Interview with Liu Yuntian, the chief experiencer who introduced philosophy into design.

People Interview is an online interview column recently launched by us. Every week, one or two senior designers and product people are invited to give targeted answers and suggestions to various questions raised by students and newcomers who want to engage in Internet products, design and operation, so as to think together and make progress together.

First Guest: Liu Yuntian.

Since 2002, Mr. Liu has worked in the user experience design industry 15 years. He has worked in Tencent for nearly ten years. He used to be the user experience director of Tencent e-commerce, the director and partner of Shenzhen Studio, and now he is the chief data experiencer of Kingdee.

Interview text:

1. I saw that you recommended Xiaomi's smart speakers to your friends in the circle of friends, and I also recommended Xiaomi's products several times in Zhihu. Generally speaking, do you appreciate the design of millet products? Use another sentence to describe what kind of products you admire most.

Xiaomi box, Xiaomi reading more, Xiaomi router, Xiaomi hoop iron earphone, and Xiaomi AI smart speaker just released. These products really excite me. I think most of Xiaomi's products are balanced in practicality, efficiency, price and design itself, giving people the impression of "high cost performance" and "elegant design". In the usual cognition, good design is expensive, but Xiaomi's products can make ordinary people experience the charm of technology and design, which is very difficult. But I don't think all Xiaomi's products are so excellent. Like the Xiaomi TV (the first generation) I bought before, not only the video display effect is distorted, but also the corners are difficult to handle, and I cut my hand directly when handling it ...... But in any case, Xiaomi is still a respectable company.

What I personally appreciate most is products that can improve efficiency and have a sense of natural design. In fact, I want to convey a value: time is precious. If you have a product around you, then its positioning is "tool" type. It should improve your work or life more effectively, liberate you and let you do more important things. In addition, I appreciate those products with a stronger sense of integration, such as B&; O A6 box, hanging on the wall feels good, like an ornament, it doesn't interfere with your life, but the shocking sound quality makes you nervous. Future products will blend into our environment. You can imagine that it will help you silently with us, but it will not be so abrupt, elegant and intelligent. "Full-screen" devices are also an integration method.

2. As the chief experiencer of a big data company, many people are curious about the work behind the label "Big Data+Chief Experiencer". Can you tell us something about your daily work flow?

I am currently working in Kingdee Company in Shenzhen. "Big Data" is a department of Kingdee. My job is responsible for the experience design of big data related products. Our team is called Big Data User Experience Department, or DXD for short (now called Kingdee Cloud User Experience Department). We are responsible for Kingdee Cloud's basic service products and artificial intelligence products. If you are interested in cooperating with us, you can trust me privately in Zhihu.

My job is similar to that of other directors. The work of the day was decided the day before. 90% of my work depends on OmniFocus. Simply put, my job is to check the tasks in OmniFocus and then execute them. But this is too abstract. If it is allocated within 8 hours, it means: communication and promotion work accounts for 30% of the time, including internal and external meetings, writing about kicking ass instead of kicking ass, including communication with colleagues; Check the project for 30% of the time, check the quality of product design, review the design and observe the data; Industry information collection and learning account for 10% of the time; Recruitment accounts for 30% of the time (this is related to the following questions). Work over 8 hours is always moving. Kingdee advocates mobile office, and 20% people do what they want to innovate. Therefore, when I telecommute from home, we DXD will also brainstorm and be creative in the coffee shop.

3. You paid attention to many questions on Zhihu about how newcomers enter the UX industry and how to teach themselves interaction design. As a senior designer who has worked in the "User Experience Design" industry for more than 15 years, what experiences do you want to share with newcomers?

With Zhihu in recent years, I found that Zhihu is indeed a good recruitment channel, and many outstanding talents are in Zhihu; Not only that, but even some searches have replaced Baidu. I am worried about this kind of problem. In addition to recruiting potential designers, I would also like to share some personal experiences. I think only in this way can we designers grow together. I want to share some experiences with new people:

First, like me, I watch these sharing less and attend unprofessional meetings less. I mean to look at it selectively, not blindly. Everyone's life should be dazzling, and we should be innovators, not followers. After 80, we are getting old, and the future is after 90 and 00. Newcomers should make different innovations with us.

Second, insist. Some people say "choice" is more important. I think this is just an angle. When you choose another thing, persistence is more important. All innovation depends on your long-term knowledge accumulation, and then there will be a new outbreak. Don't leave your job so soon unless you have to. If you can't live with a low salary, it's not good for newcomers.

