American YP IPad Software Design

Preface: A few days ago, according to the habit of their former responsible design project to make a summary, found that at&t has YP ipad version from the App Store browsing class moved to the travel category. The company made a reasonable business plan change, so that YP can be applied to more accurate categories, praise! It also means that the design project has entered another phase. Here to sum up this project, is my first online ipad design project, is my first in the At&t design project, and so far all my design projects in the App Store category ranked the first longest time of the project: 11 months.

This design project is very typical, with design entanglements, product interruptions, development negotiations, and boss intervention. The following will record the design process and summarize the design points.

Article content all I 2 cents, forgive me. ：)

Design experience:

At the end of 2010, Yahoo made a new round of layoffs, and the new Nice boss took me to the conference room to reassure me that my colleagues ' departure would not affect my future work. That was the day I decided to leave, so the first time I saw my new boss was to talk about leaving. At that time, the mood is more complex, on the one hand, many of the Yahoo colleagues can not work together, on the other hand regrets the 2010 various reasons to leave the company's colleagues, on the one hand, the new challenging work is full of expectations. Then Christmas and his wife to Vegas rest for a week, relax the work of the accumulated pressure, but also ready to the first day after Christmas to the new company reported mood. These are probably the mood background of entering at&t work at the end of 2010. On the first day of work, received Imac,macbook Pro,iphone and other equipment, learned that the next will be responsible for the design of YP platform products, very excited. Interestingly, the first project was not my most familiar mobile Web,iphone, or Android project, but the ipad project. YP ipad has been on the market for some time and needs to be redesigned and designed to improve quality (as with many products, the first edition is primarily functional, clock). Therefore, the second edition of the design requirements are very open, the product manager's design requirements only mentioned the basic function point, no restrictions on the design. In fact, as an interactive design at the beginning of the stage, such a demand is the most difficult to do. is equal to solving a problem without a specific description, designers need to think of any kind of design possible. At that time, my manager was very supportive of my first few version of the creative draft, and then look at the situation. So my first edition came out, not fully understand the company's work model, the various limitations of the product, drew a version. The basic package of all the advantages of my idea of the ipad app, simple, clean, features strong, new features, flexible interactive mode, user-defined features, new user-based thinking mode of function points. At that time I hand over this version, also feel to realize the difficulty is bigger, the risk is also relatively big. Intuition is right, so the first edition is called Back to think again. Here in order to grasp the rhythm of our thinking, my second edition out of the faster, in a day and more time, I have again the structure of a more realistic, more feasible version. The design team feels better, but the product team still thinks the changes are too big to fit the current product schedule and development. It is inefficient to communicate with the product team because the design team and part of the development team are in Silicon Valley, while the product team and part of the development team are in Los Angeles. I haven't seen the product manager Sam for a few times since I started the project. So this time I decided to be sure to communicate face-to-face, to determine the project general thinking. I booked my ticket in a week, and I had a hard day on a business trip (get up at 5 in the morning, 6 taxi on time)Hair, 7 to San Jose Airport, 9 points to california-based Airport, 10 points before the company to Glendale, work to more than 5, 7 points of the plane back, evening 9 o'clock more home.

It is correct and efficient to interview the Product manager as soon as possible. At the first meeting I had a basic understanding of the project background, current issues, project prospects, and a lot of useful data. Sam is a very typical Silicon Valley type. Pm,stanford's undergraduate education allows Sam to have a solid understanding of the market, economy and technology, and the UCLA MBA gives Sam a lot of experience in various product management skills, and many years of product manager work that I've learned in the back. The business trip I know more about the product, but also the next version of the design has a new idea.

The third edition is also coming soon, in order for the communication team to maintain the rhythm of the product thinking. The third version of the architecture is generally recognized in both the design team and the product team. The hot, the rhythm, the rhythm, I quickly have no time to determine the details of the added, but also to make this version more mature, the goal is to let the product and design both sides of more recognition and support.

The fourth edition was ready two days after the third edition was finalized, and this was confirmed on a larger scale. This time the opposition is from the development team. The original development team has a new product architecture has a technical concept, and that I can achieve this version is too difficult, resources and time have concerns. After the debate in the meeting, everyone agreed to consider the choice of the next day. This time is simple, I guess, everyone's mentality are how many have such a situation: design think that the development support is not enough to achieve the design of the expected effect, the development of the idea that the design is unrealistic to ask difficult problems. It is important to develop IT companies in the United States, many times the dominant position (examples: Google, Apple, Yahoo, LinkedIn, you name it ...), but this time cannot be compromised (the first ipad project lol), I immediately contacted the major developers, listened carefully to their comments, and learned about their recognition and approval of my design. Because it is a conference call, my strategy is to listen more first, listen to the time to think quickly, and then they said I began to say, point by bit argument, win most of the benefits, put the facts to Reason (undergraduate motto: Seek truth from facts). I am not a tough type of design discussion (refer to my previous article: found myself), so the whole communication process I was a sincere proof of the state. When the meeting was over, I immediately changed the design, keep what I think is the core point, adjust the structure to make the development implementation more efficient, compromise some of the details (this time a little detail of compromise in the next iteration of the work one by one add back ..., phew, fortunately, most of the previous development colleagues did not read Chinese).

