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What is a UX structure tree?
We may not know about UX, but we must have heard of User Experience Designer, that is, UXD. UXD is an all-round user experience designer integrating UI+ID+UE+COD.
UI (Interface Design): Mainly responsible for the face value of products. UI work is also familiar to most of our designers.
ID (Interaction Design): Mainly responsible for whether the product is easy to use.
UX/UE (User Experience Design): User experience design refers to users' feelings when using products, and mainly solves the problem of whether product design meets or even exceeds users' psychological expectations.
COD (cross-media design): refers to the standardized design of multi-platforms such as mobile phones and websites, which mainly solves the problems of design consistency and adaptability of multi-platforms.
Then the UX structure tree (UX knowledge system) is all kinds of knowledge and abilities that UXD designers need in the whole workflow. This is a very huge and systematic knowledge system, which requires us to spend a lot of time and energy on continuous learning and construction.
02.
Importance of establishing UX structure tree
expand one's horizon
Building a UX structure tree can let us know what the standard design process of user experience designers is. It is not limited to the process in your own work, but to see how the standard UXD team conducts the design work. Reflect on the omissions and shortcomings of your own workflow, broaden your horizons, and at the same time be strict with yourself by the standards of user experience designers or senior designers.
Upgrading thinking
By establishing UX knowledge system, we can master the basic methods involved in each workflow and improve our thinking. This thinking includes product thinking, user thinking, data thinking, design thinking and business thinking. ?
Enhance value
By constructing the UX structure tree, we can learn and master the methods in each process, which will help us to produce a better design scheme. Let us complete the design work from a more global perspective, and multi-dimensional thinking will make us more professional and valuable. ?
If we want to be more professional designers, we suggest learning to build our own UX knowledge system. Whether it is a small company or a large company, it is necessary to understand the standard design process of user experience designers. As we all know, the market is getting more and more crowded, and it is difficult to find a job with a single UI and interaction. If you know something about interaction, products, data, etc. Or have your own extra points and outstanding advantages, it will be better to find a job.
However, it should be emphasized that the purpose of establishing UX structure tree is not to let us learn everything, but to recommend everyone to specialize in many things. We have our own core skills and are familiar with other related fields (not necessarily very good, but very familiar). The customer experience team also pays attention to teamwork, which is the same as improving the user experience of products. Therefore, we suggest that we should "specialize in many things" so as not to be replaced by others, and at the same time, we can enhance our influence.
03.
The method of constructing UX structure tree
As we have learned before, UX structure tree is all kinds of knowledge and abilities involved by user experience designers in the whole workflow. We can learn all kinds of knowledge and skills involved in each stage according to the design process, and our UX knowledge system will be built in this way.
Of course, this is also my method. Different designers may have different ways to build a knowledge system. But no matter which construction method, the knowledge and skills involved are the same.
This also corresponds to the radar chart of the designer's ability model of domestic big factories (see the end of the article for the acquisition method), and you can also have a look accordingly.
Standard design process
What is the standard design process? In fact, there is no standard answer, and different team design processes are different, such as Gucdr mode of Netease, sprint mode of Google and so on. But the general process is the same, almost all of them are the most classic "double diamond design model" design process, such as "people-centered design" proposed by the world's top design consulting company IDEO, and the design thinking process of Stanford School of Design, all of which are derivatives of the logic of the double diamond model. It is suggested that we can focus on the design process of double drilling design model.
Each step has corresponding methodology, such as industry analysis, 5w 1h, qualitative and quantitative analysis, etc. At the discovery/investigation stage. These corresponding methodologies are what we need to master.
Combining the classic double diamond design model with the design process of domestic full-link experience designers, the whole UX design workflow can be subdivided into six steps: insight-research-strategy-output-verification-empowerment, which is a relatively standard design process, and we can learn the knowledge and ability involved in each stage according to this process. When building your own knowledge structure tree, you can also build it according to the standard design process in your own field.
1. insight stage
Explore the objective environment of the industry and find our challenges and opportunities through research.
In the insight stage, you can look at business demand documents or market demand documents, and study some second-hand materials, industry reports, competitive product analysis, etc. To gain insight into problems and find opportunities.
2. Research stage
The stage of finding and investigating problems. Mainly research, this stage is more about design research. For example, through insight, we find that there are problems with our product experience, so what are the reasons for these problems? We need to do design research and study the roots of these problems through qualitative or quantitative research methods, so as to truly find the problems from the perspective of users and products, rather than the subjective judgment of designers.
3. Strategic stage
Through design insight and design research, the overall design goal is determined, and our design means are conceived based on the difference of goals. That is, how to achieve our design goals. For example, our design goal is to improve the content penetration rate of the first screen of the app, so what ways or means can be achieved? You can lower the height of the banner, slide horizontally and place the content. A design goal can be achieved through a variety of design strategies.
