About Design, Tools, and Sharing: The Interview of Two Senior Designers

With the development of software industry, prototyping has become an essential part of product design and gained more attention than before.

As a new prototyping tool, Mockplus has gained a number of users in a really short time, especially in China. It is now rising with the idea of prototyping Faster, Smarter, and Easier. After the attendance of UXPA China (Chengdu Division), it is also well known by the most of Chinese designing schools.

Mockplus is still growing. Responsible users are extremely important in this process. We just interviewed two of them, they explain the understanding and questions about design and designing tools from different aspects, at the mean time, they share some ideas of thier own.

The two designer we interviewed:

Quuen: UI/UX designer.
Mist: Product Manager.

First, let's check out the interview of Quuen.

About design

As an outstanding designer, Quuen believes that UI designer's job is not just user interface designing. Her idea is more about career plan and Internet industry development:"In the near future, the number of UI designers who just design the interface will be much less than now," She also believes that, UI design will become more closer with other relevant design, the requirement for UI designers will be higher with the developing," UI designers will probably also be responsible for parts of UX/UE works, even you're working at a big company. UI designers should have an independent thinkings about the project too. It doesn't really matter whether you're a UI designer or product manager. There will be more demands on compound talents"

As for designing, Quuen has her faith in "Easy to use, Simple to understand, and Pretty to look". The 21st century is the age of information. Model society is where the information explosions happen 24*7. Flat design is much different from the realistic design, however, it seems much easier and more acceptable for users. Even Instagram has made adjustments on the logo. "Easy to use. Simple to understand, and pretty to look." This kind of design will attract more attentions from people in the world full of information. So, it is not weird for them to get more users.

About tools:

UI designers like Quuen seem to have special feelings for the image editing tools, they always can master those tools in no time. Because she's also responsible for a part of product designing, she's familiar to prototyping tools. When she talked about Mockplus, she said:"I think Mockplus Team is unique, I guess there aren't so many members, but this team is serious about thier product, and patient for thier users. This tool is really easy to learn and use. Not just for prototyping, but also for displaying your idea to your team, Mockplus is a really good tool."

Sharing:

Quuen offers some advice and suggestions for rookie designers:"Keep studying. Don't be left behind." Since the time we were talking about design, Quuen keep emphasizing "compound talents", and the only way to become a "compound talents" is "Keep studying". For more advanced design thinking and better design, all you need is self-improvement.

Next, Mist:

About design:

From the aspect of a product manager, Mist tells us his understanding of product design:"In the future, product design is more about rank and the structure of the virtual world. Including current and ecosphere." Recent years, software industry keeps rising in Cina, user experience gains more concerns than before. Mist is also positive at this. He believes that now the product design is focusing on user experience:"Then main trend for designing is making the design easier to understand for users, finding the right design for the right target." This will highly raise the level of user experience and satisfaction. Focusing on the people oriented mode is not just for product design, but also in every aspect of the whole society.

However, how to "find the right design for the right target"? Mist has pointed out the emphasis:"To understand things in depth. Find thier common features." Only with the condition that you have deeply understand your product, you can see through the appearance and find the inner connection. Then, you will find the right design.

About tools:

Product managers need lots of tools everyday, here is some tools that Mist daily use, he hopes this list could be useful.

1.Mockplus - Easy, Rapid
2.PS - Image precise
3.DW - Image layer setting
4.Axure - Comprehensive
5.Xmind - Mind Map
6.Evernote - Note

Sharing:

Mist also gives some advice for new product managers:

1. To analyse things with 5W3H (What，Where，When，Who，Why，How，How much，How feel), to make a schedule with PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and, Adapt).

2. Nothing is fixed, activate your mind.

Personally, I think these two advice are pretty helpful. There is not noly the way of work, but also the understanding of design.

This is the interview of two design masters. I hope this could be helpful for the new guys, and maybe an inspiration for other designers. We will interview more design masters from our users, please stay tuned. Thank you!