How User Experience Design Can Be Approached In A Lean Manner

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The concept of "Lean" means that products are refined with minimal investment in production factors, and only the necessary quantity of products required urgently in the market or in the next process are produced at the appropriate time. All business activities must be efficient, economical, and beneficial. Lean production is an expansion of the Toyota production system, which is considered the best production organization system and method in the industry. It has been responsible for the industrial enterprise reengineering miracle of the 20th century and is now being promoted as a new generation of the industrial revolution in high-tech industries such as aviation, automobiles, and electronics.

User experience design has an extensive design process, beginning with user research and concluding with launch. In the past, we focused on desktop PC products, releasing annual versions that allowed us to invest a significant amount of time in design. However, in today's era of multi-screen and cross-terminal mobile internet with constantly changing information, speed is crucial. Based on my work experience, I will discuss the Lean approach in user experience design.

One sunny afternoon, the director instructed two designers to work overtime for two days on weekends to revise the recharge center version. Initially, we felt that completing the design in two days was impossible. To our surprise, we were informed that it needed to launch on Monday. At the time, we felt despair. However, we managed to go online on time and set the fastest revision speed in CDC history. The revision effect was satisfactory, and we achieved our objective of increasing the payment rate, winning the model team award. How did we guarantee user experience and complete it efficiently?

Increase Fault Tolerance Rate

In the game of LoL, commentators often mention the term "fault tolerance rate." This rate refers to the probability that a team can recover from mistakes made by teammates without causing a complete wipeout. A team's fault tolerance rate increases with better equipment and operational awareness. Teams that have seamless coordination of their members' skills gain an advantage in team battles. In large internet companies, roles are clearly divided, and operations are flow-based. Poor coordination of skills results in a waste of time and cost. During the design process, there are stages of awkward visual and interactive finalization, refactoring, and other finalization. To reduce communication costs during this time, we locked ourselves in a small dark room and utilized an efficient (lean) joint discussion approach. We linked vision, interaction, and reconstruction design to work together, allowing for better coordination and reduced communication costs.

Modularization Design

During the interactive stage, visual designers understand the interaction constraints and key tasks and provide typeset suggestions to expand innovative concepts. After the style is finalized, we prioritize the output of basic controls to quickly build the basic framework and shorten the design cycle, allowing more time for rapid product iteration.

Simplified Structure, Unified Information

A complex information architecture negatively impacts the user experience and results in high design costs. It can also be detrimental to the environment, as the butterfly effect shows that a Google search produces 0.2 grams of CO2. For instance, during the revision of SOSO video, we streamlined the information architecture and adopted an efficient approach to discussions. Originally, the product aimed to create a large and comprehensive video portal using a homepage and five major channels, along with several auxiliary pages. However, such an approach would require five to ten editors, three to five designers, and cause users to navigate through three to five pages to find the desired video, which is not a lean approach.

Through analysis of the target users, designers and product staff brainstormed together to reorganize requirements and product positioning. We decided to streamline the information architecture and position the product as a video discovery engine. The design revolves around a "pick" word and the need to pick movies and TV series is completed on one homepage. Navigation follows the user, shortening the user's path, and helping them find their favorite videos faster. Streamlining the information architecture reduces unnecessary pages, simplifies the user search process, reduces design costs, and improves the user experience!

Efficient Proposal

Once the design team has discussed and achieved the design goal, the product gradually takes shape. As the saying goes, "Even an ugly daughter-in-law has to meet her in-laws eventually," and design plans also need the boss's approval before implementation. To improve the approval rate and avoid repeated reviews, the following methods can be employed:

• Provide Guidance: A complete proposal includes target user analysis, design goals, information architecture, style derivation, etc. Syncing the previous research and user research conclusions to the boss and obtaining approval can help streamline the approval process.
• Create a "Hero Moment": After laying the groundwork in the proposal, the bosses may lose interest. Therefore, it's essential to have an attention-grabbing point that excites and stimulates them.
• Cross-Border Thinking: Extracting design concepts from cross-border examples can add emphasis to the proposal and deepen its persuasive power.
• High-Fidelity Demo: An operational high-fidelity demo can provide an intuitive feel for the product and reduce communication costs with developers later on.

Lean Follow-up

After a long period of hard work, the product has finally reached the first preview version. However, upon reviewing it, I realized that it did not meet my design expectations. Some parts were missing shadows, while others had extra pixels, leaving me feeling disappointed and frustrated. When I approached the developer to fix the UI, they were busy resolving bugs and didn't have the time to address my concerns.

• Centralized Walk-Through: It's recommended to arrange a centralized walk-through with the product manager, developer, and interactive product manager, where they can experience the product as novice users, and walk through every interface together using a good projector. This can be more effective than just sending emails to the developer for help. Visual personnel can also communicate details to the development team and cultivate mutual understanding, which can be very helpful for the project's progress and team morale.
• Progressive Grayscale Release: It's not necessary to perfect all the details before showing the product. The product is a joint effort of the team, and while the design draft might look beautiful, it means nothing if it cannot be implemented in the product. Our ultimate goal is to create a high-quality product, not just a high-quality design. The product won't be perfect from the beginning, and we should not feel discouraged by the gap. Instead, we should do a grayscale release to get feedback and iterate on it until we bring up our common "baby." This way, we can guide the developers and instill design concerns, implement specifications step by step until they are close to perfection.
• A/B Test: A/B testing can be used to resolve tangled points in the design process and use data to drive the design.