So with the fifth edition, everyone is more recognized, product, design, development in a front. This time I spent a few days on the luxury of self certification. Has the product been changed for the first value? is that what you think it is? Can you achieve all your goals? This process only designers do, product managers are more or less in the commercial perspective of products, although they most like to say "from a user's perspective", haha. After a few days, I made the sixth edition, self-certification after adding a lot of small thinking, small details, but I personally think it is important, because many times the user experience and moved, is these small details, rather than a macro understanding of a product.

At this time everyone thought the direction is OK, solved the big problem. Haha, I think so. After the sixth edition of several versions of Small change, all into the agenda, the bosses gorgeous appeared. The Big Boss and vice president of the company went on a business trip to see my design on the plane, with new ideas. Then one day, as I was doing my hard, the vice president took a long walk to my desk, smiled and said, "YoYo, I like your designs, especially your design document style" (Kua I Drugged me), "But for Thi s one we have some different thoughts, look in this app "(my hardest trick to see other apps, stress ah)." It probably means that you prefer another design architecture.

The vice president is higher than I n class, after graduating from the Navy 5 years (tall and straight), and then Apple work, Stanford MBA, major companies in the management position, the gas field than I am much better. At this point I still stood up and listened to his thoughts, then told me about my design, and emphasized that it was a design that was repeatedly determined by design, product, and development. Then I saw the vice president of the doubt, I immediately said, well, I immediately out of a version you want, we see together (back to the same topic, I am not a strong design of the discussion, is silently unwilling type). Then the VP said, "What time do you say," Tomorrow? Obviously very urgent, I nodded a smile, I think, tomorrow can.

The next day I came up with a standalone version of the design, bringing out the ideas of big bosses and vice presidents, and drawing a version of their ideas. Then put the pros and cons of each version one by one plan well. All the design, product, development and bosses attended the meeting, and as a result, bosses didn't insist. The conclusion is that this standalone version is reserved, but it is still in our design.

Soon the powerful development team gave the demo. I prepared a user test with my colleagues in the research team. So it is a few times a busy day business trip, carried out a lot of research, and understand the user feedback. At the same time ready to enter visual design. This period is the most complicated. Interactive design is still iterative, with the results of research and impact on the design, visual design also need my side to provide some support. Suddenly feel that the team has no product manager in the past six months to help me, although this time is very busy, but more and more sense of achievement, because the prototype of the product.

Visual design time is very tense, we have a very good sense designer, but because the time is very few, we must have the choice in the visual detail. The interaction designer also serves as a gatekeeper for the product, helping the visual design focus to the point where design quality is maximized. Here are three visual designers who have helped.

The final release of the project lasted 2 months. The result looks at the end of the article. ：)

Design Summary:

Design basic ability, product management ability, and so on common topic does not say, said I thought the interesting key point. ：)

1, rhythm

The rhythm is very important, especially the big company environment, many roles are distracted, this time the designer needs to let their project have a good sense of rhythm. A project that has a first-half or a month-old version doesn't basically reach the pace of mobile design. Design to be fast, accurate, multiple release. A good rhythm keeps all the roles involved in the project in tandem, and the efficiency gains are obvious. This project not long time, at least updated 10 times the big revision, the small revision did not have the statistics, the rhythm is very fast.

2, communication

Communication is very important in this case. All links need designers to dredge. In this project, I have the basic and all the characters have a quarrel, this time communication efficiency, communication methods are very important, because only all the characters agree with the case, the project has the hope of success. Here's a special example of how I talked to every developer on the phone when I was arguing with development. After developing the whole group to meet in Silicon Valley, I greeted a development handshake and said, "Hah, YoYo, the voice on the phone!", he has not seen me, but he has been very impressed with my voice and name, and his cooperation has been very smooth.

3, design documents

The design output method has helped me a lot in this project. I went to the first day of all the document way from the previous 1 omnigraffle large figure shows 30 graphs of a graph, change to 1 pages to display 4 of the standard document. I also built the OmniGraffle design document template According to my previous InDesign design document. Each time you output the design document to each role, the design is not in accordance with their expectations first of all, the design document itself is beautiful, everyone will have a good impression. Everyone is beautiful, interactive design also need to have the requirements of the United States, I am interested in a good design document.

