In 2009, the company decided to separate the technical department and set up a production center. Later, the production center was divided into two major parts: UI and program. I was personally appointed as the company's chief designer. This change shows the company's technical business. The determination to upgrade and improve, and also express our gratitude to the company leaders for their trust in me. Although the UI department of the production center has only been established for a few months, all the work is being carried out smoothly, and the actual work is completed well. , especially the completion of several urgent projects, further shows that this is a team that can fight hard and tough battles! These are inseparable from the responsibility of everyone in this team and the cooperation between people. I am also particularly grateful to them here, hoping that we can continue to protect this unity and this cohesion will be even more difficult in the future. The mission is still waiting for us.
Although we have seen some achievements this year, actual problems still exist, and many old problems are still exposed, and we must face these things. To be honest, from the perspective of the real UI, what we have done is far from enough. Some old programs + page thinking and working methods will still become the dominant part of our daily work. Our current UI is still far from being stuck in Superficial stage. What exactly is UI? Why do you need to make a UI? How to make a UI? I believe many of us are still confused in this concept.
Today I saw a news article in which Jack Ma scolded "Alipay" who made him make billions of wealth at the annual meeting of Alipay. There is no stage decoration, no music background, or even no light at this annual meeting. In the dark, all Alipay employees hear voices from users, and all the sound clips come from telephone recordings from the customer department. The recording content is very harsh, without common praises, "No good words", all of which are accusations, complaints, helplessness, scolding, hatred, and criticism. “Roar, too bad, extremely bad. ”Ma Yun then took the stage and chose to describe Alipay's user experience in this regard. As we all know, Alipay is one of the few companies in China that have independent UED departments, with a relatively complete workflow system, talent resources and a stage for display. Their research and practice of user experience is invincible by most domestic companies, which is because of these. It has also become the object of learning and imitation for many companies' UI departments. It is unacceptable that Alipay is an absolutely first-class network application platform in China and even internationally. Jack Ma’s angrily said it was simple for users. When we revoke all the halo of Alipay, we see that this is actually a user’s platform, who There is only one answer to the success or failure of this platform, that is, users. When artificial subjective ideas are imposed on this platform, no matter how subjective it is, the user may be ignored. When it is ignored, the user will definitely complain. If it is not taken seriously, there is only one possibility , abandoned by users!
I once saw an article by usability expert Jacob Nielsen who divided a company's usability maturity into 8 stages: 1. Hostile user experience 2. Developer-centric design 3. Sporadic usability 4. Usability investment 5. Availability department establishment 6. System availability process 7. Integrated UCD 8. User-driven company. Jack Ma’s anger towards Alipay was born from users. It can be seen that if we follow this theory, Alipay has begun to drive the development of the company’s products, and Alipay is gradually entering the 8th stage. Looking back, we also use this standard to evaluate the current stage of our company. We will see many problems. The positioning of most projects will be based on the standards of managers and even program technicians. Users have become "Customer (a few users with subjective needs and strong)", "Customer" satisfaction is our satisfaction. In the short term, it will achieve certain results and satisfaction, but in the long run, due to the deviations in the early stage of the design, The angular velocity theory is constantly amplified over time, so that the usability of products can be imagined. Designed products may have a beginning and no end, or have given up halfway will become commonplace. Indeed, the road we need to take is still long and need There are many things to do and improve, many things …
A good Internet product must be designed with a user-centered design. In 2010, the company's UI department will not only complete the current interface design work, strictly control product quality, and optimize work efficiency; but also the focus of the task will be to strengthen the company's product design, Usability design. This requires great efforts in departmental responsibilities, work processes, standards and standards, personnel structure, etc. We plan to start from product design and information architecture, guide specific work with normative theory, and conduct in-depth research and practice of users and products under the premise of "business architecture" clear and "technical architecture" stable. In some key projects, user analysis and research are carried out, communication channels between users, products and designers are established, and the quality and quantity of user experience are tracked and analyzed in the design. The work goal is only one: design products with user-centeredness and improve products so that the products can accurately grasp users.
However, we will also look at the company's reality. At present, it may not be possible to generate a special UED department. This requires all department personnel related to product design and user experience: "Give up fighting alone and work with more people to make the difference. Working hard on good products and user experience is what we should do most now. ”I know the difficulties and pressures from all parties that will be faced in this, but we must stick to the correct route, even if the road is full of difficulties and obstacles, everything is for the product and for the users. To quote Jack Ma: "Many companies have not lived for less than five years. Companies that have lived for more than five years have not suffered such pain. Without such trouble, this company will not last long. Today I think it is Alipay that has begun to face up to its own problems. When. ”
In the end, I half copied Brother Bai’s words: "It seems that for this matter, it is worth at least 10 years for us to do it." ”