Several principles for website product design reference

The following analysis is about product design principles, but most of them are based on website products, so they can also be called website product design principles, involving users, browser tools, SEO and experience, etc. There are both principles and examples. Many principles are universal for website products and can be used for reference no matter which website or product.

Based on my own experience, I have summarized 8 basic principles in product design. I hope it will be helpful to some friends who are just getting started in product design.

1. Watermelons should look like watermelons, and beans should look like beans .<br />There is also a negative way of saying this, which is "There is a refrigerator called TV." Some classmates may say that what you are saying is nonsense. In fact, it is often ignored by designers because it is nonsense. For example: a text link does not seem to be clickable; it looks like a button, but it is just a different picture; for the sake of "innovation", an ordinary radio button is packaged very beautifully and gorgeously, but users have no idea what this control can do. There are many similar problems, which are most easily made by designers. So when you want to innovate or make the page more exquisite, first check whether your design is "watermelon-like or bean-like".

2. It is not the user learning that matters, but whether it is easy to learn.
When designing a product, in order to make it easier for users to use, we often have to rack our brains to think about how to implement a function without requiring users to learn anything. But the key point is not whether users need to learn, but whether it is easy to learn. For example, if the user has not tried or learned about a save button icon, how can he know that an inverted floppy disk means save? And it seems that floppy disks are rarely seen nowadays, or they should be replaced by USB disks in the future. But when you use it for the first time, hover the mouse over the button icon and the Save button will appear. When you click, a prompt will appear indicating successful saving. Oh, now you will know that this icon means save. And because the icon metaphor is very well done, it is also easy to remember. So in fact, when it comes to computer applications, you have to learn them when you first come into contact with a certain type of product. This is unavoidable. So there is no need to rack your brains over whether to study or not. You should consider whether it is easy to learn.

3. Complete the process first, then talk about the “experience”
When doing product design, we often talk about user experience and closed user experience. However, we found that often the poor user experience of a product is not caused by the so-called "experience". It's a design flaw in the product itself. The most important flaw is that the process is incomplete. For example: What are the remedies when a user makes a login error and cannot register normally; if an order is found to be incorrect after placing it, the order cannot be modified. Therefore, the first step to providing a good experience is to make the product complete. Then let’s talk about “experience”.

4. Focus on the key points <br />We often see a scene like this: a page is filled with a lot of dense writing to introduce a new product, with poetic text and dazzling pictures. But after reading it, I still don’t understand what the characteristics of this product are. Or some users are in a hurry and will simply ignore it and either leave or use it immediately. When we were in school, the homework we often had to do in Chinese class was to divide the text into paragraphs, analyze the main ideas of each paragraph, and summarize the central idea. The same is true for Internet products. We don’t write articles on the page. Users are generally in a hurry and they don’t have the mind to read your long article, so it is best to directly tell users the "main idea" and "central idea" of your article. Please don't say anything useless, just get to the point.

5. Use IE6 to use your own website <br />Although there are now various browsers such as IE8, IE7, Firefox, etc. But no matter what, IE6 is still the most commonly used by Chinese users. As an Internet practitioner, of course, because we are personal, we use Firefox, and because we are fashionable, we use IE8. But don't forget that most users are neither personal nor fashion, so they still use XP and IE6. So as a product person, you must use IE6 when using your own products, so that you can see the same things as users.

6. Why?
Another way to say “why” is to “give me a reason”. During the product design stage, be sure to ask more "why". "Why do we want to make this product?" "Why is the button placed on the left?" These questions should be asked repeatedly from high-level strategy to detailed design. Because only when you know "why?" can you know the real "how to do it."

7. The customer is God .<br />Last time I saw someone say on Twitter, "If a restaurant uses the UCD method, it would not be very good." I then added that in traditional industries this is called “the customer is God.” That’s right, although only professionals know about “user-centered design”, ordinary people definitely know what “the customer is God” means. In fact, in the traditional service industry, "the customer is God" is already an unwritten rule. Don't think that you are so mysterious if you do UCD. In fact, what you are doing is "the customer is God". So when you are working, take off your tall UCD hat first, and examine your products and users with the heart that the customer is God.

8. SEO and Email
We often talk about Internet marketing, which seems to be a very advanced word. In fact, if you take off the advanced appearance, the two most core and important things are SEO and Email. In the SNS era, it seems that everyone has been rejecting SEO because of protecting user privacy. But we seem to have overlooked that the SEO of SNS is actually Email. Whether it is registration, giving user feedback, xxx recommendations, etc., it is all initiated based on Email. SEO is a pull model where users look for information, while Email is a push model where information is sent to users.