The power of design needs to be changed

Read Subjiect To change the book's record, incorporating his own understanding. The Chinese name of the book is the power of design, and it needs to be changed. The title is quite consistent with the theme of my blog, but it has different connotations.

Excerpts and Notes section:

When you start to deal with a seemingly simple question, you may not be really aware of its complexity, and when it comes to discovering its complexities, there are many seemingly excellent but complex solutions, but it's only halfway through, and that's where most people stop. But really wise people will continue to look for answers-the nature of the problem and then come up with elegant, beautiful solutions that we want to do on the Mac-Steve Jobs.

Key elements of product evolution:

• Technology
• Characteristics
• Experience

Product = Experience

Increasingly changing markets and users, have served our tools are no longer so useful, the user's knowledge is also changing, these are not only technical problems, adding features can no longer attract more users, the process has been difficult to squeeze the efficiency of the product is not so many fatal defects. How to provide great products and services? It is not just pure, abstract, but also true, profound understanding of the user's capabilities, needs, expectations, and to keep these in mind, providing any product is actually to provide an experience. Experience is the most concern of users. The product of the transformation, relying on the product itself, simple technology can not be changed, good Technology + good design + good market, these can be integrated to solve the problem of experience, and good products to rely on a good experience to win the hearts of users.

The elements of experience

• Motivation-solving demand, why do people use, what can be obtained?
• Expectations-users will associate some things with experience
• Ability-how users form perceptions of the product and how it is actually used and interacted
• Immersion-how people use your products for a long time, the situation ...
• Culture-Normative framework (etiquette, language), behavior pattern, trust mechanism

Experience = Strategy

Strategy must know how to give up, so that you can make some aspects better than your opponents, through a strategic balance of trade-offs, products and services in the user's mind to establish a unique image, can have irreplaceable, valuable difference points. I think this can also be a good solution to what is the modern brand-building values, through the experience strategy to establish their own brand image. Instead of outdated preaching, preaching, indoctrination, and other marketing practices, they are persuasive and even deceptive.

History of Competitive Advantage:

1. Efficiency advantages: Increase efficiency, reduce cost: Economic theory--> Freddie Taylor's scientific Management theory--> Gantt Chart, accountability Financial budget--> efficiency--> optimization, measurable can be managed--> Six Sigma (enterprises through lean production, Eliminate waste to shrink costs), business process reengineering
2. Marketing Advantage: Characteristics of the competition. The confrontation of features is not strategy, but the difference between leveling and competitors. Without recognizable differences, the experience will become mediocre. It is not correct to attempt to achieve the same good as an opponent by means of a characteristic confrontation, and doing the best is not an effective strategy. The strategy of characteristic confrontation is low value, short-lived, and it is wrong to focus on features and technology rather than focusing on experience.
3. Experience strategic advantage and provide unique value for users ' key needs.

How we inadvertently discard the user experience:

To give a typical product development process, for example, we develop a knowledge product, because we need to solve a problem, and then we use various methods to build prototypes, whiteboard, paper, surface, in the construction process, we will clearly understand the application of the underlying data, as well as the logic of the data flow. When you are in trouble, our decisions are usually based on the data level, or the logical level (the cost is a bit high, not cost-effective, this version is not considered this, hey, we already have a library can almost achieve this function, directly with it), at this time, no one to consider these impact on the experience. And no one can insist on experiencing as the center, focusing on this is a challenge for the product team, which is one of the reasons why most products fail to succeed, and is taken off the right track by the technical details of the product.

Stay focused on the experience

Be true and stay focused on the experience, not a slogan for everyone sloganeering. In fact, in many Chinese enterprises, especially some executives are very fond of the user experience of the time, in fact, they really understand and focus on the user experience it? Most of the time, they mention the user experience, which simply involves using technical performance to enhance the efficiency of the experience. Improve technical performance, technical innovation, and never mentioned the behavior and process design, the user's expectations of satisfaction. Often we see that the product team does not have a common product vision, or is summed up as a clear experience strategy, up to a series of requirements specifications to be completed, and more typically, only a series of features to be developed (functional modules), The process of design and development around spec requirements and function lists is ultimately difficult to ensure a coherent, good experience. Fragment development makes it easier for researchers to focus on details, technology, features, and data, and forget about the systematic process of experiencing and the goals (users).

