As a product manager, while talking about business, model, and strategy, you should also calm down and design artwork-like products from the essence of the product, paying more attention to the details of product use and the quality of user experience. This article will talk about the minimalist design of the product, and is also a summary of the recently read “Simple First-Four Strategies for Interaction Design”.

In life, people are often surrounded by unneeded functions, such as some mobile phones. There are countless cool functions: dual cameras to take pictures, turn pages with eyes, Group Play (several mobile phones synchronize a song) and so on. But in terms of frequency of use and effect, it is a bit tasteless. These similar functions may drag down the entire product, distract users when using them, and prevent users from focusing on the core functions. Especially when the user has a lot of interference and there is no time to study and think carefully, simple and controllable is undoubtedly what the user needs most. Simplicity is also a style, with its unique beauty. So how to do it?

When you first see a problem, you think it is simple, but you don’t actually understand its complexity. After you figure out the problem, you will find that it is really complicated, so you come up with a complex plan. In fact, your work is only half done, and most people will stop there…. However, truly great people will continue to move forward until they find the key and deep-rooted cause of the problem, and then come up with an elegant, perfect and effective solution.

User classification

First of all, we divide software related personnel into three categories: managers, developers and ordinary users. Complexity is often transferred before them, just like the trade-off between time cost and space cost in an algorithm. If it is simple for users, it may become more difficult to develop and manage. What we are focusing on here is simplicity for ordinary users.

Secondly, we divide users into three categories:

  • Expert users: They are interested in your product and are willing to spend time researching and exploring new features of the product.
  • Casual users: They may have used similar products and can accept new features, but they are simple enough.
  • Mainstream users: Will not use your product because of your technology, the purpose of using your product is to complete a certain task. They will master the use of some important functions, but they will never have the idea of ​​learning all the functions. The mantra of these people is: “My phone only needs to be able to make calls and send text messages.” Most people fall into this category.

Our product design should focus on most mainstream users. For expert users, maybe they can count your functions in detail, and there is no obstacle to communication with you. Three sentences are in your heart, and they are so reasonable, they upgrade to the latest version without hesitation, but their ideas will make mainstream users feel too complicated.

Four strategies

Simple design means that you have to pursue extreme goals to achieve secondary results. I think we can start from two aspects: complexity reduction and complexity transfer. In the “four strategies”, “delete” and “organization” are more on the former, and “hide” and “transfer” are more on the latter.

delete

  1. Only meet the core needs, create lightweight products with a sense of design, such as tumblr.
  2. Don’t slam “If the user…”, assuming that all possible usage conditions of the user are satisfied, there will be some features that a small number of users use infrequently.
  3. Delete the small details of the interface. For example, simplify the layout, streamline the style of buttons and links, reduce the number of ad slots, and remove dividers.
  4. No options are provided to users. For example, when users check out on a shopping platform, they block all links that can point to other places, or they can choose to check out after a few clicks, so as not to give users the opportunity to be distracted and hesitate.
  5. Cut text and simplify sentences. Use concise copywriting to highlight valuable information.
  6. Solve visual confusion. Some techniques can be used for reference: delete the delimiter and use a slight background color to divide the interface; use less emphasis; delete more information levels, such as using only headings, subheadings and text; reducing elements, such as the shape and style of buttons Wait.
  7. Eliminate sources of errors. No matter how small mistakes are, users will feel upset, so try to optimize the error-prone steps as much as possible.

Deleting certain features is a more powerful medicine, and no one likes to take back the given things, including users. In the short term, it may cause certain negative effects, but this may be a stage that the product must pass through for long-term development and stand out.

organization

  1. Divided into modules, 7±2 is a range of modules that people can instantly accept.
  2. Organize in accordance with the user’s behavior, time and space order, and be cautious with whether the alphabet and format are unified or not.
  3. The classification is as clear as possible, with as little crossover as possible. For example, in a bank’s mobile app, the life payment function is not included in the “life” business label, but is included in the “all-in-one card” business range, which will cause a longer query time.
  4. After the effective organization of the content, consider searching. In many cases, the search function cannot improve the inefficient organization.
  5. Different importance is distinguished by the organization of size and location.
  6. Using layering, there are the following techniques: a small number of layers; the difference between the two layers is as large as possible; the color with high brightness and high saturation is used to highlight the key points; the same important can be the same brightness and size, and the hue can be distinguished.
  7. Use color code wisely. The user’s learning cost and use benefit of the color code should present an appropriate ratio. For example, a large-scale application that is used for a long time, then users will not mind the self-contained color code, because it will only get more and more aspects after using it.

If deletion is a revolution, then organization is reform. Through recombination, the overall complexity can also be reduced.

hide

  1. Not commonly used but not less, such as personalized settings.
  2. Let users customize the interface and choose to hide it, but would non-expert users like this approach? It is worth discussing.
  3. Show in segments. Let users not accept all the information at once, but take a step-by-step approach. For example, a user only needs to fill in less information when registering to reduce the churn rate, and when a certain business is processed, let him improve his personal information.
  4. Clever setting tips and clues. For example, Apple’s MacBook display page, like a promotional album, satisfies mainstream users, and a technical specification is provided in the upper right corner for expert users who want to know about it.

Hiding cannot fundamentally reduce the complexity. It can be seen as a roundabout strategy. Even when you want to hide a function, you need to consider: “Does it need to be deleted?” We are designing a hiding mechanism to make the product look simple At the same time, we also need to make it appear at an appropriate time.

transfer

  1. Some functions of cross-device transfer, such as the functions on the Apple Watch, are specifically processed on the iPhone, and the detailed settings of the WeChat official account need to be completed on the computer.
  2. Transfer the work of the system to the user. Trust users and let users do what they are good at, such as planning, imagination, estimation, and identifying information; and let the product be responsible for accurate recording, calculation, and specific execution. For example, let a component have multiple uses, and let the user decide which one to use when.

The first three strategies can be perfectly combined: delete unnecessary, the organization must provide, and hide the non-core. The transfer is relatively independent and involves rearranging the interface.

Conclusion

Using the strategy of deletion and combination to “simplify” the main points of the entire book, and combine your own thinking into an article, it can be considered a “simplicity” actual combat. As the book says, “simple design” is like hitting a hamster. You hit this end and the other end will rise. I think that more often, complexity is transferred between various dimensions. To determine which dimension is of your concern, move the complexity out of that dimension as much as possible. God knows how much complexity Google has faced in order to make our search interface so concise that there is only one box.

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