Third, complain less. This network is full of too many negative news. Try not to spread this negative emotion, and solve your problem with a positive attitude. Everyone will encounter all kinds of problems in the first few years of the workplace. People who have more contact with positive energy should actively respond.

Finally, focus. Concentration requires you to keep working hard for one thing for a long time. If you are working on a project, you should try your best to make it perfect and recognized. Having a craftsman's heart and staying focused is of great value for designing the future of new people. There is a case on the Internet. It is said that on a Friday afternoon in May, 1998, at the invitation of the University of Washington, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investment guru Warren Buffett had a conversation in front of their classmates. When asked what is the secret of getting rich, they both wrote the same word on the paper, but they didn't know it. The difference between the two richest men in the world is 25 years old, and they are engaged in completely different industries, but they have written the same word: focus is focus.

4. The head of your WeChat is very similar to the symbol of Tai Chi Yin and Yang. Seeing that you also pay attention to some issues related to Buddhism and Zen in Zhihu, will you substitute your thinking and understanding of these issues into your daily design work?

My WeChat avatar is actually part of the Jeet Kune Do logo, and Wikipedia has a formal Jeet Kune Do logo graphic (see the picture below). This is a good question, and I am willing to answer it. In addition to my concern for Buddhism and Zen, I would like to talk about some philosophical ideas and ideas I have gained from Jeet Kune Do (the following words will be longer, please forgive me).

I am a Jeet Kune Do practitioner. At present, I have obtained the junior level 6 (yellow and white belt) of Jeet Kune Do, and I have also completed the technology of level 5, and I am going to obtain the level 5 (brown belt), which belongs to the certification of China Jeet Kune Do International Union (CJIF). I officially studied Jeet Kune Do a year ago. After that, my interest in Jeet Kune Do master Bruce Lee changed. Especially after reading the books written by Bruce Lee, I found that philosophy is Bruce Lee's real passion. Martial arts, movies and actors are just the ways he chose to express his philosophy.

The symbol of Jeet Kune Do contains the wisdom that "Yin and Yang constantly flow and change inside to form an interdependent whole". When the master designed the logo, he specially added two rotating keys to Yin and Yang. The arrow indicates that all obvious relative forces come from a resultant force to represent the basic law of Jeet Kune Do. The master believes that everything in the universe is a whole, with yin and yang, and cannot be divided into two. When a person refuses to accept one part, the two parts will separate, and separation will make people go to extremes. There will be quarrels at work. The noisier one side is, the angrier it will be. If one side is aggressive again, the other side will go to extremes. It's like two boxers, A and B. When A's punching power reaches the extreme, Yang will turn into Yin, while if B attacks before reaching the extreme, it will become a positive result. The good way is to be tolerant, accept each other, think from his point of view, and strive to create a win-win situation. Knowing that there is also a relationship between yin and yang and interdependence in the process of product research and development will help you better understand what you encounter in your work and let you solve the problem from another angle.

Jeet Kune do advocates "inaction", that is, not to disturb the track that goes against the essence of things. The master thinks, let it go up and down. At work, we sometimes complain, which is actually an opposing view. Opposition will produce dependence and flow, but it is a better attitude to follow the trend and be flexible. This is like a soft branch, which will not break easily under the weight of heavy snow; Like running water, it quickly adapted to various obstacles in the flow and naturally crossed the past. In other words, we can learn from water and not be antagonistic. If we can keep pace with adversity, we can finally overcome it. When a designer encounters something annoying, he must adapt to it and adjust himself, so that he can get through it. "Pigs standing on the tuyere can fly" is also a trend.

Work and life are interlinked, and you will always encounter road snatching when driving. If you want to fight with him, it will definitely increase the chances of scratches or safety risks, which is against nature. We can learn from the "inaction" in Jeet Kune Do, that is, let the opponent go first, obey him, and when he clears the way for you, you will naturally drive away. You should be as flexible as water, and you will be calm when you think of ways to deal with it.

