Design is logic, then aesthetics

Tick Tock: I’ve written “Data Scientist in the Company” and “About Product Managers.” Some readers left comments saying, “Let’s write Designer.” To be honest, Designer is really unable to write, these people are usually “too cool to have friends”. In my eyes, she/they are synonymous with fashion, beauty, art, etc. It’s a good thing I have a Sunny girl and a beautiful heart. Sunny is the design cat of Airbnb. One day I said to her, “I really can’t write it, you write it…” The man’s heart softened, and he agreed. Sunny usually always beautifully appeared in the company, clever body shape, bright smile, eye-catching dress collocation… Even indoors, people often wear different sun hats. Maybe people really live up to their names. Wherever they go, there is sunshine.

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I have a good friend called Jian Jian

Someone once asked me: Why do you designers wear black frames?

I said: Because usually the first step is always to draw a frame, mobile phone is a frame, computer is a frame, paper is also a frame, so the eyes of the world must also add a frame ~

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Design meow

Actually, that was all I said at the time. Now that I think about it, it was probably destined to be years before I understood what that meant. It’s called digging your own hole and jumping your own.

As for this box, there are many ways to interpret it, but it can be summed up in two words: constraint.

Before we get into the specifics of the constraints, let’s talk about the background. Many people, including me, have fantasized about design since childhood, that is, artists full of beauty dream unrestrained dreams and then create marvelous works of art with their ingenious hands. Until I graduated from college, I was so naive to think (engaged in physics competition in high school, undergraduate study of communication engineering, I have taught myself since childhood, you are a woman man of science and engineering, do not dream of a girl. However, it turns out that I am a literary woman, after all, can not escape the attraction of humanities and arts. Fortunately, my soul was liberated and I went to the United States to study human-computer interaction, which perfectly combined my long-cherished art, inexplicable accumulated technology, and profound humanistic interest (astrology and psychological tests). However, without a little defense, the teacher began to emphasize that “design is not art”! So, crossing the ocean to fill your heart’s thirst for art, is it over before it even begins?

The next words I will remember for the rest of my life:

Design is the realization of the needs of others, art is the need for self-expression.

See my illustration of surrealism:

See photo design hats vs art hats

In the later study and work, the definition of “others” is constantly enriched: who will use the design, who will make the decision, who will carry the brick, who will make the decision, who will pay the bill, who will take the blame (disorderly entering, or default to yourself, will have more sense of mission in the decision-making process)… Yes, your design is all about serving these other people. Designers should be egoistic, detached from themselves, forget personal grudges and personal preferences, and make objective and fair maximization to meet the needs of all “others”. And keep in mind that these requirements can change at any time, so don’t worry about changing designs. Design is always better, not best.

Now constraints. Since there are so many “other people” so many demands, there are naturally all kinds of constraints. Design is the process of finding the optimal solution in various frames. Users’ age, gender, habits, interests, education, culture, region and belief blA BLA THE distribution of BLA is a frame, which determines our first question: who’s your user/audience. Their problems and needs are our core boxes: What problem we are solving (what problem we are solving, and what value we are solving). The needs of teams and resources are framed in terms of timeline (project schedule) and staffing (project staff). How big to make something, complete system or small function renovation, process modification or visual/word game, are the boxes of scoping. The frame of feasibility is whether something is done or not. This is Only Budgeting. How much Money is Budgeting. Company image awareness and branding (branding) frame. And so on and so on. All of this is framed on a large piece of white paper, and then designed in a small space that is finally planned.

View pictures of the frame for planning and designing space

Fall off! How does such a narrow space gallop our unconstrained imagination? I have a no-die explanation for this: think of frames as very high dimensional things, so that when you expand their overlap into low dimensions (2-D UI, 4-d UX), it’s very, very big! The universe flashes! (The water here is very deep, do not understand please go home to watch “the Three-Body Problem”)

It is these regulations that form the basis of shaping the product. But all of this has not even started designing, and all of this is designing.

