In July 2014, Out of the Cocoon into a Butterfly: How to Become a User Experience Designer was published. By 2017, the book had sold more than 30,000 copies and scored 8.6 points on Douban, the highest among such books in China. During this period, author Liu Jin received a lot of feedback from enthusiastic readers and received a lot of support and affirmation. “As an Internet practitioner, I feel honored to make a small contribution to the industry and help more new people learn about it and get started quickly,” she said.
In August 2018, The book “Breaking Cocoon into Butterfly 2 — Product-Centered Design Revolution” was published. The book quickly soared to the best-selling list of computer books on major online stores.
“The change in the environment, new thinking and precipitation, and the gradual maturity of methodology prompted me to write a second book,” the author said. I want to share my accumulation in the past few years with more friends who want to make progress, transform and break the bottleneck. In the first book, I was a summarizer, presenting the universal basic knowledge of user experience design to beginners in a structured and systematic way in plain and understandable language to help them get started quickly. In this book, I am a gold digger, digging out the hidden rules behind product design and applying related concepts and methods (such as business canvas, user story map, user experience map, MVP, product positioning… A book could be written on any of these concepts, so explaining them in detail is not the main purpose of the book, but rather how they can be applied flexibly in a product design process) to help people “see both the tree and the forest” and quickly adapt to the new environment.
It’s a great honor to have liu Jin, the author of “Butterfly 2”, here to hear what she thinks. If you have already bought the book, you can join our reading club through the poster at the end of the article.
Campus + book section
1.Asynchronous community: although many readers may have read your previous book “Breaking cocoon into Butterfly”, this is the first time to visit the asynchronous community, please say hello to the readers of the asynchronous community, and briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Liu Jin. I graduated from the Department of Digital Art of Peking University with a master’s degree. I am now the founder and head of User Growth Design team of Pleasant UGD. He has served as an interaction design expert of Alibaba Business Division and the director of UED team of netease E-commerce (Beijing). His book “Breaking cocoon into Butterfly — The Growth Path of User Experience Designers” has been widely praised in the industry and become an introductory book for tens of thousands of peers. His latest work, Breaking Cocoon into Butterfly 2: Product-centered Design Revolution, was published in August 2018. If you want to contact me, you can follow the wechat public number: Jinledao
2. Asynchronous Community: I have been engaged in interaction design since I graduated from the Department of Digital Art of Peking University with a master’s degree. When did I first become interested in design and user experience?
Liu Jin: One year before graduation, the economic crisis happened. It was difficult to find a job and I didn’t know my future direction. However, I like reading very much. During this period, I came across many good books, which were very helpful to improve myself. For example, the book From Good to Great made me realize that a job suitable for me should contain three aspects: interest, advantage and benefit. Interaction designers fit these three criteria: I’m interested in this profession, which can make more people’s lives better through good experiences; I have a science and engineering background as well as a design background, so I’m a good fit; I heard that interaction designers earn quite a lot of money.
3. Asynchronous Community: What was your original intention when you started to write “Butterfly 2”, and what is the biggest gain from writing the book?
Liu Jin: At that time, the profession of interaction designer was just a few years after the start of the Internet. There were few related books, and most of them were foreign books. These books had good ideas, but it took a long time for beginners to absorb them and could not be quickly implemented. At that time, I mainly collected various scattered materials from the Internet and summarized them in accordance with the project experience, which made many detours in the process. I thought it would be great to have a systematic book to help newcomers get started, so I came up with the idea for Breaking the Cocoon into A Butterfly.
4. Asynchronous community: Why did you name your book “Break the Cocoon and Become a Butterfly”? Can you share the story behind it?
Liu Jin: Emerging from the cocoon into a butterfly represents complete growth. We all know that coming out of the cocoon can be painful, but when you go through that struggle, you can be completely free. There are so many people in this industry who don’t know where they’re going to grow next, who are content with the status quo and think that’s the end of it, but it’s not. If you don’t feel the pain, then you probably aren’t growing at all.