The other is Jeet Kune Do's "taking the impossible as the law and taking the infinite as the limit". The master thinks that Jeet Kune Do has three realms. The first realm is to strictly abide by the rules, the second realm is to liberate from the rules, and the third realm is to return to the original freedom. Friends often ask me, what are the design methods, what are the routines, and where are the dry goods? My answer is that there is no one-size-fits-all routine, and the method is changeable. Only "impossibility is the law, infinity is the limit". When you remember the design method of excellent products (such as WeChat), when you learn the travel map correctly, when you know what service design is, you may not use it, because you are still in the first realm of "strictly observing the rules", and you will only learn other people's routines, but the actual work scenes, products and people are very different from the routines. One of the principles of Jeet Kune Do is to "absorb useful things". Knowing this, you can put the method you want to absorb into practice, constantly verify it, do it first, and then say "no way". Slowly, you will feel that there is no sword in your hand and a sword in your heart.

Besides the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, Zen is also very interesting. It provides another way to solve the problem. It believes that "enlightenment" is the essence of Zen, and Zen is one. We usually use binary thinking or logical thinking to explore solutions to problems. If a child draws a red bamboo on rice paper with a brush, you may laugh and say, how can you draw a red bamboo? It should be black. But think about it, are all bamboo in nature green? Because your mindset is logical, you only accept that the bamboo on rice paper is black, but you don't accept the fact that the bamboo on rice paper is red.

Zen believes that everyone is conservative in nature, and everyone likes stability, even if it is only superficial. For example, I am in a suite in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which is enough. When tradition and logic begin to fail, people will be anxious. How should I innovate, how should I design and how should I face artificial intelligence? Zen provides a method of enlightenment, which I think is related to epiphany. I will have a job interview about Insight on UXPA next month, and I will share some of my thoughts. Welcome to share with you.

5. Having worked in the "User Experience Design" industry for more than 15 years, I have gradually grown from a designer to a responsible project and started a career. What do you think of the "full link designer" who has been hotly discussed recently?

I saw on the Internet before that the word "full link designer" was first put forward by Wang, director of Alibaba Group. He pointed out in a speech: "UXD is the abbreviation of" user experience design ",which is called" user experience design "or" experience design ". This is a design position in the UED team and the designer of the whole link. Its main characteristics are diversification of professional ability, wide coverage of workflow, high comprehensive quality, high post value and small development bottleneck. Its core value lies in providing a clear development path for all-round designers, which can improve project efficiency and experience the integrity of design. 」

In other words, UXD is user experience design, and people who engage in UXD are called "full link designers", which literally translates as "user experience designers".

Whether it is a "full link designer" or a "user experience designer", the industry is conveying a message about the value brought by a single type of work (such as ID, VD, RD, etc.). ) The past is being discounted, and this job with only one skill is sinking. The industry and the future need more and more professional designers, and designers with single skills begin to face the risk of being eliminated. This poses a greater challenge to the existing designers, and everyone should constantly examine it? Work and reflect on whether you can bring greater value to the organization; Suppose you are selfish and don't want to bring more value to the company, you should also reflect on yourself. If you don't want to sink into the industry, you must work harder and make yourself successful.

You may ask whether everyone should become a "full link designer", and my answer is yes, it is indeed in this direction, and it must be started immediately. Because only by preparing now, your experience, experience and your value will be greatly amplified in the future. However, please note that before a new designer has a "major", "major" comes before "more", "major" is more important, or "consciousness" behind your values is more important. We often say "initial heart", so what is your initial heart? Do you want to be a full link designer or pursue what you like? I think, only when you find that there are so many skills that you don't have, will you naturally enrich them.

6. According to the information of Mr. Zhihu Wang Yuewei, he is also a partner of Shenzhen Studio in Tang Shuo, and once worked as an interaction designer in Tencent. Were you colleagues before? Have you ever had the idea of starting a business together in the process of * *?

In fact, it is not * * * to start a business together. We entered Tang Shuo first, and then, I have left Tang Shuo now. Wang Yuewei is also responsible for the work of Tang Shuo Shenzhen Studio.

Wang Yuewei is my colleague who was photographed in Tencent. Although we have maintained a superior-subordinate relationship in our posts over the years, we have a very good personal relationship and share the same interests in many fields. Especially in experience design, human-computer interaction, digital equipment and so on. They are also very similar in some concepts. I think these may be the reasons why we are willing to go out of Tencent and do something different. He and I co-hosted a Live in Zhihu. Welcome to listen.

7. How do you understand the relationship between "design" and "people"?

Allow me to use the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do to explain this problem. First of all, the moon, the earth and human beings are all part of the energy flow cycle of the whole universe. Humans don't live in a vacuum, they rely on oxygen in the earth to survive. To some extent, "relationship" means connection, that is, there is a relationship between two things.