Design is a science of logic

After all this explanation, I can finally get to the point. In such a complex situation, it is necessary to judge the situation, weigh the pros and cons, read people’s minds, offer a variety of solutions, and improvise. A large part of design time and brain power is spent weaving through a lot of noise (oh no, PMS and programmers you have the most beautiful voices) to find an answer, using speculative logic, not imagination or improvisation. Then, with a strong logic behind it, you can make it work.

That’s why an important factor in judging designers is whether they can justify design decisions. When a non-designer asks you in a meeting, “Why not… / Have you considered…? “, the subtext may be “are your IQ online”, at this point you can cite reason 123, tried other 123, pros and cons 123, and then the other capitalized take; Thank you for your feedback, we can follow up on that (thank you for your advice, we can talk privately). You’ll never see me again. So how to attack when under siege is an essential survival skill for designers. This example is a rhetorical joke, serious children should not take it seriously.

It occurred to me that someone asked me in an interview, “How do you defend your design when you disagree with an engineer or product manager?” Would it be good to describe the above process once again? I secretly think this is not enough, state their own ideas and then go away, do not have a kind of self-centered feeling? Don’t forget the others! The most thoughtful designer is still an accumulation of personal experience, while people in other departments often bring a fresh perspective. So in addition to explaining “I” design ideas, what is “you” thinking? If your consideration is significant, THEN I accept your opinion with an open mind. In this way, we can not only learn new knowledge, make the map of future thinking a little more three-dimensional, but also take care of colleagues’ sense of mission and promote a healthy team atmosphere. Don’t go down with them, become a partner ship.

Every time I work with a great designer, I really remind myself: IQ, IQ, don’t go offline! They are logical, organized, thoughtful and argumentative; Have a full understanding of the operation of other departments, have a loyal ideal for users, but also have responsibility for the interests of the enterprise; The thinking is very holistic, with a sense of god’s perspective (this is referring to my boss’s star eye). Their questions always hit the nail on the head, their language gentle and tactful. They can always see right through a problem, not be confused by visual minutiae. It’s not a product, it’s an experience, and the user is in control of the world they plan in their head. They spend a lot of time thinking about problems and values, talking to people to get a deeper understanding of needs, building information structures, drawing user stories, and putting up a wall of post-it notes. When everything is clear draw the interface flow and so on. Of course, there are also repeated improvements, but they know this is a process, not blind.

So the next time you see a designer, think of him as Yichen, and don’t argue with him, because you always lose. If you don’t lose an argument, you lose in appearance.

Feel the user experience, not just your eyes

Having said so much about broad design, let me talk a little bit about my field, user experience design.

User experience, that sounds so esoteric. What an experience that must be. It’s called User Experience, or UX for short, and there are many different definitions in the industry. Some divide UX design into Visual design and Interaction design. Some are divided by UI and UX. UI refers to drawing interface, while UX refers to process/function planning outside the drawing interface. In addition to vision and interaction, some big UX concepts include Motion Design, User Research, Content Strategy, and Production Design. A thousand Uxers have a thousand ways of explaining UX. So when we hear, “Oh, paint the interface,” or “You’re a designer, draw me a logo,” we get a lot of excitement. “You are a programmer, please help me to build a computer”, “you are a photographer, please give me a meitu show”, “Beijing Post graduate, where to work as a postman”, “chef, is the dishes very clean” and so on. Because this conversation not only does not understand our hard mental activities, but also does not understand our hourly rate lol.

For those who have never been to design or who are new to it, it is important to correct the misconception that design is directly related to vision. Experience, I think, is the collection of various senses in time, seen, spoken, touched, felt, heard, thought. The diagram below:

View the image experience perception diagram

With our experience of the Internet industry as an example, the eyes see is the appearance of the interface, touch the input devices, mouth say is user of the product evaluation (or voice products as input), ear is someone else’s evaluation and recommend sound output (or product), thinks of the understanding of the function and operation choice, the in the mind feel is happy with the product, addiction, confusion, Or angry. I can’t say that a USER experience designer can control all of these experiences, but it’s just that these aspects are considered at the beginning of a design, as another frame.