Some people think that they are hard working and work late every day, but the real growth is not directly related to the number of hours worked, but is the sublimation of thinking. Therefore, I use the name “break the cocoon into butterfly”, which means that I hope you can constantly break through the bottleneck and achieve qualitative change, from a caterpillar to a completely different butterfly, and start a new life.
5. Asynchronous communities: You said, “The first half of my career (so far) was about effort, and the second half was about innovation. The first half of the masterpiece is “Cocoon into butterfly”, and the last half of the masterpiece is “Cocoon into Butterfly 2″. The previous one was conventional, the new one is subversive. If you want to be good, read the first one. If you want to be great, read the second one.” Can you tell me about the two books separately? Who are they recommended for?
Liu Jin: The first book can be said to be common sense, but no one has ever systematically summarized and told people how to think. Many people say that they have changed their cognition and found satisfactory jobs through this book. But I personally wasn’t happy with the book, and there was no hype, because I couldn’t write much of what I really wanted to write, like innovative industry views, to cater to beginner tastes.
In “broken cocoon into a butterfly 2” the wish came true, I’m in the industry for the first time reveals the Internet product design in different phases of product at the core of the law, and blended in a lot of innovation viewpoint and method of industry, hope to help more product managers and user experience designers from source to understand the product design rule, in the work to achieve the effect of four two dial one thousand jins.
Working paper
6.Asynchronous community: For entryIs the professional strength of the school important in IT industry? How much more dominant is 985 over 211? Want to take advanced study in the company with a bit better or college, can 211 record of formal schooling be brushed directly first?
Liu Jin: To visual stylist, basically still see a work, undergraduate course above ok; For interaction designers or user researchers, education background and school brand are still very important, and I think 211 is quite good. Of course, these are only the most basic not decisive, but the key is the work and internship experience.
7. Asynchronous Community: As the person in charge of UGD, what is your research direction? What do you do every day? Or what is a typical day like for you?
Liu Jin: At present, the main research direction is the integration of design thinking and growth thinking. In fact, it helps the design team to cross the boundary, enlarge the value and grow together with the company by crossing the “functional wall”. Since I don’t do execution work, I have more time to think and innovate. I seldom care about what my classmates are doing in the team, because I believe everyone can do well with or without me. I pay more attention to how to help the team find new opportunities and growth points, and lead the team to innovate and practice, so as to influence the whole industry and drive more designers to grow in innovation.
8. Asynchronous Community: You have worked in China Mobile Research Institute, netease, Ali, Chuangye and Then Yendai. Which period of work experience has brought you the most harvest? Why is that?
Liu Jin: Every experience is very important to me: netease has brought me a lot of happiness and growth, and cultivated my initial professional character, which is pragmatic, simple, diligent, positive… Ali brought me a lot of frustration, but it was here that I started to transition to product and business thinking. I realized that instead of being trapped in the role of a designer, I had to step out and have a more comprehensive perspective, which was crucial for my future development direction.
Pleasant in loan I finally began to have a little bit “pick” feeling, because here enough democracy, equality, goal orientation, leadership is also very looking forward to innovation of thinking, in this atmosphere, we have enough space to do really want to do, rather than going into the interface in the execution of the work, combining with the experience of thinking and I before, I have a chance to really make some innovations and achievements. So every experience is important to me, and I wouldn’t be the same person without any of them.
9. Asynchronous Communities: After years of being interested in turning into a career, do you still feel as passionate about working in interaction design as you did then? How to maintain original intention under heavy work pressure?
Liu Jin: MY background is interaction design, but I haven’t done interaction design as you understand it for many years, but I’m still a designer. The concept of design is so broad that it is not limited to the interface, it is a universal thinking. It’s not difficult to stay focused on design, because the more you study it, the more you realize that design thinking can solve all kinds of problems, from interface to product, operation, organizational structure, and people. Isn’t it amazing? I think the future is the age of omnipotence, industry segmentation era is soon obsolete.
