when found that there are too many unknown areas, only in learning, thinking, practice can find the answer and self-confidence. ”

Sketch design is this year to learn, think, practice, summary of a design method, try to product design in all aspects. Sketch design is not unfamiliar to designers, in the daily work is useful, I believe many designers and I have the same idea, and want to promote the sketch design to the peer and product managers, as inspiration and implementation, needs and design bridge between. Also very much hope that interested students back to broadcast this article, leaving views to participate in the review.

"Why should why| use sketches?"

First of all why pay attention to the sketch, sketch is not very ordinary very simple things, we usually are in the paper to draw, is it worth fuss over? It comes from two books I've read-user experience sketch design, key design report. There are a lot of design cases and interpretation of the works. After reading it, I didn't quite understand what it had to do with sketch design, and I didn't even know what the author was going to say because of the wide latitude in the design case. Feel like a reporter interviewed a group of well-known designers, do a transcript.

But I was excited to see a lot of the initial, authentic, original design drafts of the designer in the product design. Marvel at their talent, the ingenious design. Not only that, their design is very personal, and there is no unified form, but are close to their own ideas and real experience.

Until recently, I recalled the book and suddenly understood why the author would write it. Sketch design is more than just writing and drawing on paper, and every case in the book is a sketch design. It is also the excitement of these, the use of different materials in different forms to express different ideas of the case. Why use sketches? because:

Sketch is the most liberal design

Free media

Any medium that can convey information can be used to make sketch design. Paper, whiteboard, pictures, notes, videos, languages, computers and even "nothing" can be used as a medium, as long as it can express your inspiration.

Free space

Instead of just sitting in a chair, facing a 1440*900 computer screen (even with a double screen), do the design of the High-fidelity interface in this tiny window.

Sketch design allows us to use a wider space, even a A3 of white paper than the computer screen, not to mention the real desktop, meeting rooms, whiteboard, and even we can walk to the street.

When you feel a little at the moment, the first thing to do is to stand up and leave your computer screen, to find a broader design space, not just physical space, more importantly, the space for thinking.

Free Cost

As long as there is value, the cost should be free. Cost is not just the value of the material, there is time. The use of paper often attracts environmentalists ' criticism, wasting paper evaluation and awareness can not be too arbitrary too extreme. Of course, paper material is only one of them, if you need a large number of whiteboard, or even expensive photographic equipment, in order to achieve the goal, material and time cost is to be considered synthetically.

QQ Multiplayer Video For example, in the initial design needs to do a few user interviews. But at the time there was no time to do demo and high-fidelity prototypes. In order not to waste this opportunity of intimate contact with the user, a large number of scene sketches are drawn and printed to verify our expectations of how users can use multiplayer video in various scenarios.

Due to the low accuracy requirements of sketch drawing, the use of mockup software in a very short time to complete the more than 10 scene sketch. At the end of each user interview, the printed sketch is displayed to the user and the user is given a tutorial on how to use the multiplayer video. This method greatly improves the value of the user interview, and lays a solid foundation for the refinement of the later scheme.

Freedom costs emphasize freedom and flexibility. Of course, low cost is what we want to pursue, but it is necessary to ignore it for the purpose of achieving it. If you need a meeting room, a few whiteboard or other materials, in order to achieve a good goal, should be bold to leader demand.

Free perception

Don't doubt the presentation of sketch design, whether it's a product manager or a user or a leader, you can understand your design intent by sketching. Not only that, the hand-painted style and hand-made texture can naturally narrow the distance between the two sides. Compared to the wireframe, the other side does not have too much rejection. Give a few examples:

Case one:

The image above is a sketch design of the Windows Phone 7 QQ lbs buddy list concept. It was because of the sudden inspiration, wanted to WP7 QQ contact list to do some innovation, so I did the above video. To express the concept of contact person, geographical location, distance sense, etc. The material is printed with paper, cut with glue, and then photographed with the iphone 4. Although material video production is very simple, but with the boss to report ideas, and colleagues and products to discuss the design, they are not a rejection of the contrary will be willing to participate in the discussion.

Case TWO:

The image above is the concept version of QQ hard disk. It was to express a concept that was consistent with the operating system experience. Looking closely you can see that this is actually a locally modified XP system folder. In fact, before the release of this manuscript, there have been similar interactive draft (with the XP system folder screenshots after the change) has been submitted to the product, but not to attract attention.

When we meet again to discuss this requirement, I come up with a printed sketch, and the product shows great interest and takes it away, indicating the problem to be realized with the development communication.

Case THREE:

The image above is a PowerPoint presentation of the QQ multiplayer video session. At that time because of the rush to report to the boss, but whether the product function module, or interactive logic is very complex, the traditional interactive design manual mail, the requirements of the document is difficult to short time to clear the solution, so produced a similar demo ppt. Must feel incredible, itself with PowerPoint Demo is very unconventional practice, in addition to the sketch is more difficult to imagine what effect.

But the bosses did not display negative emotions about the presentation because of PowerPoint demos or sketches, but instead they were able to take the initiative to understand the approach and to be flexible about every detail.

Relative to the high fidelity design Draft, free perception, making the scheme itself and easy to understand, there is a larger space to explore the discovery, in line with the design of exaggerated divergent requirements.

With all this talk, do you agree with sketch design? After a long period of practice, I believe that everyone will have different experiences and experiences. This is the first discussion of this article. Welcome you to leave a message to discuss. If you are interested in this topic, the next one will continue to address the interface design and discuss some of the tools and methods of sketch design.

Author: Jongnan

Article Source: Tencent CDC