The design director of my first job is a former Baidu designer who is 34 years old and has been front-line design for 12 years. This year, I became a product director. Now I am 39 years old and still active in the industry.
The department director of my second job is a former Tencent engineer, 38 years old, with 14 years of front-line development; Two years ago in Q group, he told us that he went to the mountain to practice and preserve his health with his master, and his god disappeared (; ´ ༎ ຶ Д ༎ ຶ `)…
The director of design in Harbin and the director of development in Qingdao are all north drifters like us. They have no first-tier household registration, and their hometown is a second or third-tier city. The development of Internet industry is very general.
Speaking of this, I mainly chat with my design friends and talk about two things:
① Some people very anxious, said China Internet after more than 30 years old do not go on, I do not deny this cruel reality O (╥﹏╥) O
The industry elite is only a few people, we may be an ordinary designer all our life, taking design as a skill to earn a living for our family, leaving the industry developed cities even have no place to use.
But at this stage of our anxiety, it’s not useful. So keep improving your skills until you’re in your 30s.
(2) Some people say that small businesses have no cattle with people, want to jump ship a didn’t take out of the works, two afraid of no job-hopping strength;
This kind of situation exists and many, most small and medium-sized enterprises are like this, we are powerless to change the general market.
Therefore, I suggest that you use every means to improve your ability during your career, whether self-study or online courses; After the re-design of the company’s commercial projects as personal works, the New Year to jump as early as possible.
And finally, I’ve met a lot of designers in my work, and to use the phrase that’s a little bit cliche these days:
Design industry, working years ≠ working ability, talent determines the upper limit, hard work determines the lower limit.
So without constantly learning to improve our ability, we in our 30s are just artists who have been working for a long time.
Too much chatter. Let’s move on to the dry goods.
Part 1 The role of interactive documents
This is theoretical stuff, a quick skim is ok, there is no substance, but it is almost interesting without it.
Well, ▔ ▔ ㄏ
Interactive documentation needs to be known by the team, iterated and updated to everyone at the same time based on the feedback required.
To put it bluntly, the document must be familiar to everyone and must be updated as it is updated.
The role of interactive documents in each link:
· Transform abstract PM requirements into concrete and implementable design schemes;
· Discuss the details and feasibility of the design scheme with departments at all levels, finalize the requirements and start implementation;
· UI: design effect drawings, page layout, order, page emotion and interaction methods according to interactive documents;
· Development: design and develop product functions strictly according to interactive documents;
· Test: design test cases strictly according to interactive documents and Review the scheme for feedback.
What good interactive documentation does:
1. Let the relevant personnel quickly understand the design scheme and formulate the work plan;
2. Ensure consistent user experience in each link;
3. Upon completion of development, it shall be used as the inspection basis for product acceptance.
It is also the basis to reflect the professional ability and personal value of the interaction designer.
For designers, the thinking process of prototyping is absolutely the fastest way to improve logic ability, product design ability, analysis ability and product recognition. ,
(If you’re thinking about it, of course, but if you’re thinking about wireframes, forget it.)
For teams, lo-fi prototypes can be a great way to increase productivity, avoid risk and waste of resources.
The same is true whether the interaction documentation is large for the entire product or small for a particular feature.
That’s ideal, of course, but the reality is harsh.
I’ve gone through the process of ignoring the prototype phase and taking the requirements document and making the UI work. Change the renderings directly when requirements change and treat UI designers like cattle;
I also experienced the misunderstanding of the scheme and problems in the development because the scheme was not accurately communicated to everyone.
First, it is difficult for designers to change the status quo of the company by themselves, so they can either leave or carry it;
The second is to try to avoid silly mistakes caused by communication.
Part 2 Complete interactive documentation
Many people think that wireframes are interactive documents, but they are only “interface layout scheme”, not a complete “interactive document”, because “interface layout scheme” PM and UI can be drawn, and even marketing and operation can be drawn according to their ideas.
So this does not reflect the value of an interaction designer’s work.
The writing habit of the following interactive document comes from the design director of my first job. What he taught me has been applied to me and I have benefited a lot from it.
First take a look at the Pages directory of interactive documents. I will explain the corresponding contents of modules:
1) directory
A directory is the information architecture of an interactive document itself. An excellent interactive document needs a directory with a clear structure and accurate name.
When many people explain their interaction solutions, others see directories like “New Page01, New Page 03, features 02…” The structure and naming are confusing. How can team members identify with your expertise?
Clear structure and accurate naming is one of the qualities of an interaction designer’s expertise.
