Duke's

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the MVP of NBA 16-2017 Season:... Wait a minute, it seems to be something wrong. Because, the MVP here I want to talk about is not the Most Valuable Player at all. It is the Minimum Valid Product. So, what is a Minimum Valid Product? Here are some main features of it: 1. It has the core characteristics of the product. Minimum Valid Product always has the core characteristics of the product. It provides and only provides the core function. But, why? Here we need to clear the question about the necessity of the Minimum Valid Product. The human mind is powerful and unconstrained, hence, sometimes it can be not so reliable. When your customer or designer throws a weird plan to you, but unfortunately you cannot convince them, you would need a minimum viable product. Developers will provide a product which only has core functions - Minimum Valid Product - to some target users, and then gather feedback from them to confirm if the product vision is reali...

Paper seems to be less important than it was before, especially when it comes to high tech area. But, are you sure about this? Let' watch an interesting video first. That guy shows off his hi-tech device again and again, finally, is taught by his wife how to stop. It is just a commercial video, but somehow it tells something. In the software development, we really don't need the paper anymore? Of course, we do need paper. Why? First, fast speed. It's easy for almost everyone to draw a prototype on paper. If you spend the same time, you would find a conclusion. In terms of volume of how many prototypes you can make, Axure < Justinmind < Mockplus < Paper prototyping. When you are going to draw with paper and pen, you don't even need to learn, just draw your prototype without any limitation of computer hardware. Revising and rebuilding a paper prototype are also super easy. In the other article, I have said that in the designing process, demonstrati...

We have introduced the basic works of design researcher in the last article. In fact, designers are not always behind the curtain. Even in the software design, there are some designers needing to stand in the front, to contact with the customers. Marketing designer is a relatively new concept. However, before it was put forward, many people have been engaged in this job. As a combination of design and marketing, marketing designers not only need to have a great understand of marketing, but also have a strong design capability. Design and product works including: users training, product design, related product documentations, etc. Marketing designers are still designers. This is the basic nature of them. But they are different, because their works are more flexible. They design customized products based on customers needs. So, this is a comprehensivelly testing for the designers. They have to design intheractions and user-interface depending on customers needs. I believe that ...

We always someone say that "I'm a designer." So, you think designers are just designing? Man, things are not that simple. Please allow me to unveal the jobs of designers. Let's start with the beginning of design. Design researcher. Designs are made for needs, but, what do the users need? If you want to know that, you have to do a design research. How to do a qualified user research? User research refers to a variety of ways to get the respondents' suggestions and opinions. The purpose is to provide the related data base for next step of product design. User research can be divided into two kinds based on the contents of the survey, One is product survey: the the investigation and analysis on target users and the competitive products, this is used for determining the direction of design and verify the current point of view. The second is a research of user experience: this often happens in the product testing and post-release process. If you want to complet...

Prototyping is an essential part of Software developing. But we have so many options while choosing a prototyping tool. If you just make a choice among them with the idea that one is for all, well, you are terribly wrong. In fact, you will need these tools all the way through the entire design process. Draft/Wireframe: Paper and Pen, White Board, Balsamiq , Mockplus There are Art design, UX design, and UI design. But, no matter which kind of design you're focusing on, you always need to draw a draft or wireframe. When you are picturing your product as the most beautiful star in the sky, just leave the recording works to them. Don't even mention the greatest inventions for designers: Paper and Pen. The tools created in 21 century are also pretty good. The wireframe tools like Balsamiq and Mockplus are the gifts from technology. With the sketch style, Balsamiq has gained a lot of users. Even though there are rarely big moves in recent years, it still has a fir...

With the development of information industry, software development has gained more attentions. Of course, prototype design also has become more important than before. When we are designing a prototype, usually there's two ways: First one is to set all the interactions based on State (some may call it Layer), like Flinto for Mac and Priciple. The other kind is based on components (or widget), such as Axure and Mockplus. But, which way is better than the other one? Let's find out! 1. Based on State Tools like Flinto for Mac and Priciple have one thing in common: most of them don't have the ability of creating a component. In other words, they can't creat a wireframe by themselves. All the components and pages are coming from the files imported from Image editing tools. Flinto has a great sense, it grabs an opportunity, the opportunity is the rising of Sketch. They have successfully developed a version that almost adheres on Sketch. The truth told us, it...

Everyone says that it is hard to be successful design master. Well, you think this is easy to be a completely failed UX designer? To be honest, I don't think that would be easy. So, how to be a completely failed UX designer? At least, you need for these things below. 1. Never care about users' feedback Everything's tough in the beginning. But, it is a great start when you choose to ignore users' feedbacks. So, how to completely ignore users' feedback in details? First of all, don't do any user research, none of them. User-research is one of the most important ways of getting users' feedback. It's like a guide for new product designing and improvement. If you want to be a completely failed UX designer, then please don't do any research. Also, please stay away from any kind of testings. Testing is the examination of your prototypes and your designs, especially when the testing has included the advice and suggestions from the ...