There are many ways to experience a strategy. But in essence, the product development reflects a vision, expressed in the hope that users can have the experience. On top of this, a series of requirements are elaborated. The experience strategy is a clear standard that affects all decisions of the technology, features, and client interfaces. Whether it is an early product design process or a product development process, the experience guides the team, and to the end to ensure a user perspective to look at product production.

Experience strategy is not a brand strategy.

The traditional brand orientation is contrary to the user experience, it is often a market tool that assigns a company to a value or quality, a brand strategy that starts with the company, an inward-and-outward orientation, a set of attributes to be displayed based on the company's positioning, mission, and then as much as possible to enhance the output of these impressions. Lou Carbone, a marketing consultant, said: "The brand originated in the practice of" production-sales "in the 19th century and 20th century, and is a kind of promotional product attributes and the company's manufacturing economy carbon. ”

From the production of-– sales of the manufacturing industry to the provision of information services to the transformation of the information economy, this traditional brand market means is not enough, it is a product is not important, the key is that it provides users with what valuable experience services, products as a larger system interface. Start with the user, because the user's expectations exist to help people accomplish what they want to accomplish, the experience is external and internal, through the user's motivation, behavior and scenarios to lead the product, service and system architecture and development, ultimately meet people's expectations.

Grasping complexity and developing empathy

Research is the most basic work, design products and services include two things: put forward ideas, evaluate ideas. And the idea is based on presenting and answering questions.

• Grasp complexity through qualitative research. Qualitative and situational research, approaching users, understanding their lives, work, entertainment, etc., establish concepts, theories, and models through the details of their spontaneous revelations.
• Use ethnology as a research tool. (different from qualitative research: 1. Very focused on field trips.) 2. As a result of human studies, officially trained ethnographic scientists are able to use social science theories and are particularly focused on cultural and situational issues. 3. Very in-depth study of the object of life, a long period of follow-up studies)

The misunderstanding of the use research in the enterprise

Let's take a look at some of the phenomena first:

• Always make a mistake to the user
• Features and availability are excellent, but usage or sales are low
• Products are improved, but lack of innovation
• There are a lot of reports, but no one is interested, do not know what it said? Just forget it.
• The research team is very busy and spending money, but the product is not successful

These phenomena are usually caused by one or two common errors, most of the time, the failure of the study is due to the internal structure and mechanism of the enterprise, and other failures may be due to improper use of those methods.

Isolated research

In many enterprises, research is led by a section or group, isolated from other design, development processes, physically isolated, functionally isolated, leading to research that does not affect product design and decision-making, and does not affect the organization, presentation, etc. of the information. Most of the research was confined to the group. If only the research team is the only one who communicates with the user, then the rest of the enterprise has few opportunities to develop a true sense of empathy. If you pass out in the form of a paper report or a presentation file, the other process elements are read over and then shelved and dropped into a folder.

The evil report is the yoke of truth.

Using the report as the only result of the study, basically there is no effect, especially through a number of research based project design experience, more can understand this, user research at all stages of the role, conclusion and harvest, not the only, another reason, the usual report is too long too thick, no one is willing to read. Design research results, if not know the product design, is useless, design research is different from the academic report, it needs for the next direction, inspiration, need vivid and powerful, and can be easily accepted and understood.