② One of the interactive document contents: product cover
Cover content:
Project or requirement: project name or the name of this requirement;
Version number: the version to which the project or requirement belongs, used for version filing, project follow-up and scheduling;
Personnel list: project related personnel will be included in it, which is convenient for work arrangement and handover.
The product cover shows a basic overview of the project and is a good introduction.
One of the contents of interactive documents: revise and update records
The purpose of revising and updating records:
· Let UI, development and testing quickly know project requirements and updates, and quickly locate the corresponding location;
· As evidence of requirements, when someone has objections to requirements, take out the record in black and white;
· Develop the interaction designer’s habit of taking notes all the time, as detailed as possible, which will help a lot in the future.
Revision of the writing rules of the update record:
1. Write in reverse order by day, record from project approval, update and iterate continuously;
2. List each requirement point as a separate record, and do not fill in multiple function points in one record;
3. Add a link to the corresponding page of the interaction scheme for each record, so that others can quickly locate the corresponding location.
This article is called “Writing and delivering Interactive Documentation,” but the work of an interaction designer is far from over after delivery.
The interaction designer’s job is to constantly follow up on requirements changes and feedback, continuously iterate and optimize the interaction document, and specify any updates in our interaction document.
④ One of the contents of interactive document: Requirement analysis & business logic diagram
These are requirements documents and business logic diagrams from the PM that are not the domain of the interaction designer.
The work of this module is mainly done by PM, and it is put here for two reasons:
① In order to maintain the integrity of the document;
② Let the development and testing can understand the business requirements and business logic in the same document, convenient for them to work, without the need for several documents to look back and forth.
⑤ One of the contents of interactive document: information architecture diagram
The information architecture diagram is a product function module extracted from the REQUIREMENTS document, function tree, and business logic diagram of the PM, where the hierarchy of product functions can be distinguished.
The structure of the information architecture diagram corresponds to the structure of the product interaction solution.
It can be seen from the product interaction scheme whether an interaction designer’s information architecture combing ability is professional or not.
⑥ One of the interactive document contents: process design diagram
I won’t go into detail about how important process design is, but it’s a job that anyone who does interaction design has to do.
Each step in the process design diagram corresponds to the page in our interaction scheme.
Put it in the document:
One is to avoid the omission of some pages in the process of making interactive schemes;
Second, let development and testing quickly understand the specific process of each task of the product, to arrange the work.
A note here:
When there are multiple task flows, you should draw a flow diagram for each task separately.
One of the contents of interactive document: interactive scheme
The interaction solution is the focus of our entire interaction document: the final executable design of the product.
It will include page logic relationship, page layout, interaction description, iteration labeling, dynamic effect description, page emotion description and many other key points;
It echoes the information architecture diagram and process design diagram mentioned earlier, and should be designed according to the information architecture and process design.
The interaction scheme will be expanded in detail in the next installment, and will only be used as an example in this chapter.
There are a lot of considerations in the interaction scheme, and if you expand it here, the chapter will be too long, and I personally don’t like to read too long text.
One of the interactive document content: common control library
The common control library serves two purposes:
First, when we make interactive documents, we can quickly extract corresponding controls to improve work efficiency;
(There are already a number of controls available on the online platform, but since we are using a localized authoring tool, this module is still needed.)
Second, when team members work together, keep the consistency of interactive documents;
Each team’s common control library is different and needs to be improved by each team according to their own product features.
Here are just a few sample templates that you should be aware of.
Let’s summarize what we have:
1) directory
② Document cover
③ Revise and update records
④ Requirements Analysis & Business Logic Diagram (from PM)
⑤ Information architecture diagram
⑥ Process design diagram
⑦ Interactive scheme
⑧ common control library
This is what a complete “interaction document” rather than “interface layout scheme” should look like,
Except for item (4), which may be limited by PM’s professional level and accomplishment, it cannot be guaranteed that PM can obtain it.
Everything else should be part of your job as an interaction designer in an interaction document.
This installment covered the content modules that should be included in a complete interactive document;
It can also be understood as the information to be reflected when writing interactive documents using localization tools.
Those who have read my previous articles are also familiar with them. Most of my articles are working methods and modes. Very little about design capabilities, theoretical systems, things like that.
I wrote this because:
This kind of working method, do not need time to digest, immediately after reading can be adjusted and applied according to their actual work situation, immediately can reach the degree of application.
As for abstract things like design ability and theoretical system, according to my personal learning experience, it is difficult to get qualitative improvement through reading a few articles in a short time. Instead, I must accumulate a lot of practical work experience.
Author: Fine cent young halogen big wet
UI Chinese home page: http://i.ui.cn/ucenter/126293.html