How to do a good job in product design, in fact, this is a methodological problem, the benevolent sees the benevolent and the wise sees the wisdom. However, the core must meet the needs of users and make users feel comfortable. Back to the product solution itself, before everything starts, we also have to solve the above problem. Why do users have to use your product? Does he have no other alternatives?
Recently, I have seen a lot of product solutions, various positions, products, design, operations, R&D, and even customer service. There are a few particularly obvious places when people in each category think about solutions. They are all thinking about their own categories. For example, when designers plan plans, they will hold up a lot of interaction and interface to talk about their own highlights. R&D personnel are constantly listing functions, and operations personnel are talking about data and the market. In fact, all the above angles must be paid attention to for a product, but the focus of a product planning plan should not be the above things, but the needs.
The CEO of the company keeps repeating a few words. I think it’s pretty good. Share them:
1. The product manager has a problem that he likes to make up a feature, and then he thinks that the user must use your stuff, or he will be killed.
2. When we make a product, we must grasp the hard demand, that is, the user feels uncomfortable without you.
3. You are thinking about how to fool the user into coming in and then abuse him.
In fact, one of the core points of the above few sentences is that product managers are most likely to be self-righteous instead of making products according to market demand. To give a simple example, there are many products in the social aspect, and many of them have failed. Why do social products fail so many? In fact, it is very simple. Most of the products are structured by product managers based on one or two imagined user scenarios. To put it bluntly, this product was created by product managers to achieve a certain strategic purpose, not because users have such Demand.
Of course, sometimes the product manager’s strategic awareness is very advanced, and users may not have such a demand right now, but they can succeed in the end. For example, Jobs, such as Apple mobile phones, before Apple appeared, people did not realize how bad keyboard phones are. Until the Apple mobile phone subverted the industry. However, not everyone is Jobs. We see that the reason why social networking products have failed so many now is because: “The user does not use your things, and it has little impact on his life.” This is also one of the most common mistakes made by technical product managers. They think that as long as the function has a certain scenario, there will be users who will use it in the end, but they forget that users have many ways to solve this problem, and it is not your product. In this way, the problem that social products solve is nothing more than loneliness, but there are too many things that can be done to solve loneliness. Your product is not the only choice, so the chance of failure is very high.
Back to the product solution itself, before everything starts, we also have to solve the above problem. Why do users have to use your product? Does he have no other alternatives?
In my opinion, good product design should pay attention to the following points:
1. Find an entry point
The purpose of the entry point is to give users a reason to use, and this reason must be a strong need. To give a few simple examples, why are taxi-hailing apps so popular? It’s very simple, because people can’t get a taxi, so you don’t need this. Something, he was very upset. Why are online games the cash cow of most Internet companies? Because in China, many young people don’t play games, he feels uncomfortable. Why is Renren getting worse and worse? Because all kinds of new media have replaced users’ free time, users no longer have a reason to be on Renren. This is the entry point, a reason that you can make user fees have to be used by you. It can be a feature that is more attractive to others, or it can be a product concept that solves just-needed needs.
Of course, this entry point must have a market scale, that is, its market is enough to feed your product team or company. If you find an entry point that has a certain number of users, your operating costs are always greater than your operating costs. As the market size has a clear ceiling, such an entry point can also be considered to be abandoned.
2. Dig into all of these entry points
Although there are many entry points that are very new and attractive, there will be a significant period of fatigue, such as viscosity plug-ins added to many social products, or games. Shake of WeChat and people nearby must be much more active when it was first launched. A mobile game will definitely have a higher DAU during the first time it is launched, but this type of function will definitely be in the end. People slowly forget it, because if you play too much, you get bored. It is just a temporary pastime for people to solve boredom. Therefore, mobile game companies have to continuously launch new games. Therefore, some bright features will die if there is no follow-up operational improvement. For example, Happy Farm is a typical case. When users feel bored, it comes to an end.
Therefore, a good entry point can encircle a batch of early users. If this entry point is indeed to solve the rigid needs, then it is safer, but if it is just a new and interesting feature, I think its product manager will Put more effort into thinking about how to extend and deepen all these entry points, so that users can pass the fatigue period, and finally cultivate a habit of use.
3. Straighten out your product logic
Logic ability is the most important ability of a product manager. You don’t need to understand technology, you can be insensitive to design, but you must have excellent logic ability. When we find an entry point, we must try to sort out our logical thinking.
(1) How are the requirements of the entry point met?
For example, you say that the mobile phone for the elderly is an entry point. You need to make a mobile phone for the elderly to solve the needs of the elderly. Then the most important thing is how your product meets these needs. The specific use of mobile phones for the elderly is Those uncomfortable points? How do you design your product so that it works well?
(2) What is your function?
You say that elderly people use mobile phones because they don’t understand the cumbersome buttons and complicated functions. What kind of methods do you use to solve them? Larger button design? How big is it? The call function is more convenient, how convenient is it?
(3) How do users know and achieve this product?
Your functions have been made, and there are also mobile phones. How do you let users know? A lot of marketing knowledge is involved here. For example, taxi-hailing applications are pushed by taxi drivers. What about elderly mobile phones? In what way do you let others know about your products and choose to buy them?
(4) How can users achieve self-growth?
Good products have strong self-growth ability, such as FB. If the operating cost of a product is too high and the self-growth ability is poor, it is also risky. There are many more channels for the self-growth of Internet products than traditional products. General products can only be marketed by word of mouth, but Internet products are compatible with all kinds of endless promotion methods, so when designing products, Considering how self-growing this product is, is it possible to set up some simple and interesting features to promote? Or use the API of some social networking sites.
4. Module division
After the previous step, there are parts that are more inclined to the specific implementation of the product. What are the functional modules of the mobile phone for the elderly? Which interface and scene do the corresponding modules correspond to? Which operations are the key points for user retention? What is the priority of the function points of the entire product? When the above things are clear, the entire product is ready to come out.
5. Interaction and interface design
First make a prototype, and then improve on the basis of continuous use and experience. It is best to improve it through the user’s use research report. Does the prototype of the elderly mobile phone make the user like it or not? Directly find an elderly person to perform use case analysis, and use the results of the use case analysis to improve the product. After several iterations of interaction and interface design, an elderly mobile phone that can be introduced to the market was born.
In fact, looking at the above, the most difficult and most important thing is to find the entry point and the logic of the product, interaction or prototyping will have professional personnel responsible for it. The product manager only needs to express the concept of the product and provide the corresponding simple prototype. That’s fine, but the search for entry points and product logic are not problems that can be solved by methodology. They must have a deep insight into the market and human nature, as well as the rigorous logic of their own thinking.
I saw this sentence on Weibo before. The two most important axes of a product manager are logical thinking and intuition. I deeply believe that, because these two abilities determine whether your things can be used or not, and a user will not What do you use to improve the experience and optimize the interaction? The PK in interaction and experience will only appear between competing products, but the problem that most products face is that there are no users at all.