4, Critical thinking ability

Most of the time you need critical thinking skills to solve problems. For example, each role in the project interrupts your design ideas (there are lessons to be learned, and there are some that you may not notice first), and you need critical thinking skills. Especially the big boss this layer, whether it is experience, momentum, communication methods, are far stronger than you, this time if the design has different opinions, for me the only more useful is the key thinking ability. More thinking, more out of the plan, with ideas and design quality to prove themselves.

5, hardship

If you want to make good things, you really need to endure hardship. Two examples, the first, in the United States theoretically I can not work overtime, because the work visa relationship I can only 40 hours a week, busy manager or let me try to avoid overtime, so in addition to take the work home to do, most of the time I need to work within 8 hours to solve all problems. Never do anything else at work, lunch is sometimes the wife of a sandwich to eat while working, or eating while meeting. My colleagues in Los Angeles are used to book my calendar 1 O'Clock noon. The second is a day business trip, according to my physical strength, 5 o'clock in the morning in the evening, more than 9 o'clock home business trip, one must be tired for three days ... But if there is no such communication, the project can not progress smoothly, so every time I want to travel I will not hide. Note: Travel to Los Angeles many times, in fact, have not been to downtown or any fun places, the farthest is a person walking 20 minutes to see the next Glendale of the Commercial Street, interested in the next Pasadena (Life of the Big Bang story of the protagonist Living place), even if the noon travel to rest.

6. Ability to solve problems

Here is the solution to the key problem, this need to accumulate work, need to do. Most of the time, the boss, Product manager, development is not to solve the problem for you. There are two examples of the impression is very profound, one is our products have no business pictures, and Yelp,google have, this very passive, how to solve. Finally adjusted many times the design to avoid weaknesses. The second is to have a design scene, the ipad horizontal screen vertical screen two states can not be harmonious, everyone comforted me to say otherwise first horizontal screen bar, I finally came up with a flexible way to change, at the same time to adapt to two states. This process makes the manager who just hired me trust me more.

.........

The summary is always not complete, it is simpler, so.

Design results:

Enjoy the process and enjoy the results. I've always been a designer who made a product and kept check it. I've been staring at the App store every day since the YP ipad came online. In the most positive period of time basically read every comment, bad comments will feel uncomfortable, or want to debate, see good comments on the happy. The evaluation of the App store from the previous 3.5 stars to 4.5 stars. Soon after the line is the browsing class ranked first. (Teamwork credit, I'm just a small part).

End this article with some at&t colleagues ' comments on my LinkedIn. Thank you all at&t excellent colleagues, you let me learn a lot of things. ：)

My Linkedin:http://cn.linkedin.com/in/freshyoyo

"Yoyo is a very smart, diligent and efficient designer." I find him to is extremely teamwork-oriented and helpful in sharable with the QA team. I enjoy sharable with Yoyo A, deal. "–jason

"I worked with Youyou" (yuanqing) on a daily basis, the He is sharp in mind and a hard worker. He can synch produce quality designs, abound are crystal clear in details, so developers implies have to trouble And what is on on. By the way the projects him worked on all turned out to be quite successful as the user reviews shows in the App Store. "– Jet

"Yoyo is one of the talented consortium designers I have worked with. I had to interact with him a lot to understand the "flow" and implement it on the Android creator. His consortium is wire frames are synch clear and very out. He effectively communicates with engineers like us and synch super-delegates a solid reasoning the his. He keeps his designs updated of the ever changing requirements. The He communication and motivate skills on owning the product'll make him a the "addition"

"I had the" the "Fortune to work with Yoyo during he time at At&t Interactive. During that time he designed several versions's our flagship smartphone app Ypmobile. Yoyo ' s designs are clear, intelligent, and understandable. It is capable of the fast turnarounds without sacrificing quality, and he's a genuine pleasure to work with. I look forward to any opportunities I have to work with him recycle in the future. "–michelle

"I had the opportunities to work with yuanqing (Yoyo) at At&t Interactive. Yoyo is isn't only a excellent UX designer, but super-delegates an exceptional product sense. His is clear, intelligent and user friendly. Yoyo is also a communicator and listener, engineers implies had issue in understanding. Yoyo ' s work in at&t including Ypmobile Android, Abound is featured by Google into Android Harsh place and Ypmobile IPhO NE, once ranked top 1 in the navigation category in App Store. "–cheng

(This article originates from Tencent CDC Blog, please indicate the source when reprint)