Integrate research into the design process

Integrating research into the design process is a strategy for effectively utilizing research resources and results. The 1th benefit is to avoid the research of encouraging segregation while avoiding employee decisions only by patting the head. It is easier to gain trust by incorporating others into the process, and everyone involved can clearly understand the cause and the consequences. Second, when entering qualitative and situational research, staying in the field is a major part of the process. This is because of the fact that in the context of the situation, researchers spontaneously benefit from certain details, and this is a good way to help everyone develop empathy. Integrated research makes empathy an explicit part of the process, as well as the results of processes that have a lasting and workable impact on the final design and implementation of the product. It is beneficial to bring together designers, engineers and product managers to participate in the research.

A concrete experience strategy

By prototyping the experience strategy, the prototype is more vivid and persuasive than the wizened presentation of a list of stacks. For example, when Palm developed pilot, product designer Jeff Hawkins, in order to embody a simple and effective, portable and lightweight experience strategy, cut a piece of wood that fits into the pocket as a prototype, reminding team members to keep their features and functions focused and concise, and when engineers suggest new features, He raised the wood and asked, "Where's the add?" "This piece of wood as a prototype always reminds the team to notice the actual experience." Finally, Palm Pilot was successful, and Apple's Newton failed on the contrary. In designing a Web product, the user Experience Department often produces prototypes to make people feel like a real-life product experience. Prototyping is often not viewed as a research activity, but there are few effective ways to integrate it into the design and development process, where the concepts and ideas are in real shape and people are more likely to participate, share, advise and discuss. There are many forms of prototypes. For example, the story version, the concept map, the prototype needs a practical, realistic way to express ideas.

Stop Designing Products

To deploy your product system for the experience strategy, the most typical example of the experience strategy is Kodak, the successful example of the once giant, but few people are aware of its key. Kodak at the time of technical conditions, put forward "you just press the shutter, the rest of us to do" experience. Although George Eastman by inventing one of the simplest and easiest camera products at the time, only half of the target was achieved: "You just have to press the shutter."

The complexity of photography involves placing cameras, exposing light materials, removing photosensitive material, preserving and processing sensitive substances, developing and printing from sensitive photosensitive products, and other complex processes. From this scenario, a camera product is not a good solution to the user's expectations-to obtain a satisfactory image, Eastman's genius is that his system only requires users to focus on one of the most interesting aspects-capturing images, and that the following tedious links are all placed in the New York Rochester Development facility that it sets up to handle, (The rest of us to do), finally embodied in the user's experience flow, formed such a use of the form, after the film, take out the film, the film Mail back to the processing plant, take the film. This was the best experience that had been achieved. And this experience is a seamless experience that multiple systems collaborate with. In order to convey and realize this idealized experience, Eastman realizes that it is necessary to keep a relationship with the user, not just sell the same product, which means he can't just take the Kodak camera as a product, but should be an experience component of the entire service. It changed the rules of the game and created an empire that lasted for years.

Experience-driven, systematic solutions that make the right experience strategic plans for market changes, not just the production of individual products.

Design competitiveness

Design gives the idea of life to make it shine. Focusing on experience and providing a state-of-the-art system to help achieve this experience goal is a very difficult task.

Obstacles to experiential design: excessive pursuit of measurable manageability, containment of attempts at new designs.

The realization of the demand, logical, business model and the market are not biased, does not mean to create a consistent user expectations of the user experience.

The ability to use new technology, not to create a people's mind and the user experience.

Processes, production processes, cross-sectoral coordination, retrospectives, and planning meetings can create obstacles. The cost overhead in the process is a huge hurdle. But these costs, on the other hand, reduce unnecessary risks, ensure a certain degree of reliability and consistency, and prevent large errors and losses.

Excellent processes need to be precise, consistent, and replicable, and innovation requires loose space, differentiation, failure and luck. We need to strike a balance between the two.

In the enterprise, because it is often busy dealing with efficiency issues, organizing meetings, preparing reports, correcting bugs, writing emails, demonstrating PowerPoint, which makes people appear more efficient, these daily work takes time, so people rarely try to create new things, Because methods that have not been tried are often difficult for others to understand and potentially fail. This is one of the reasons why companies resist trying to design, especially things like design experience that are "more nihility, harder to be objective, measurable, and controllable" and often seem to clash with classic business practices.

