Compulsory Course for Product Managers (6): User Experience

What is the concept of user experience? The concept published on 20 12 is certainly more rigorous, but it is not intuitive enough. A good user experience can contain many features of the product and make users feel satisfied.

Peter Morville, a well-known information architecture expert on the Internet and president of Semantic Studio, once mentioned that he thought that user experience consists of seven modules, which can be displayed by a cell model.

The contents in the model include:

? Useful. The user needs we face are real.

? Availability. Function can well meet the needs of users.

? Satisfaction. It involves perceptual design, such as graphics, brands and images.

? Can be found. Users can find what they need.

? Available. Users can easily complete the operation and achieve the goal.

? Reliability. Let users generate trust.

? Value. Products should create value for investors.

In Don't Make Me Think, Steve Kruger mentioned the following aspects of the user experience:

? Usefulness: Can you help people accomplish some necessary things?

? Kexue: Can people understand how to use it?

? Memorable: Do people need to learn again every time they use it?

? Effective: Can they finish the task?

? Efficiency: Do they only need to spend appropriate time and energy to complete the task?

? Meet expectations: Is this what people want?

Whitney Quesenbery, the author of User Experience Design, a famous user research expert, put forward the 5E principle, which holds that user experience includes five aspects, as shown in Figure 6-2.

? Effectiveness: In fact, it can be equated with usability or usefulness, that is, whether this product can play a role.

? Efficiency: products should improve the efficiency of users.

? Easy to learn: low learning cost.

? Fault tolerance: the ability to prevent users from making mistakes and fix them.

? Attraction: Make users feel comfortable and willing to use it interactively and visually.

Of course, the most famous is the five-layer model in the user experience elements mentioned above. This layered method is comprehensive, and it is very clear from the strategic level to the visual level.

From these descriptions, we can easily see that in fact, the focus of user experience is to make products meet users' needs in a friendly way, or conversely, to make users meet their needs conveniently, comfortably and quickly through your products.

Like user research, the content of user experience is all-encompassing. The more detailed and personal favorite user experience evaluation methods I have seen are some usability standards put forward by Jakob Nielsen, a web usability master, that is, "Nielsen's Ten Usability Principles". No matter what kind of user experience, this usability principle can be used to test.

So from this perspective, let's discuss what kind of effect we want to achieve in terms of user experience under this framework. Jakob Nielsen put forward the usability principle from the perspective of web design. According to the characteristics of the current mobile Internet, after some changes, the principle of "restoring the scene" was added, and finally some suggestions for copywriting were added.

Ensure that the content, status and changes of the interface are visible. Any information that needs to appear should appear where it should. Sometimes you may not think of it when designing, but when you are a user, there are often "Oh? Shouldn't there be an introduction here and a reminder? " Such doubts.

Some seem to be particularly basic requirements, but many products can't. Users can't find information, don't know the status quo, and don't know what happened. These are all examples that do not conform to the principle of visibility.

For example, blank pages of many products are shown in Figure 6-3(a).

"Where am I? Why is it shining here? What is this place? What can I do? " Did not tell the user. Even users who understand the function will wonder: is this not loaded or has it been loaded? Why is the page empty? Should I wait? Wait a minute.

A good blank page is shown in Figure 6-3(b). The change on this page is remarkable. It clearly tells you what is going on and why it is blank now, and provides a way to make the page no longer blank, that is, telling users what to do now-click the button to pay attention to others immediately.

For another example, the loading page of Facebook is not a shiny thing, but a pseudo thumbnail, as shown in Figure 6-4. In this way, the user's perception will be very different, knowing what is currently loaded and roughly knowing what will be loaded.

Let the function operation conform to the user's usage scenario. In fact, the importance of scenarios in requirements analysis has been mentioned before. Scenes are also valuable in functional design. We can know what the function looks like, which is more in line with the user's use environment and way.

If you see the interface of Didi Chuxing Driver Edition for the first time, you may feel a little strange, as shown in Figure 6-5.

This is very different from the way we interact with apps every day. The text is large and the spacing is strange. Several buttons are uncomfortable and the page utilization rate is not high.

But if you think about the scene, the reason is very clear. Drivers who travel by Didi are on the road or between trips when using their mobile phones. At the same time, most mobile phones are not in the handheld state, but on the shelf. In such a scene, it is necessary to ensure the most important points: the font is large enough, the information is concise, and people can identify it quickly; The trigger points of interaction are not stuck together, which can reduce the false touch rate of operation.

So when designing, don't judge the quality subjectively, but put it into the scene to think.

Users should be able to understand and control the current situation well and be free enough. Pay attention to the controllable principle in many special functional interfaces with many possibilities. Users need to be able to control the state of product operation. For example, if a typical video playing interface only plays and pauses, but does not fast forward and drag, you can imagine how bad the experience will be. For example, all interfaces should have convenient exit operation.

