After combining personal experience and product experience, the author shared with us his seven thoughts on making products, hoping to bring you thoughts and inspiration.
I don’t know if you have discovered a strange phenomenon-no matter how late the company’s work hours are, people who should be late will still be late; no matter how early the company’s work hours are, people who are not late will still be late. And the most important thing is that their time to the company is always scattered around the working hours, not long early or long late.
When I discovered this interesting phenomenon, I happened to work in a company that was engaged in clinical medical quality control products. The principle of our product was the same-standardizing and indexing the treatment process of a certain disease through evidence-based medicine. Then go to guide, monitor and improve the diagnosis and treatment process. Because there is a standard, doctors will follow this standard, which improves the overall medical quality of the hospital and reduces the incidence of medical accidents.
This quality control design idea has given me a lot of inspiration. I have been thinking about it. Product design is also a very important job that cannot be failed. After all, in the Internet era where products are king, if the product fails or has great difficulties Injury, then it also means the failure of the company.
Are there similar indicators that can be followed in product work?
If so, it will be of great guiding significance to the work of the majority of junior and intermediate product managers.
So I tried to find the key points in the product design process based on my work experience, as follows:
- Clear product goals
- Target users are clear
- Rich user scenarios
- Products have advantages
- Reasonable product planning
- Interaction design follows principles
- The deliverables are accurate and perfect
Then we will analyze these key points in detail. These key points are not like medical quality control indicators, which can quantify scores in detail, but they can be used as several dimensions to evaluate the quality of your product.
1. Clear product goals
The product goal is the starting point of all our product design work. If the product goal is not clear or even know what the product goal is, then the product you make must be a failure.
But I listed the product goal as the first key point, not only because of its importance, but also because it is a place where product managers make mistakes.
Product goals are like the goals of our lives. We often say that we never forget our original intentions. Why should we talk about them often?
Because the original intention is easy to forget and easy to get lost. Product design is also a very complex process, and this process is closely integrated with the current highly competitive business environment, so product goals are often even dynamic, and every change in product goals is a very difficult process for product managers. Big challenge.
So I have met many product managers. When I asked him what the product goal was, he would either hesitate to say that it was not clear, or said that the goal and the designed product function did not correspond at all. As you can imagine, they designed it What is the product like.
So how can we keep product goals correct and clear at all times? I have summarized three key points, and I will give you a specific analysis below:
Do you understand the product goal correctly
In fact, this is a demand mining ability. In many cases, the product goal is given by the leader, but the leader often does not make it clear. Due to the leadership’s authority, we dare not ask more. In the end, we think hard and speculate After that, I made a product that was completely different from the leadership needs.
There is no need to cite such examples, I think everyone has experience.
Therefore, as product managers, we must be good at digging out needs, and we must ask clearly and plainly even in the face of leaders.
Have you forgotten the real product goal
Take an example I have experienced. At that time, our company had a large data analysis team. Because their data analysis plan was relatively primitive, the time cost was extremely high, which greatly reduced the efficiency of the entire company, so I wanted to improve Their work efficiency-since I am a product manager, then I want to help them make a data analysis tool?
After a lot of research and analysis, I finally designed a data analysis tool, so I confidently explained the product to the leader. Unexpectedly, the leader only asked me three questions:
- The first question: Can the EXCEL function of this product be realized? I answered: yes.
- The second question: How long will it take for this product to be online? I answer: two to three months;
- The third question: How long does it take to make a product that can be combined with EXCEL? I replied: Two weeks will be fine.
After answering these three questions, I suddenly realized that I made a serious mistake. My goal is to solve the current inefficiency of the data analysis team, instead of spending a lot of manpower and time to build a product with high functionality.
Therefore, we must always be vigilant in the process of designing products, whether we have forgotten the real product goals.
Is the goal of the new feature consistent with the overall goal of the product
This problem is very common in the iterative process of products. For example, in order to solve the problem of fewer users and low activity of the product, many products will want to add a function similar to community and social interaction. The idea is good, but many product managers just do it. A professional community product was made, and the overall goal of the product was forgotten, and only the function in front of it was done, not integrated with the entire logic of the product.
The function designed in this way seems to be quite good, but it does not match the original business logic of the product. Not only can it not solve the original problem, it will also make the product look different.
Therefore, in the product iteration process, especially when adding new functions, it must be closely integrated with the overall goal.
2. Clear target users
“User-centric” is the principle of our product design, so how to quickly find our users and dig into user information?
I have summarized three steps based on my work experience. Whether these three steps are well done or not represents whether this key point is up to standard.
The first step: find out the user category
Generally, the users of to C products are relatively simple, and there is only one user that is the user, but for many products or especially to B products, its users have become a lot more complicated, and the medical products I mentioned above For example, users of this product can be divided into consumers (payers), users (actual users) and value assessors (their evaluations have a great influence on the decision-making of payers);
Step 2: Subdivide individual user categories
As mentioned above, the assessors can be subdivided into section directors, quality control sections and information sections.
Why subdivide it again?