In our daily software design, it often involves the prototype design. There are always three purposes for prototyping: 1. Prototyping for yourself, for further design. 2. Prototyping for developing team, for developing. 3. Prototyping for client, for getting paid. However, sometimes we have lots of newbies take the developing prototype to the client , leading to customer dissatisfaction, then the negotiation process will be extremely difficult . Some people take the prototypes which are made for customers to the developing team, the result is inefficiency of the developing , and might be rejected by the team. In a few cases, it may lead to more serious communication problems. In few situations, some may take the prototype for himself to the developing team or even the clients. What happens next, would be really terrible. So, for whom, which kind of prototypes shall we make with what tool? Please allow me to explain . 1.  For yourself What matters: Draft...

Art has many independent parts, but all of those parts have something in common. UI/UX design is also a kind of art, like painting. UI/UX design also needs imitations to improve our level. There is an old chinese saying: draw a tiger with a cat as the model. If you take a wrong example, you would copy the example without catching its spirit. Well, where can we find suitable examples to imitate? In fact, the famous Apps we daily use are the best examples for us, such as WeUI, the designing tool for Mini app in WeChat. First of all, we need to find the model of WeUI, it's really easy to do. There are plenty of excellent examples in Mockplus Demo Project , including Gogobot, BBC Sports, and of course, WeUI. Although there aren't many pages in this demo project, it contains everything you need for UX design. And, sure, you can also find the whole file at WeChat Developing Platform. Here, let's try out the example first. Because these are just some irrelevant...

There are mainly two kinds of prototype: one is static, we call it wireframing, the other one is dynamic, we call this prototyping. And, at present, there are three kinds of interaction design involved in prototyping: page link, components interaction, interaction state. Some of the prototyping tools we daily use have the functions of setting all these three, such as Axure, Justinmind, Mockplus, Proto.io, etc. However, every one of them keeps telling you that it is a fast tool. The Axure we usually talk about is actually called Axure RP = Axure Rapid Prototyping, Mockplus also claims that it is the tool for prototyping Faster, Smarter, and Easier. Today, let's have a look, check out which one of them is the fastest. Page Link: Same speed, different visualization All those kinds of interaction settings in Axure, page link is the most rapid way to set interactions. All you need to do is to click the Create Link button in the Properties panel on the right side, then ...

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....

How to become a qualified UX designer, how to change from rookie to design master. Every day countless designers are thinking about the same problem. To do everything well, you have to answer these three questions: What to do? How to do it? What shall we use? 1. What to do? Since you are a UX designer, first of all, you need to know what is UX, the difference between UX and other positions. The Difference Between UX and UI Design-A Layman’s Guide This article tells you the difference between UX and UI. The author not only points out the difference, but also makes a further comparison (including salary). UX vs UI vs IA vs IxD : 4 Confusing Digital Design Terms Defined If your question is not just about UX and UI, you also don't understand IA and IxD, then Becky's article will definitely help you. Here you can find explanations the meaning of UX, UI, IA, IxD. What's more, for the different content of the work Becky recommend a number of simple and useful...

Recently, I've read some articles about sharing books and websites for UI/UX design. I think it might be useful to write an article about prototyping tools and share with you. So, I collect 10 prototyping tools this time and put them into 3 different categories. Category A: Easy and fast. Category B: Light and flexible. Category C: Comprehensive and functional. Let's have a look. Category A: Easy and Fast. Tools: Chainco, InVision, Flinto Lite. Learning Curve: Low. Just like the slogan of Chainco, these tools are great demonstration tools for UI designers. All the three tools are based on the web. Although, they look different from each other, but, in fact, they have so many similar features. The interaction setting is about creating hot spots, and taking the page-switching as the main function. There's nearly no cost for learning or operation. Designers in China like Chainco better, but it is only available in Chinese ...

Duke's: Overcoming The Three Phases of Prototyping Flow : Everyone has his/her own way of working, but not all of ways are scientific and effective. Having worked as a UX designer, and learnt k...

Nowadays, there are many prototyping tools on the foreign lands, such as Pidoco, UXPIN, Proto.io 6, and InVision, etc. It makes you dazing when you have so many choices. However, do you know which of them are the common prototyping tools in China? How the Chinese designers think of the performances of them? Generally, there are mainly four desktop prototyping tools in China: Axure RP, Balsamiq, Mockplus, and Justinmind. These four tools technically have taken control of a pretty large number of Chinese users. Today, I'm gonna try to analyze the reasons why those four prototyping tools could have nice performances in China from the view of user experience which is the first thing of "Innovation 2.0". Axure RP : Broadly speaking, the "Axure" we talking about is Axure RP, equaling to Axure Rapid Prototyping. The reason why Axure has a good fame in China is not only the using inertia, but also the comprehensiveness of its function. Such as the s...