When the iPhone appeared, the Home button can be regarded as an unprecedented invention, which perfectly conforms to the controllable principle. No matter where you are or what problems you encounter, when you don't know what to do, just press the Home button and you will return to the desktop. In this way, for many users like our parents, they don't have to worry about anxiety from time to time when using it, and they don't know how to quit or return. When they encounter any confusion, they can return to the desktop with one click, which is very safe.

Users need to accept the same set of specifications or logic in the same product.

Many product managers will ignore the consistency of product logic. Without considering the logical consistency of function, interaction and vision, and without considering using the same specification, the learning cost of users will increase sharply. In addition, it will make users who have used a certain function to form a habit suddenly feel at a loss in other functions.

For example, in social products, people who follow you will be called "fans" and become "followers" of another page; In some reminder dialogs, the OK button is sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right. In tool operation, red sometimes indicates correctness, sometimes indicates warning and reminder, and so on.

I have seen an example before, which is the Alipay binding reminder of a taxi software. On the App interface, the copywriter reads "Reply to the verification code, and you can bind the account." However, the SMS sent during the binding confirmation is "Your verification code is 0235, enter this into the application and confirm the account." It is estimated that all users will wonder: where do I lose?

Try to use enough reminders and designs so that users will not be confused, make mistakes and be in a daze.

The principle of error prevention and foolproof has always been a mature quality inspection method in Japanese industry, which was put forward by the founder of Toyota system, Xinjiang Breeding. The original intention of preventing mistakes and stupidity is not to design functions for users who often make mistakes and stupid users, but to prevent users from making mistakes and being in a daze.

As mentioned above, a good product manager should be able to look at the problem from the perspective of a small white user. When judging whether your design is really smooth and user-friendly, you need to look at the problem from the perspective of a small white user.

It will be silly to remind and explain. Don't you know anything about it? But the premise of saying this sentence is that designers are familiar with products and functions. For new users, many things are not clear. If you don't prevent mistakes and stupidity, you will often get stuck when you use it.

A typical example is the reminder box as shown in Figure 6-6.

I guess most people will be a little puzzled after seeing it and think, "What are you talking about?" "Then what?" "Don't leave me alone, what should I do?"

In this case, a domestic tool is clear enough and provides a solution button, as shown in Figure 6-7.

Figure 6-8 is also a very confusing example. In this calendar, unavailable dates and dates that are not in the current month are actually represented in gray (1 ~ 6 are actually unavailable dates). In this way, users will be at a loss and take a long time to understand.

When you need to remember some information, the product function should help users remember it.

This principle is based on a more basic principle: try to help users solve possible problems at any time. When you have finished shopping in Taobao and booked a meal in Meituan, you certainly don't want to recall all the order contents in your mind. Click the confirm button, right?

For example, I bought some clothes and wanted to confirm them before checking out, so Taobao did, as shown in Figure 6-9.

For another example, in Apple's Mac-side "Photos" application, when deleting photos, it is not a direct reminder "Do you want to delete?" Instead, as shown in Figure 6- 10, the number of photos is prompted in the dialog box, and the content of the current operation is explained, which is convenient for the user to confirm again.

The interface is concise enough and the content is easy to read.

This principle has two requirements. First, the copy of all products should be concise and easy to read. Second, make the interface clear enough so that users can quickly find the information they want.

Some products are particularly fancy, and everything in the interface looks cool, but users can't even tell which button is which, which is not worth the candle.

In addition, readability should also consider the visual trajectory of users using products, and typesetting should not be chaotic. This should be more obvious on web pages, and it is also very important on today's big-screen mobile phones.

As shown in figure 6- 1 1, this is an official application of an operator, and the whole interface is very fancy. When it is first opened, the following icons and advertising spaces will be quickly promoted. At the same time, the login reminder at the top is also very unclear, and there is no obvious login button reminder (some readers may see that clicking on the blank avatar is login). So even product managers who have tried many apps are not sure how to operate at once.

Remind users of the possibility of making mistakes and provide users with rescue methods.

Remind users when they may make mistakes. The more serious the error, the higher the alert level. For example, if you want to restore the phone settings of iPhone, you need to enter the password first, as shown in Figure 6- 12.

Then there will be a red eye-catching reminder, as shown in Figure 6- 13.

The most typical method to recover errors is the undo function in text editing. Some products also provide the function of canceling the operation. For example, after deleting an email in Gmail, a prompt notice will appear at the top, providing a cancel button, and the user can quickly click to cancel the deletion, as shown in Figure 6- 14.

Always consider the situation that users need help and give tips.

During normal operation, or when the user has enough knowledge and information, prompts are of course unnecessary. But the reality is that any user may have questions and need help at any time and in any scenario.

Besides putting a help document in the product that almost no one will click to read, the best way is to remind you now.

For example, in a game I played before, the task page will have an eye-catching "Help" button with a detailed reminder, as shown in Figure 6- 15, to prevent players from seeing the task and not knowing what to do.

When users use it, they should complete the task conveniently and efficiently.