There are not only facets to the experience, but also facets to the user. In the case of Airbnb, there are two sides of the marketplace: hosts and guests; Airbnb creates a third-party industry chain, so they are also our users; Customer service staff also need a very complex system; Internal staff also need some tools for efficiency/manpower/cultural inheritance. When designing for a certain type of user, sometimes you have to take a look at the whole picture and maybe get a different inspiration.

People who don’t know much about design, including the non-designer colleagues we spend time with, may think that we are always drawing UI, when in fact it is in the gap between the fierce battle of the frame and the debate, and the full interface after the process of repeated user testing and modification. Interfaces are just the tip of the iceberg, which hopefully gives some inspiration to anyone who needs to budget time for a product project.

But man is still a visual animal

I don’t think you’re gonna ask me if I’m an artist anymore. But with gold and jade, it’s not good to be outside, is it? After all, on the Internet, what the eyes see is directly related to the senses of the virtual world. The truth is that there are only lazy women and no ugly ones. Don’t look amazing, at least look decent. How many people try new apps because of the beauty of the App Store screenshots? Although the next discovery is not very practical, soon deleted. But if it looks too sad, it won’t. It’s like meeting beautiful products to talk about a love, practical and intimate to get married! All that was said was to keep the product with people for a long time, and the visual packaging was to “let you look at me in the crowd.”

Here is another interview. I often hear people interviewing interaction designers ask if they need to have good vision. The official phrase may be “having a certain visual taste,” but that doesn’t mean you can ignore sight. Because vision is really everywhere: the aesthetic feeling of the interface itself, interactive animation, product packaging and promotion, presentation style and details, the appearance and temperament of interviewees, clothing, eye contact… Don’t forget it’s a face world. It’s true that interaction designers don’t need to be visually proficient, but you need to know how good a bun is if you can’t make it, right?

Besides, beauty is a subjective thing. It’s the opposite of the logic that I emphasized before. What some people find attractive is likely to turn off or off others, and vice versa. Designers identify trends and create new trends. Too much focus on good looks can also be functional. In the end, it’s all about trade-offs and compromises. A design that is aesthetically pleasing is one that has a higher chance of being appreciated by more people. There is no right answer. Maybe that’s why designers are never out of work, the needs change and the aesthetic is constantly refreshed, so there’s always another version.

Out of personal interest, I am currently doing a small 100-day project to draw 100 dresses that I think are very beautiful. To satisfy the girl’s heart and interest in fashion illustration, train your hand feel and get familiar with different painting materials, and find some inspiration from a new perspective. I feel that in the process, I have developed, if not improved, at least a greater sensitivity to line, hierarchy, structure, and overall silhouette. It reminds me of the design at the beginning, from the tangled styles of fonts, colors and interactive elements, to the level and layout of space, to the position of people’s eyes with intention to navigate, to the design of white space. From showing off to doing subtraction; Constantly try, learn, absorb, gradually form their own style but can adapt to the needs of different scenes. It’s a never-ending practice.

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#100DaysOfDreamyDresses

The tail down

This is an atypical stream of consciousness of design work. I haven’t written any Articles in Chinese since I graduated from university. My Memory of Chinese has been washed away in the English environment. If the sentence or metaphor is inappropriate, please forgive me and correct me.

Finally, special thanks to our town goddess Sister Ann! I didn’t know I had so much to say about design work. Ideas are not shared or forgotten, write them out and leave a memorial. Thanks for reading!

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Sunny Wang

Experience Designer @ Airbnb

iamsunnywang.com

Dribbble, Instagram: @yingsunnywang

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