Design is a process of relationship, connection or connection. Interaction designers (here refers to UI interaction designers) mostly solve "man-machine relationship" and "classification relationship of elements"; Visual designers are more concerned with "connecting elements" and "creating new connections". This kind of "connection" or "connection" ultimately serves individual "people" and brings certain value to people. If you think deeper, there may be more "connections" and "connections".

Finally, for new designers, we should pay more attention to "people" and things related to people, because the design on the interface, the improvement of usability and the expression of creativity are all things at this level. Usually people say "design from the pain point", so it is better to put it another way: observe people and their behavior more closely to design, not just from the pain point. This is the meaning of innovation from the perspective of "population center of gravity". We should observe "people" and observe the changes of "people". For designers, a good expression is "Based on qualitative user feedback and quantitative behavior data, we found that …" instead of "I think, I think, I think …" to solve the problem of product design. If you make an emotional connection between "design" and "people", it will be successful.

8. I saw that you paid attention to some tools such as efficiency and time management on Zhihu, and praised several tool types recommended by the most beautiful applications. Are you a person who likes to subvert these emerging Internet products in daily life? If you want to choose, what new apps and tools do you want to recommend to everyone?

I will be excited about new things and try to use them, but not limited to Internet products. For example, the product "Elephant Literacy" is helpful to both children and adults. It will let you know the origin and changes of Chinese characters, and let you have a deeper understanding of Chinese characters and feel the traditional culture of China. If I can recommend several apps on my mobile phone, none of them are new. There are the following:

① Payment: Iron Blood Marine Corps. A strategy game, just recommended by the most beautiful application, right? Personally, I prefer strategy games. The Kingdom Run Trilogy designed by this company before is very shocking, and the style of play can be varied. In tower defense game, the Marine Corps can make you feel like a star, and it also recommends the trilogy "Kingdom Run".

② Payment: OmniOutliner. I recommend iOS and Mac to be used together, because you can record on iOS. The most common operation is to read aloud on your mobile phone after writing almost on your Mac, which is the most effective before giving a speech. But the biggest advantage of OmniOutliner is still on the Mac side. The core is to make your expression structured.

③ Free: Post-it Plus. Post-it notes tools, tools that designers must install, need not be introduced more, right? Search for it yourself.

④ Free: Random words, you can open the website on the right with your mobile phone. This is not an App, but a Web application. I put it on the desktop of my mobile phone and often use it to do some innovative thinking.

# Quick question and answer #

1. What products do you use half an hour before going to bed at night?

Needless to say, it should be the following four app:OmniFocus, WorkFlow+, Wordpress, and Cloud House.

① OmniFocus is used in the evening to review, check the tasks of the day, or arrange the next work;

② Workflow+other apps: One is that cooperation with DayOne is mainly about quick recording, using the concept of "five-minute log"; One is to cooperate with evernote and save some fragments in evernote; There is also a toothbrush timer, which I use occasionally;

Using Wordpress is a habit. I will post a photo on my blog every day and record my daily life in a word. I hope that when I get old, every day's photos will remind me of it. This habit has been maintained for nearly three years.

"Cloud House" is the core product of Kingdee. Before going to bed, I will see if there is any news to deal with.

2. What is daily life like? When do you go to bed and get up?

Rest around 1 in the morning and get up after 7: 00 in the morning. We will have a rest at noon, usually about 30 minutes.

3. What was the product that once made you feel amazing in design?

It should be the official website of VER 4.0 in 2advanced.com designed by Eric Jordan around 2003. At present, this version can still be found on the domestic Internet. If it can be found, Ver4.0 looks as cool as it is now. Eric is an unparalleled person. I am deeply impressed by Eric's professional skills in many fields, including: motion graphics, conceptual design, interface design, brand/identity, production, VR and sound design. I had hoped to surpass him a little in vision or creativity in my lifetime, but now it seems very difficult. In recent years, he has won more than 30 awards internationally, which is enough to represent an era as a designer. Eric, he is a "full link designer".

4. What qualities do new designers value most?

Have a certain "taste" in things and really like "design".

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# Designer Incubation Plan #

We are helping more people to become visual designers, interaction designers and product designers by means of community+training courses, in which M 1 and M2 are aimed at entry-level and junior UI, interaction and product designers respectively. For the course details of M 1 and M2 incubation plan, please check the links.