4. Output stage
The output stage is also the design and implementation stage, and the specific strategy is implemented and the scheme is output. This stage is a test of the designer's drawing ability, such as interface, illustration, 3D, dynamic effects and so on.
5. Verification stage
Measure our design scheme from data, user experience and other dimensions. Verify whether our scheme can achieve our goals and solve the problems of products or users.
6. Enable phase
The design authorization stage is a step that many designers easily miss. By sorting out design specifications, designing components and reusing design resources, the design efficiency is improved. Use existing design data and resources to support the business and maximize the value of our design.
According to this design process, we build our UX structure tree. In fact, the whole construction process runs through five kinds of thinking: business thinking, product thinking, user thinking, design thinking and data thinking. We can also follow this idea when making a portfolio.
knowledge
Knowledge is divided into professional knowledge and industry knowledge.
professional knowledge
Professional knowledge can be refined from the depth and breadth of design.
For example, my own design work is partial to UX, and my professional knowledge is divided into product knowledge, interactive knowledge, practical research knowledge, design knowledge and data knowledge from the design depth. The most important thing is definitely design knowledge and practical research knowledge. I also focus on mastering the common knowledge and data knowledge of other products. I may seldom use the knowledge of design breadth in my work, but I know one thing. Compared with knowledge of design depth, knowledge of design width takes less time. When building your own structure tree, you can subdivide it according to your actual situation and future career development direction, and know where your learning focus is.
Industry knowledge
Industry knowledge can be divided into industry trends and design trends.
Industry knowledge tests the designer's insight and sensitivity. Industry trends are the development trends of the entire Internet industry, such as B-side, C-side, visualization and e-commerce industries. You can focus on your industry, the industry you are interested in and the hot industry trends in the future.
Design trends require us to have an insight into the design trends of mobile terminals, web pages and dynamic effects. Insight into design trends is also one of the recruitment requirements now. Through the insight into industry trends and design trends, it helps us to make creative attempts and breakthroughs and make more creative and bold design works.
competence
Ability is divided into professional skills, general ability and influence.
Vocational skills
Professional skills are the skills and methods we use in the whole design process. We can understand it as methodology, which itself is precipitated from experience and guides us how to do it, how to practice and apply it. In the design process, each stage involves a large number of methods. According to the competency model of senior designers, it is necessary to learn and master the methodology involved in the four stages: design orientation, design implementation, design verification and design summary.
The four stages here are also consistent with the UX design process we mentioned earlier. Just combine insight and research into design orientation. When building, we can also make clear what skills and methods we need to master at each stage according to our own habits, and then guide us to use and land in practical work. For example, in the design and implementation stage, how to make icons? How to make illustrations? We all need to learn the corresponding skills in order to apply them in our work. That's all that matters.
Universal ability
According to the designer's ability model, the general abilities are mainly communication ability, problem solving ability, execution ability and project management ability. You can refine it according to your own situation.
For example, I have removed the executive power myself, and feel that the executive power is more determined by professional knowledge and skills, and I have increased my time management, aesthetic ability (network sense), reporting ability and learning ability, which are common abilities of designers.
affect
Influence can be constructed from two dimensions: workplace influence and personal influence.
Workplace influence: including methodology construction, knowledge inheritance and talent training.
Methodology construction refers to the ability to consciously sum up and precipitate experience from work and provide help or design support for others;
Knowledge inheritance is the sharing and exchange of experience and knowledge within the team;
Talent training refers to being able to guide or help colleagues to complete their tasks.
Personal influence: In addition to the influence in the workplace, you can also enhance your personal influence by building your own personal brand, such as writing, making video numbers, and making official WeChat accounts.
04.
Construction tool of UX structure tree
It doesn't matter which tool we choose, what matters is that we can quickly store what we have learned and find what we have learned quickly.
We can use mind map (Xmind)+ note-taking tool (Lingque /bear) to build our UX knowledge system.
Step 1: Establish the whole framework of our UX knowledge system in the mind map, which is also equivalent to a directory navigation of our knowledge tree, so as to facilitate subsequent real-time viewing or adjustment of our framework.
Step 2: Fill in the corresponding knowledge/skills in the note-taking tools (buzzwords, bears, impression notes, etc.). ). Fill in the content can be articles we have learned, teaching videos we have seen, and effectiveness tools.
05.
finally
I hope that the method of building UX structure tree shared in this paper can help more designers to build their own exclusive knowledge system, help everyone to find and acquire the knowledge and skills they have learned efficiently, and at the same time let everyone learn purposefully and have a sense of direction in the process of growing up.