Product form, product function, technical means and UI design, 4 methods, teach you to make your product simpler.
After a product develops slowly, it will definitely change from simple to complex, which seems to be an irreversible process.
What’s pitiful is that product managers see their products become larger and larger, with more and more iterative functions, but they still have to rack their brains to make the product simpler.
Firstly, I fear that the product is too complicated for users to understand, which not only arouses user disgust, but also a waste of added functions that are not well utilized. Secondly, I am afraid of causing users to churn because new functions will lose existing users. I don’t want to see it; the third is that often product managers are trying to add new features themselves, and don’t want to make too much noise.
In terms of design trends, the current Internet products are also more simplistic.
1. Product form
We can use one product form for multiple functions.
Drawing lessons from WeChat, WeChat has other additional functions besides chat, Moments of Friends, and mobile payment. Although not very important, users occasionally use it in daily use, such as WeChat sports and file transfer assistants.
For the function of exercise, some products may open a separate exercise module and set up a separate entry for users to view their exercise steps and history. However, the entrance of the WeChat campaign is clamped in the chat list. If users want to see the step information, they need to find it by themselves.
File transfer assistant, used for information transfer between computer and mobile phone. The interface of the WeChat file transfer assistant is the same as that of chat, and the operation method is the same as that of chat, except that the recipient of the message is changed from a friend to a computer. On the premise of ensuring that only one account can be online for a device type, there is no need to select the connected device. Which device is online means which device is transferred.
WeChat’s file transfer assistant interface
There are many similar practices in WeChat. For example, WeChat Advertising Assistant, Public Platform Security Assistant, WeChat Team, etc. all adopt the same product form.
2. Product function
In addition to product form, we can also work hard on product functions.
There are three main approaches:
The first is to give the user the right to choose , which is a method used by many content-based products, such as ZAKER. Users can choose to subscribe to their favorite channels, so that all you see is the content you subscribed to. Even if there is more content in the product, as long as you don’t subscribe, you will always be out of touch, and keep it relatively simple.
Users in ZAKER can choose which channels to subscribe to
WeChat users can customize the functions in the discovery page
The second is to visually display only the most frequently used functions of the user . Aggregate some infrequently used functions and hide them in one entrance. When users need to use, they can click to view. If you don’t use it at ordinary times, the entrance is not obvious, so that users will not be disturbed.
The third is to reduce the number of pages. Less pages can shorten the user’s operation steps, reach their target pages faster, and users will feel easy to use during use.
At that time, we made a product, and there was a “purchased” module in the personal center, and users could view the content albums they had purchased. One approach is to design a separate page dedicated to displaying the purchased content, but this is equivalent to adding another page. The simple solution is to guide users to the details page of the album. The details page is an existing page and shows all the programs in the album. We then use icons to identify which programs are purchased by the user. This can achieve the goal without adding page.
Some products have multiple product types, and the information for different product types will be a little different. In this case, you can try to use one page template, if you use two pages, it is a bit redundant.
3. Technical means
The last thing to talk about is technical means, the most common one is intelligent recommendation.
Some people say that the Kuaishou product is very simple, with three main pages, but they ignore the powerful recommendation algorithm behind it. It is found that the content displayed on the page is not all the content of Kuaishou, and what you see is only recommended by the platform.
Kuaishou product interface
If the change in product function is to give users the right to choose, then relying on technical means is the platform to help users make choices. Of course, the premise is that there is user data, and there must be a reliable basis to help users make choices.
When the scale of content on the platform reaches a certain level, it will face the problem of optimizing content display. No matter who it is, if you show content that he doesn’t like, it will be somewhat disgusting, and it is completely unnecessary.
We can also use technology to help users automatically solve some problems. For example, some trading platforms will help users automatically convert money exchange rates. In this case, there is no need for the platform to do so many functions, and the user also saves a lot of operation steps, which can kill two birds with one stone.
4. UI design
Some people may say that the role of visual design cannot be ignored, we can design the product interface very simple.
This approach is the easiest to do, and the perception is obvious, but if it is only the optimization of the performance layer, the user cannot really enjoy the benefits of the simplicity of the product.
