Excellent designers and product managers should have the ability to think deeply, be able to see the essence of the problem through the phenomenon, and improve their vision. In addition to the first look at the interface, copywriting, elements, and then gradually see the needs and Business, and then see the business logic and even the trend level, which requires long-term accumulation. In addition, you need to continue to expand the boundaries of your abilities, and don’t let yourself be restricted.
Tools, Techniques in Design
The three swords of designers and product managers: tools, techniques.
- Maker: various prototyping tools, document tools (such as Photoshop\Sketch\Axure);
- Techniques: processes and methods (such as user research methods, information architecture);
- Product thinking and design thinking (how to find problems, define problems, analyze problems, and solve problems).
Many novice designers or novice designers can’t understand this. They all thought of learning all kinds of software at the beginning. Of course, this is a way of thinking in the student days. These are the first steps for you to become a true designer and product manager. Next, for example, you want to start learning various processes and methods, how to do user research, information architecture, good icons, and drawing a good wireframe. These are often more important than the device you are using (that is, using various tools). Some. We also interviewed a teacher who taught others in a training class and found that the teacher used the tools very well when doing visual design, but when he really started to design and asked him to output a good design, he couldn’t. NS. He can look at other people’s things to achieve that effect, and problems arise when he is original.
The growth of designers and product managers will eventually improve. From the very beginning, mastering the basic tools, expressing my design philosophy and product definition, sketching out detailed functional modules, drawing up diagrams, planning processes, and docking with various departments, etc. are all at the first level. Further down, mastering a variety of advanced processes and methods makes us more efficient. However, in the end, it will definitely rise up to the level of Tao. It is necessary to constantly think, find the essence behind it, and then think from a higher perspective when encountering similar problems. This suits the test of human learning ability and long-term accumulation is particularly deep. For many professions and industries, the longer the working hours of some people, the different perspectives of the problem. They may look at the problem higher than others. In many cases, others only see some of the points, and they can see one side. This is based on finding the Tao in this field.
Target
What is our goal to cultivate design thinking and product thinking?
My understanding is: First of all, we must try to find the essential laws behind things, not just Internet products, but most things in the world (from economic, military, political, and other fields) have their laws behind. , Just like the principle of physics is the same. We have to find the essential laws when making product design and product decision-making. This is the first step. The second step is to apply these laws to new designs and product decisions and implement them. Cycling these two steps back and forth determines whether your product thinking and design thinking are improving.
For example, take a visual designer who is drawing an icon in the same way. At first, he drew an icon just for the icon, and then further understand (such as how to make it look good), whether there are any rules that can be placed on other icons How to express it in a better visual language, and gradually find these rules for future use. Most designers who have been engaged in design for many years have their own methodology. Some of them are good at summarizing, and some have not been able to fully generalize it.
In this process, what is the ultimate result?
After we find the essential laws of things and apply them to new designs, we must cultivate our sensitivity to the laws and cultivate them into our own instinctive responses (conditioned reflexes). For example, can a visual designer see if the pixels are aligned, so that he has a pair of “pixel eyes”. This is a basic requirement for them, and it is impossible for most ordinary people. Similarly, an editor of a new media is just as conditioned to reflect whether the title is popular. For various news portals in the past, these old editors would struggle with how to write headlines with more than a dozen words in order to catch users at a glance. This also takes a long time to form this feeling. Engineers can also form such a conditional reflection on the code, the naming of variable names, where to calculate and encapsulate, and so on.
As a designer and product manager, when looking at these things, find out a set of methodology and thinking points, and solidify these points into our thinking and behavior patterns as much as possible, and transform them into our instincts. When we are discussing these things, our minds can immediately imagine which point this should be and which things should be based on to make judgments and decisions, forming a conditioned reflex. When doing this product, we can better find the basis and meaning when designing. Many people will ignore the fact that every design should be meaningful. Some designers rely solely on subjective feelings when they do it, instead of trying to make decisions through some rules and essence. I think the funeral is necessary for doing things rationally, objectively, calmly, and methodically in the world.
What am I doing
Big design: Big design covers all aspects of the product.
The links of a product are market, user, demand, function, interaction, vision, content, data, operation, promotion, dissemination, and realization. All these links are inseparable from design, which is the so-called big design. In addition, whether you are a designer or a product manager, in the whole process of thinking about a product, you can’t just focus on one point and a familiar face, because the success or failure of a product is inseparable from the efforts and intersections at all levels. We need to connect these levels through design, find design thinking points in each level, and use design to push them forward.
In my work, these years, from the earliest international products in IBM that face 26 languages around the world, to the peapod of the innovative factory (I am responsible for the early product and user experience of the pea pod) to the most beautiful application, Some products for users with more than tens of millions of users were also made in the middle. I think that in the whole process of making products, it is possible to discover the laws and essential needs that run through many links. I was thinking that we should establish a systematic design thinking framework. When we think of these problems, we immediately use this framework to correspond to specific decision points. This will allow us to understand each link and build up our conditioned reflex. It is important to cultivate our instincts at the same time. This is the meaning of doing this.
Excellent designers and product managers should have the ability to think deeply, be able to see the essence of the problem through the phenomenon and improve their vision. In addition to the first look at the interface, copywriting, elements, and then gradually see the needs and Business, and then see the business logic and even the trend level, which requires long-term accumulation. In addition, you need to continue to expand the boundaries of your abilities and don’t let yourself be restricted. Many designers can easily frame themselves. I think you should break your comfort zone and find more points on the design level to gradually cover yourself. T-shaped development is also needed, with both outstanding points and depth.
Basic framework
Priority, critical point, feeling, order, system, and leverage cover the complete framework from market to realization. I hope you can improve your design thinking through these points and develop these six points step by step.
- Priority: user, demand, information, interaction, vision;
- Leverage: tags, bonuses, links, nodes, endorsements, drives, topics, monetization, hooks;
- Critical points: inertia, threshold, path dependence, metaphor, positive feedback, trajectory, exposure;
- System: coupling degree, boundary, structure, hole and filling, singularity, long line and short line, trade-off;
- Feeling: atmosphere, sense of refinement, sense of volume, sense of ritual, sense of security, sense of freshness, sense of participation, and happiness;
- Order: consistency, exception, foolproof, error, shaping, information architecture, control.