Because the user experience cannot be quantified, sometimes there is no impetus, and you have no way to point out, however, in each new product and service PPT Display, there is always a "good user experience" The word to preach to everyone, very few enterprises will go deep into the word behind, because the excellent user experience is difficult to plan, Difficult to extract the measurement.

The fact that companies believe they provide the best experience is far from the case.

Design cannot be isolated

When design practices break out of systems and strategies, they fail. Design needs to recognize the constraints and release the will and enthusiasm within the bounds of constraints.

Start to take the right path

• Indicates a variety of scenarios. Deductive, purely, commercial thinking usually leads to a single conclusion based on the fact that it already has. Either 0 or 1, and the designer is usually sensitive to a variety of possible events. Inductive reasoning method, the designer "accepts the possible logic, but the designer may not be able to prove:" What is it? "or" how must ". But they can offer possible reasons.
• Shift focus and broaden your horizons. Companies are often obsessed with past successes when facing problems. Design methods can often shift focus from sales to services, from systems to users, and to innovative ideas in the process, designed to bring new ideas and influence decision-making processes through appropriate, fast and understandable insights.
• Recognize the constraints and drive the best solutions. Some small examples: if you can receive the courier overnight? --fedex. If you can carry music with you? --ipod. The right question can bring a great new experience, but how to find and guide the constraints of these problems, the first need for empathy. The second requires a novice's mind. Familiarity with the industry and business allows you to get used to overcoming obstacles in your system, leading to a disregard for these obstacles. will also miss out on innovative opportunities that can actually be addressed through new programmes.

Creative Labs

A prototype that can articulate what people expect to experience can make ideas workable and exciting and have a huge impact. By translating ideas and observations into design artifacts, prototypes designed by design methods can validate abstract ideas.

Creativity is neither rare nor fragile.

Creativity is very easy to get, also very cheap, often we can think of a lot, but the creative need to use a way to induction, performance and preach, you can use the way of document to elaborate, refinement, perfect, so that people really understand these ideas. Most of the time, companies always think that creativity is fragile, very rare, very special. This is because too few ideas have been successfully discovered and executed.

Control is a kind of short-sighted

The experience is determined by the user's mind and will, and when you try to control the interaction and manipulate the experience, the user may go to the opposite direction. In fact, the control of products in the hands of users, must let users like to win users. Control is a central, top-down design approach, decision-making power concentrated in the hands of a few people, less, less thought, obviously new ideas will follow less. When an enterprise controls too tightly, it will inhibit growth.

Design competitiveness: A strategic advantage

Design capabilities enable an enterprise to gain and maintain a competitive advantage, relying on it to provide a truly profound understanding of the user, and how to provide the ideal solution to them, in most markets, cost advantages and technical advantages are likely to be temporary, homogeneous acceleration can only make these weapons more short-lived, but if the existing technology and resources, By constantly translating new ideas into a good user experience, the ability to get a sustainable lead in the marketplace.

Effective, lightweight delivery of great products and services to the process, you can ensure that the design becomes a agile and efficient competitive advantage.

Agile Manifesto

• Individuals and interactions are better than processes and tools
• A working client interface is better than an exhaustive document
• Collaboration is better than contract negotiation
• Responding to demands is better than following a plan.

In this comparison, we recognize the value of the latter, but we prefer the former. Agile is not a special methodology or technology, but a concept of developing web products, which can be understood not as XX but xx.

Agile methods

A highly iterative process that shortens the development cycle

Integrate users into the development process

Create a smaller working group

Attaching importance to correctness and timeliness

• Overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities
• The creation of a precise and complete fidelity prototype, not a complete prototype, is incapable of elaborating and expressing a complete experience
• Make the iteration process cheap and simple
• Encourage open communication
• Experiment, experiment, test

Uncertain world, easy to flee the user. "Suddenly the desert is invisible and changeable. " complex problems have simple, understandable but wrong answers.