Because each type of user represents different needs, such as:
- The head of the department is concerned about how to effectively supervise and manage the medical quality of the undergraduate room. He also wants to know clearly which doctor has any problems with those indicators;
- The quality control department is concerned about the value of the introduction of the system to the improvement of the quality control system of the whole hospital and the overall medical quality of the hospital and trends;
- Finally, the information department is concerned about the safety of the system, the complexity of the installation, the impact on other systems, and the maintenance cost.
If we want the dean to approve the purchase, we must first obtain the consent of the owner. Therefore, if we ignore the needs of any user when designing this product, it will be difficult to win the hospital’s order.
Step 3: Refine user portraits for each small category of users
Everyone is familiar with this part, and I won’t say too much. I just remind you that abstract user portraits must be drawn based on real and accurate data. They must not be based on feelings and imagination. They must be stable and convincing.
3. Rich user scenarios
As a product manager, when you are designing a product, you can say at least three specific user usage scenarios casually. If you can’t tell them, it means that your product design is completely obscene.
This is the experience I have learned in the direct employment of BOSS. I still remember our creativity in the direct employment promotion activities of the boss. I found that the boss of the product directly hired by the BOSS casually talked about a production manager sitting at home. I immediately admire the scenes like this, such as chatting with the boss on the toilet. This seems like a small scene, but it vividly illustrates the essence of the product that boss directly hired.
If you think you know the user scenario very well, you can check it with the following questions:
- In what context is the product used?
- Are users often interrupted when using it?
- Are there multiple users using the same device?
- Is it used with other products?
- What are the primary activities that users need to perform to achieve their goals?
- What is the expected end result of using the product?
- According to the user’s skill and frequency of use, how much complexity is allowed?
4. The product has advantages
The most frequently asked sentence of product managers is “What are the advantages of your product?”, because everyone knows that products without advantages are difficult to succeed; of course this is also the most embarrassing moment for many product managers, because it is true I don’t know what the advantage is.
So in order to make a successful product, in order to avoid embarrassment again and again, please make sure that your product has an advantage in similar competitors. How to judge whether your product has advantages? Just ask yourself three questions:
- Is there innovation?
- Is the user experience better?
- Can it better solve user pain points?
Here I would also like to remind that many product managers have a misunderstanding of product advantages. They think that big and all are advantages, which means we have what others have, and we also have what others don’t.
When designing products, product managers with similar ideas generally pay more attention to competing products than to the real needs of users. This actually violates the taboo of product design. User-centricity is the biggest criterion of our product design.
5. Reasonable product planning
Although the product planning is not the key to success or failure, it is not a small number of failures due to unreasonable planning.
Because product design is a systematic project, in order to achieve the desired effect, it usually has to go through many iterations of versions, which means that users may not feel the advantages you think in the first few versions, so even if you have A very clear goal, a very valuable requirement has been excavated and a lot of very advantageous functions have been designed, but it does not mean that you will be successful.
As shown in the figure below, the example is very simple, but it is very vivid. The above example is obviously an unscientific product planning. If this design is basically declared as a failure in the first version.
How to judge whether your product planning is reasonable or not? I have summarized four key points and also four questions. You can also try to ask:
- Is every minor version available?
- Has it solved at least one key point of our core users?
- Does it fit the user’s usage scenario?
- Is it possible to design, develop and release quickly?
6. Interaction design follows principles
Regarding how to ensure the quality of interaction design, my method is very simple. It is Nielsen’s Ten Design Principles. I usually use it to monitor when designing a product and after it’s completed. Only when these ten principles are met can I think design is qualified.
- State visibility principle
- Close to the user’s cognition principle
- User controllable principle
- Principle of consistency
- Error proofing principle
- Principle of accessibility
- Flexible and efficient principle
- Easy sweep principle
- Fault tolerance principle
- Humanized Help Principle
There are many interpretations on the application of Nielsen’s ten major design principles on the Internet. If you are not very familiar with it, I suggest you take a closer look and you will gain a lot.
7. The deliverables are accurate and perfect
Why consider the deliverable as a key point, because no matter how well you have done the above six key points and how deep you understand it, you need to do one more thing-make it and deliver it to R&D, etc. Personnel, if you cannot deliver your design to R&D accurately, the quality of your product cannot be guaranteed.
How can we do this well?
I divided it into six points. The first four points are not necessarily required for R&D personnel, but you must draw them yourself. The last two points are the output that must be delivered and must be perfect.
- flow chart
- Functional structure diagram
- Information structure diagram
- Product Structure
- Product interaction prototype
- Requirements document
Here I want to focus on the previous four points. I have seen many product managers skip the above four points directly when designing products. Some are because of laziness, some don’t know how to draw these pictures at all, and some are because they think they have already corrected the above four. The point is very clear.
Regarding the first two points, I just want to talk about the things that should be overcome and the learning that should be learned. If the first two problems cannot be solved, then it can be said that you have basically no relationship with an excellent product manager.
If you think you already know it, I suggest you try to draw it. According to my experience, you can only imagine many problems in your brain.
The above are the seven key points in the product design process. If you are designing a product, you can apply the above key points to guide your design; if you have already designed, you can also use the above key points to give yourself a score. Whether your design is qualified.
