Ivan Tolmachev

Ivan Tolmachev，來自俄羅斯，畢業(yè)于愛爾蘭都柏林市立大學，先后就職于Rackspace，eShares，Aibrake等公司?，F(xiàn)任Onfleet的高級產品設計師，這是一家坐落于圣弗朗西斯哥的物流軟件公司，專注于提高全球運輸業(yè)務的操作效率。

讓我們聽聽看關于UX設計，他都做了哪些分享。

Narkii

您是怎么成為一個產品設計師的呢？

How did you become a product designer?

Ivan

我從小就對電子游戲、視覺藝術、音樂、漫畫、電腦圖像界面等充滿興趣。很幸運學校當時有計算機課，這在90年代的俄羅斯還是新奇的。我很早就接觸Photoshop和Macromedia Flash，我想我應該會成為一個游戲開發(fā)者，不過具體它是什么我也不清楚。

I was always into video games, visual arts, music artwork, comic books, CGI. Growing up, I was lucky enough to be at a school with computer classes, a novelty for Russia in the 1990s. I was fooling around in Photoshop and Macromedia Flash pretty early on and always thought I’d be a game developer, not really knowing what that entails.

高中最后一年我搬到愛爾蘭，在那里上了大學，學習多媒體。當時學習了平面設計，為學校的廣播和報紙做了一些項目，制作logo，傳單，名片，等等之類的東西。

I moved to Ireland for my final year in high school and, later, college to study Multimedia. I learned about graphic design, did a couple of projects for college radio and college newspaper, got my hands dirty making logos, flyers, business cards, that sort of thing.

為了補貼大學的費用，以及建立我的作品集，我開始接單。我最后一年的項目里，有一個部分就是和朋友一起做了一個應用，來幫助學生進行論文的研究。這也是我第一個產品設計的項目。畢業(yè)之后有一段時間我都沒有再做產品，而是專注在平面和網頁設計上。那時候我對產品設計的認識大部分來自于網上的出版物，后來，我終于有機會和一些產品設計師一起工作，并向他們學習。

To support myself through college and build up my portfolio I started working as a freelancer. As part of our final year project, my friends and I built an app to help students do research for academic papers. This was my first product design project. I didn’t work on product for some time after graduating, mostly focusing on graphic and web design. Back then most of my knowledge regarding product design came from online publications and eventually, I had a chance to work alongside some product designers and learn from them.

Narkii

您認為現(xiàn)在UX設計最大的趨勢是什么呢？

What are the biggest trends in the UX design right now?

Ivan

或許沒有什么最大的趨勢，不過我認為近幾年發(fā)展最大的是設計師如何接近他們的用戶。過去，為了教用戶如何使用應用，UX設計師會在用戶真正開始使用之前就向他們拋出大量信息。這樣導致用戶要么花很多時間入門，要么干脆跳過。

Perhaps not the biggest trend, but what I think evolved the most in the last couple of years is how designers approach onboarding their users. It used to be that in order to teach users how to interact with the app, UX designers would throw a massive amount of information at a user at the very beginning of their journey, before they could even start using the app. This resulted in an onboarding that either took a lot of time to go through, or that would get skipped entirely.

隨著用戶的技術更加精湛，以及產品團隊能夠利用如細分市場等工具來捕獲應用中的復雜狀態(tài)，UX設計師可以制作出優(yōu)雅的入門流程，根據(jù)使用者的技術精湛程度以不同的速度來教他們。 

As we approach a time when users become more tech savvy and product teams are able to capture intricate states within our apps, using tools like Segment, UX designers can produce elegant onboarding flows that teach users at their own pace, according to their own levels of sophistication and tech savviness.

另一個我注意到，并且個人也喜歡的趨勢就是手機屏幕下方的信息的集中化。隨著屏幕尺寸的增加，我們越來越難僅僅用一只手來使用應用，除非大部分信息都集中在屏幕下方，我很高興這變得越來越普遍。不過，這還沒有成為行業(yè)標準，因為當我在iPhone上使用 Chrome 時每次都還要辛苦地去點“返回”鍵。

Another trend I’ve noticed that I am personally a fan of is the concentration of the information available on mobile that is in the lower part of the screen. With an increase in screen sizes across the board, it became harder for us to use the apps with one hand, unless most of the information was concentrated at the bottom of the screen, and I’m happy to see this becoming more popular. It’s yet to become an industry standard though, as I’m struggling every time I try to tap “back” button when using Chrome on my iPhone!