When using emoji expressions in sogou input method, we can see that they are all sorted according to recent usage. Such common expressions often come first and can be found quickly.

When using the "+"function of WeChat, if you took a photo not long ago, the photo will automatically appear above the button. This function is cleverly designed. In this case, it is very likely that the user will select this photo soon and can send it directly without opening the album, which is efficient.

Adapting to the user's fragmented usage habits, the scene can be restored when switching back.

In products with editing function, it is very important to save the content in real time. For example, the Zhihu Web version will be automatically saved every short time when editing the page, because the temporary situation can still be found in the draft box after unexpected exit. As shown in figure 6- 18.

IOS provides a very convenient return function when handling temporary switching between applications. Click on the upper left corner to return to the application interface you have just visited, which makes many fragmentation operations smooth, as shown in Figure 6- 19.

Everyone has encountered it at ordinary times, but it is estimated that few people will pay attention. Wechat built-in browser has the function of recording the last reading position. If you read an article on the official account of WeChat, you will return to the chat page to say a few words in the middle of reading, and then return to the place where you left when you return to this article.

When you watch someone's Weibo in Sina Weibo App, if you jump out and go back, you will return to the top of the Weibo list. In this case, the user may have the impulse to drop the phone every time.

There will be more and more products in the future, and the way people receive information will not be satisfied with the overall form, but will become information flow and fragmentation. Therefore, protecting the site will be the principle that every product should consider.

Although product managers have limited access to copywriting, it is often the most critical part. For example, naming a function may directly affect the user's cognition of the function and the way to use it. As a product manager, you should pay enough attention to copywriting. When working in hammer technology, we may discuss dozens of versions of a short story of more than ten words. If it is the name of an important function, it may even take months to struggle.

The copywriter has several suggestions.

In literary and artistic creation, the more interesting and personalized the name, the better, but in some places it is taboo to describe products, functions and tips. As product designers, we should let users understand the meaning of products, not just let users feel our interest.

For example, the full disk clone backup function provided by Apple's OSX has many more scientific names, but they chose the time machine, and everyone has a particularly specific perception of the effect of this function. Obviously, using this function can restore the computer to a state in the past.

However, some products give special names to their various functions and functional items. For example, points are called X coins, shopping malls are called bazaars, shopping carts are called bamboo baskets, and so on. It has caused troubles to users' cognition and increased a lot of learning costs. MIUI has a "hidden mode". Many friends don't understand what this function is, so they have never tried it.

Here is also a sentence, try to avoid using online buzzwords. After experiencing the popularity in the past, online hot words may soon be forgotten. After a while, no one will feel fresh, and after a long time, probably no one will remember its true meaning.

Under the principle of simplicity and readability, the clarity and conciseness of copy presentation are briefly mentioned. What I want to emphasize here is that the number of words can be reduced, and then it can't be expressed clearly.

We have seen such a product prompt copy, "Are you sure you want to delete the selected 25 photos? After deletion, the photos will be permanently destroyed and cannot be recovered. Please select them carefully and click the confirm button below to delete them. " It's like a product manager who took 10 seconds to write it down and was too lazy to think about it. In fact, the nonsense behind can be completely deleted. A more appropriate wording should be "Do you want to delete these 25 photos?" They will not be able to recover. "Users naturally know to click the button.

In some cases, a long list of copywriting is not as effective as a simple symbol. For example, it is much more convenient and easy to understand that √ is used to mean "success" or "successful completion".

"The network is not normal, please check the settings." This is the worst but very common copy. First of all, is the network anomaly a product server network anomaly or a user network anomaly? Do you want to check the settings according to the settings in the product, network settings or system settings? This vague copy won't have any effect.

The copy of QQ's default verification message has not changed much so far, as shown in Figure 6-20. "I am ..." is ambiguous in the dialog box-is it clear who is the applicant or the respondent to add friends?

Everyone knows an anecdote about Bai Juyi. Every time he writes a poem, he must read it to an illiterate grandmother first. Grandma said she didn't understand, so he continued to correct it. So should the product copy we write. Find someone who is not familiar with the inside story of the product and show him these copies. If he doesn't understand them, he will constantly change them. This will eventually become the easiest version to understand.

At Hammer Technology, we always find a colleague who is not interested in digital products to help review the copy; In Xiaomi Technology, it is said that the security guard downstairs did it.

The principles mentioned in this article and the suggestions for copywriting can be used as a test to help you complete the product design, but the user experience is "a long way to go" and everyone should seek it together.

Regarding the user experience, I have a very deep feeling that there is still room for improvement in any function. Therefore, at any time, I dare not claim to have designed impeccable works. As long as I have time and energy, I will continue to study and think about any designed scheme, so as to make the products better and better and make users more and more satisfied. Every little makes a mickle. Good products can be invincible, not by some magical ideas. A good product is always impeccable in any detail.

? Anything you think may be "uncomfortable" may make thousands of users in the market "very uncomfortable".

? Any scheme that you think is perfect enough will still have room for optimization.