Beautiful, unified, and standardized APP design is a means to retain users, while the real value of UI interface design is to “maximize” business value.
Yang Lan said: No one has the obligation to look through your sloppy appearance to discover your excellent inside. Applied to Internet App product development: no one is obligated to discover the excellent connotations of your App product through your poor UI design.
How to understand UI?
Baidu Encyclopedia explains it as “user interface”, which is a user interface, an interface that allows human-computer interaction.
Some people also understand it this way from a computer perspective:
U, You, is the user, a scumbag with only 5 computing power.
I, I am the computer, the master of mental arithmetic, capable of hundreds of millions of calculations per second.
UI is the interaction between you and me.
So the better the UI is designed, the easier it is for you to use me.
Workflow steps of UI design
We can first take a look at what the workflow of a UI designer looks like.
The work of UI design on the visual level is only a part of all work content, not all. Other layers of understanding requirements, clarifying design goals, formulating plans, and later development support and collecting feedback reflect the value of a UI designer’s work. .
1. Understand the needs
After getting the requirements, the first thing to do is to understand the requirements.
At this time, the requirements we get may be very detailed and are specific requirements documents processed by the interaction designer, including a complete interaction design prototype. At this time, we focus on understanding the output of interaction design and looking at every process of product use and the specific details of every interface, including functions, operations, feedback, and information presentation logic.
In most teams, there may not be such a role as an interaction designer, but the requirements are directly issued by the product manager or boss. The level of precision of the requirements will also be very different, and it will actually be more complicated at this time. At this time, the designer needs to stand from the user’s perspective and become a user-centered origin to understand and split the needs. For every detail of the requirements, designers need to think deeply. For missing parts or unreasonable parts, they need to go back and communicate in detail with the person who made the requirements, discuss and solve the problems together.
Here we recommend a thinking tool for sorting out needs – “User Journey”. Through the method of “user journey”, the scenarios, operations and specific psychological states of users using the product can be sorted out, making it easier for designers to understand and analyze needs from the user’s perspective.
2. Clarify design goals
Design goals are directly related to product goals, operational goals, user goals, etc. After understanding the specific requirements details, it is necessary to clarify the positioning of this design in the entire project, the benefits that need to be brought through the design, and the extent of the user’s demands for the design. In addition, during the design process, it is also necessary to clarify where the core point of the design goal is, so that you can have an understanding of the key output direction of the design content.
It also helps us make some trade-offs: sometimes a good-looking design requires sacrificing some information density, information conveyability, etc.; what is the type of design page? Is it more display-oriented or functional? The display-oriented design space will be larger. For functionality, consider the componentization of development and implementation;
In addition, the design goals will be affected by the specific pages to be designed, their priorities, and the breakdown of tasks.
3. Make a plan
Including time plan and execution plan.
One of the most important abilities of a designer is to evaluate tasks, break down a complete chain of tasks into small segments, and then compare the priorities of the characters in each segment. The high-priority ones are completed first, and the low-priority ones are completed later. Therefore, It also directly derives the arrangement of time plan. In addition, at each time node and milestone, the role of docking and communication must be confirmed, as well as the materials to be output. This work requires experienced designers to make decisions, or experienced designers in the team to lead everyone to complete it together.
Time nodes and milestones are the external manifestations of work progress. There are actually many tools that can be used, but the most basic thing is that the entire team must reach a consensus on the design progress and determine what expectations everyone can have at that point in time. — What you saw and what you heard, etc.
4. Enter the analysis stage
At this point, you have already understood the needs, clarified the significance of your work and formulated a corresponding plan, then you need to enter the detailed analysis stage.
The analysis phase will include three main parts: market analysis, competitive product analysis and user needs analysis.
Market analysis will determine where your design will compete with your competitors, and what content needs to be included in the design to match the important positioning of the product in the market.
Competitive product analysis is an idea of learning from each other’s strengths to offset weaknesses. By learning the advantages of rival products, avoiding its shortcomings, and making your own design more perfect.
User needs analysis, it must be said, is user-centered design, which means to deeply explore the things behind user needs. For example, the classic joke “Users want a faster horse” is actually the appeal behind it is that what users want is “speed.”
5. Define visual style
At this point, after the analysis is completed, it is time to define the visual style, including the general direction of the design elements.
Color range, texture, details, highlighted information, icon design solutions, illustration design ideas and animations, etc., can all be considered and concluded at the stage of defining the visual style.
Integrity is very necessary, and differentiation from other products is also covered by the visual style. Under normal circumstances, when we define a specific visual style, we decide it through some key interfaces or key operations.
Some teams or certain stages of the project do not need to define styles because there are specifications that can be inherited or continued. This depends on the specific project situation.
Defining the visual style is finalized through meetings and reports. It is basically a matter of collective efforts of the entire team and should not be done by the designers themselves.
6. Batch output interface
After determining the design direction, specific interfaces can be output in batches. And supplementary design specifications or this UI KIT, for some design companies, also need to supplement design instructions, etc.
7. Development support
Next, we need to enter the stage of development support, output cutouts and layouts, and maintain very frequent communication with development colleagues at this time. After they complete the design plan, they need to provide corresponding walkthroughs to find out how the development results affect the design. The restoration level does not reach 100%. Communication is really important at this time. Many of the developments our team has worked with before were the kind of characters that output cutouts and layouts without looking at them at all. Then the implemented looks were very different from our designs, which basically made our designers Petrified in situ.
The communication between designers and developers also requires long-term running-in to get better and better. In short, designers who are diligent in communication will benefit themselves a lot.
8. Collect feedback
When a product enters the testing stage and is later launched, designers must devote some energy to paying attention to the feedback of their designs in the market or from users. If the design has major problems, you should be prepared to modify the design at any time. If the feedback is good, then you should think about where you can improve next, and what designs should be implemented in the next iteration of the product to make up for this shortcoming.
The above is what designers should think about and do next after getting the requirements.
UI design is a scientific and rigorous work that requires familiarity with the product, target users, user usage habits and interface design rules. Through interface guidance, users can easily complete tasks and realize the value of the product to users. At the same time, the company also receives positive feedback from users.