Narkii

掌握UX設計，有什么不那么傳統(tǒng)的方法嗎？

What are some unconventional ways to master UX design?

Ivan

可能我們對UX設計的概念有所誤解，認為它只和數(shù)字產品有關。實際上，我們日常生活中大部分交互的物體都一定程度上有涉及UX設計。掌握UX設計，其中一個方法就是要批判性地去思考這些日常交互。想想家里的咖啡機，你覺得有什么要改變的嗎？為什么設計者沒有按著你的想法來做呢？對日常中你所接觸的大部分物體都采用這種方法，這樣就能做點UX的練習。

There is perhaps somewhat of a misconception that UX design only relates to digital products. In fact, most of the things we interact with in our daily lives have a level of UX design associated with them. One way to master it is to think critically about those daily interactions. Is there something you’d like to change about the coffee machine you have at home? Why did the makers not think of your use case? Apply this method to most things you interact with on a daily basis to get some UX exercise.

Narkii

您典型的產品設計流程是怎么樣的呢？

What is your typical product design process?

Ivan

其實流程一直在變，取決于我做哪種類型的工作，不過一開始都是通過提出很多問題，來找到設計問題的核心。   

It varies a lot, based on what type of work I’m doing, but it always starts with breaking the design problem down to its essence by asking a lot of questions.

如果是要開發(fā)一個新功能，我會寫出用戶流程。就是簡單描述過程的文本：用戶將會做什么以及接下去會發(fā)生什么。我喜歡將錯誤狀態(tài)包含進流程里，這樣我就能確保我不會忘記一些更復雜的情況。有時，當這個功能非瑣細時，用戶流程就會變得很復雜，因為涉及多方。我會避免使用像“用戶A”和“用戶B”這樣的術語，而使用emoji表情來方便我更快瀏覽。

If working on a new feature, I write out the user flow. Just plain text describing the progression: what the user would do and what would happen next. I like to include error states into the flow, this way I make sure I don’t forget to account for some of the more intricate cases. Sometimes, when the feature is non-trivial, the user flow becomes complicated as there are multiple parties involved. I avoid using terms like “user A” and “user B” and use emojis instead to help me navigate faster.

       最近，我大部分的工作都包含了已存在的產品，所以一旦我有了一份寫得很好的用戶流程，我就知道我要修改或增加產品的哪一部分。畫出大致的草圖作為原型后，我就會和工程師們開會，向他們說明產品的變化，他們會幫我實施我的設計，看看有沒有什么我需要注意的技術限制。

Lately, most of my work involves an already existing product, so after I have a well-written user flow, I know which areas of the product need to be altered or added. After I create rough sketches to use as a prototype, I set up a meeting to go over the changes with the engineer who will be implementing my designs to see if there are any technical restrictions I need to be aware of.

接下來的步驟就是完成屏幕和測試，先是在內部之后是在我們的主力用戶之間。使用我的樣機，我在Invision App中構建簡單的原型用來測試，這不需要工程師。根據(jù)測試結果，我重復直到確定功能完成。

The next steps are finalizing the screens and testing, first internally and later with our power users. Using my mockups, I build simple prototypes in Invision App that we test with and that do not require an engineer. Based on our findings, I iterate until confident the feature is completed.

Narkii

有什么是產品設計師知道而普通人沒想過的嗎？

What do product designers know that ordinary people would never think about?

Ivan

每當我妻子使用UI遇到問題時，比如她要做某件事，但找不到那個按鈕，就會找我?guī)兔?，然后我一會兒就找到了。我就問我自己，“如果是我來想這個按鈕的位置，我會怎么放？”我檢查之后，通常能找到答案。產品設計師擅長讀取界面，不論這些界面的設計如何，因為我們知道構建它們的思想過程:-)

Whenever my wife is having difficulties with a UI, e.g. she can’t find a button that does something specific, she asks me for help and it takes me a fraction of time to find that button. I ask myself, “If I were ideating on where the button could be placed, what would my options be?” I check them all and usually find it. Product designers are good at reading interfaces, regardless of how well designed they are, because we know the thought process that goes into building those :-)