For a product, a prototype is an expression of one's own experience, ideas, and understanding of requirements. If there is a problem with a prototype, it means that you still need to understand the basic skills such as requirements understanding and functional design. In this article, the author shares the situation of several problems in one prototype that he has experienced, and recommends it for everyone to learn.
"Prototyping is not only a part of design, but also a bridge between ideas and reality."
Half a month ago, the company began to conduct a talent inventory of various departments, and suddenly a nervous wind blew, which made the already involuted atmosphere even worse.
During the inventory, Jing also launched a vote for feedback on "product weaknesses", and unexpectedly found that the top three were "business demand research", "product planning", and "product PPT program writing".
Yes, there are even many students who think that "PPT program preparation" is a professional shortcoming, but no one thinks that prototype design is their weak point.
If the product is the expression carrier of the business, then to a large extent, the prototype is the expression carrier of the product.
I agree that the insight and abstraction of business needs and the extraction of customer value are far more important than the beautification of the prototype, but the prototype design is still the embodiment of product thinking, and "relatively unimportant" does not mean "absolutely unimportant".
In fact, I also participated in several students' needs review meetings last week, and I found that everyone still has a lot of common problems with the professional base of prototyping.
In my opinion, behind these problems is not only the lack of product insight, but also the unsystematic product thinking and incomplete methodology.
Perhaps, we need to rethink.
First, prototype interaction should improve user efficiency
"Improving efficiency" is probably one of the most common user values, whether it's to B or to C.
Let's talk about this student's prototype design case first:
To put it simply, the business scenario we require is that enterprise users only need to take a photo during the inspection scene to output information such as inspection items, inspection suggestions, risk rates, and reports through AI capabilities, which also improves operation efficiency.
The student's design is also very simple: click the "AI Patrol" function icon → enter the form page → click the "Take Photo" button again on the form page → take a photo and upload a photo → return and submit the form → output AI suggestions.
At the review meeting, I guided the students of the product to think about the business scenario behind it, that is, the most important and high-frequency action of users using this function is actually to "take pictures", and then intelligent data analysis.
Then, if this is the case, the user's operation path can be shortened, and its operation efficiency can be further improved, that is, after clicking the "AI patrol" function icon, it will directly enter the photo page, which is more in line with the user's actual operation scenario.
We must have this understanding: prototype design should serve user efficiency in interaction, and product managers should not simply implement functions, but make products more efficient to create value for customers.
2. Interface design: not beautiful enough and lack of specifications
Low fidelity is definitely not the same as no norms, nor does it mean that beauty can be ignored.
In fact, according to user research by professional consulting institutions such as Forrest, Qustrics, McKinsey, etc., aesthetics is often one of the most important factors in user retention, and yes, it is also a product characteristic in the era of experience economy.
Similarly, for prototyping, product students must also cultivate a sense of beauty, and only after forming a habit in this way will user empathy be more instinctive.
For example, our classmate's prototype design has a list page that is very messy, because there is a lot of information to fill in, and he even does pagination, but there is neither a progress prompt nor the current page position.
Frankly speaking, from a functional point of view, he can also achieve product functions in this design, but it lacks the aesthetics and standardization of the designer, and I first suggest that he look at more similar competing products, such as the card design of Railway 12306.
Secondly, I still recommend that we systematically learn material design, human design, ant design and other related design specifications, which is very important for us to improve our insight into user aesthetics, and it is also the embodiment of product design thinking.
3. Page elements: The commercial conversion design is not reflected
Prototyping is the inner mirror image of the product manager.
Another problem is that the student lacks the design of product profitability points, cost control and other related aspects on the page prototype, and does not reflect the design awareness of commercialization.
For example, our AI capabilities use the ChatGPT4.0 interface, which is charged, and users use it for about 2 yuan at a time, which obviously has a cost, and the cost is not low.
But through the prototype of this student, we did not see a limit on the number of uses, or the design of the AI payment package, which is actually very necessary.
A successful business strategy is to find and meet the customer's pain points while remaining cost-effective.
In the early years, one of our product modules needed to send SMS messages to users, but because we didn't do a good job of restrictions, users kept maliciously triggering and incurred huge costs, and we lost thousands of yuan in just a few hours.
Going back to our AI scenario above, we can and need to limit the number of user uses, of course, the premise is that we also need to investigate the frequency of user use, you see, behind the prototype design is actually a deep understanding of the business.
For example, limit the number of photos taken to 10 times a day; Or, limit the call to 1 every 5 minutes; Or, prompt to pay for AI skill packs, etc.
Of course, there may be some students who will say that we should apply the concept of MVP, iterate gradually, and don't do it perfectly, which is not wrong.
However, Mr. Jing always believes that MVP, as the least feasible product, is actually a development perspective, and from the perspective of the product, it is necessary to be as thoughtful as possible, and must not be used as an excuse for lazy thinking.
In other words, in the "Tao", we need to commercialize and consider the cost; In terms of "technology", we can deal with it simply, for example, directly pop-up windows for them to contact customers to buy.
4. Functional design: lack of necessary information prompts
Ms. Jing believes that another important role of prototyping is demand transfer, and good prototyping can make demand transfer more efficient.
Therefore, the typical feature of prototype design is to be functionally complete, especially in the interface and interaction, which needs to fully reflect the design logic and business rules.
In other words, the more complete our design is, the less communication differences we can have.
For example, there is a lot of information that needs to be entered on this page of the student, and even pagination is used, but there is no "pop-up warning" when returning to the parent page, and there is no information prompt such as "submission successful" and "submission failed" when submitting.
If the hints of the latter are experiential, then the hints of the former are absolutely functional integrity.
From the user's point of view, the pop-up window definitely does not mean that it is disturbing, just imagine, if the user has entered the information for a long time, and accidentally touches the back button by mistake, but there is no prompt, the heart may be very panicked.
From the perspective of requirements delivery, when we review with development and testing, there is no pop-up design, and there is no toast prompt, so the efficiency of transmission is very low, and it is easy to miss development.
Of course, from the perspective of product design, if you click the "back" button when the detail page is not completed, there are many ways to achieve it, such as:
- The data is saved directly, it will not be lost, and the toast prompts: the data you entered has been saved.
- The data will still be saved directly, but the toast prompt is missing, the user experience is not good, but the functional design is OK.
- If it can't be saved, it's best to have a pop-up prompt, for example, if the data is returned, it will be lost; Prompt the user.
- The data is not saved, the return is silent, and the experience is very poor.
However, if we don't reflect it in the prototype design, it is easy to cause the technical staff to lack a basis in the development, and in the end they may only choose the simplest way, and we lack the confidence to tear up the follow-up.
5. Experience design: There is no deep understanding of user experience
Xin Jiyun, founder & CEO of XMPlus, said that there are two underlying logics that drive SaaS growth: marketing logic and experience logic.
In his book The Subscription Economy, the former marketing director of Salesforce states, "We had to re-evaluate the value proposition of software companies and change the fundamental question: from 'how much can we sell' to 'how do we provide intuitive, friendly service that meets customer needs'." ”
At the same time, a great experience is not just about adding entertainment and interactive glitz, but focusing on helping customers achieve their goals more efficiently, even complex functions and processes should be easy to use and natural, creating a "great ordinary experience" in functional processes.
Based on this, Ms. Jing believes that for product managers, user experience is hidden in the details of the whole cycle, and prototype design is a place where experience thinking converges.
It is not difficult to see from the prototype design of our product classmate that he actually lacks user experience thinking, and only stays at the shallow level of realizing business functions, let's give two small examples:
For example, this AI requirement design is a new feature, and it is somewhat difficult for users to get started at the beginning, so it is necessary to guide users when they first use it, but he does not add experience design related to function guidance.
For another example, some operation buttons on the page are difficult to understand, and there is no prompt text, such as the size and format restrictions when uploading images, but there is no prompt text, and there is no toast prompt when the user fails to upload.
Speaking of which, I recommend you to read the two books "Customer Experience 101" and "Customer Experience First", and you can also pay more attention to Qustroics and other websites.
It has been said that in the world of prototyping, simplicity is the cornerstone, practicality is the core, and experience is the soul. What we pursue is not only the visual beauty, but also the ultimate user experience.
Of course, prototyping should not be an end point, but a continuous iterative process, and Ms. Jing believes that prototype is not only a tool, but also design thinking and a language.
Hope it inspires you.
This article was written by Everyone is a Product Manager Author [Product Grand Canyon], WeChat public account: [Product Grand Canyon], original / authorized Published in Everyone is a product manager, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint.
Image from Unsplash, based on the CC0 license.