Before, we were divided into interactive, UI, graphic, application research, etc., which seemed very professional, compared to the art era. However, in an era of efficiency and value, it is meaningless to subdivide and emphasize professionalism, which can only increase communication costs and reinforce functional walls. The future is integration and crossover, solving practical problems and creating practical values.
10. Asynchronous communities: What advice do you have for new graduates?
Liu Jin: small white first need to lay a good foundation, first from the ability to connect a good demand to begin, but in this process do not blindly work, but to take thinking, cultivate good thinking habits, can see my “break cocoon into butterfly 1”; And then to make themselves very professional in a certain aspect, such as interaction, vision and application research, this time mainly depends on continuous learning and experience accumulation; Finally, I should learn from other fields, solve comprehensive problems, and keep the spirit of innovation. I should not be limited to experience, but have the courage to break experience and update my knowledge system. I recommend My Book Breaking Cocoon into Butterfly 2.
11. Asynchronous communities: What knowledge, skills, and qualities do you need to do this job?
Liu Jin: these are in “break cocoon into butterfly 1” and “break cocoon into butterfly 2” in all have ha, here no longer repeat.
12. Asynchronous Communities: When did the idea of UGD come up? What advantages does UGD bring to your team and project?
Liu Jin: It was after I finished writing “Cocoon into Butterfly 2”, because after writing this book, I felt that I had a lot of improvement overall, a lot of content in the book is I did not know before writing. So UGD is a new concept that I came up with after a full upgrade. The concept of UGD has aroused a great response in the industry. Now many companies are asking me to share and many people want to put it into practice in their own work.
Of course, there will be some obstacles and objections in this process, which I understand very well. After all, the birth of a new idea is not smooth sailing, after all, people are always accustomed to the old ideas and experience. The idea of UGD is that our team is no longer a pure support team, but can contribute quantifiable value to the enterprise as well as other core teams, provided that the company never sees us as a downstream team supporting requirements, which is very important.
13. Asynchronous communities: Does innovation require a certain amount of academic or design experience in the field, or does it require an Archimede-like “eureka moment”? Or are innovators mostly pragmatic or idealistic?
Liu Jin: That’s a good question, and the answer is: the two need to be combined, but the latter is really important. Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, but without inspiration, 99% effort may be meaningless.
14. Asynchronous Communities: How do you balance work, writing a book, and family?
Liu Jin: A lot of people ask me, how do you balance managing a team, writing a book, promoting your idea, and having kids? In fact, most of the time is consumed in the trivial work, from the face to the small. You ask him what he is busy with, he said a lot of things ah, this call me that call me, and the following people’s work I have to watch ah, how can not busy? But if you ask him about his contribution to the company, he may be genuinely speechless, or give a long speech, none of which will interest the leadership.
This is a misconception of many managers who believe that they are qualified only if they try to put time into their daily work. However, I rarely take care of the trivia of the team, unless the team members really can’t solve it, which rarely happens. As a manager, do not think that you are very important and the team will not change without you, which is not true. Instead, you should learn to “put down” and focus more on leading team innovation, quantifying design results and creating value for the enterprise. Then you can lead the team with the least amount of time and energy to create the most value for the company. This is the lean thinking I always advocate. Life is the same, neither to ignore the family, do not feel that others can not leave you, most of the time is not children can not do without adults, adults can not do without children.
So don’t let your child leave you, and don’t need to be there 24 hours a day. In short, whether it is work or life, we must learn to make choices and prioritize on the basis of value orientation, so as to achieve effortless.
Breaking the Cocoon into a Butterfly 2 — The Revolution of Product-centered Design
Liu Jin, Sun Rui
The book is divided into 3 chapters, a total of 10 chapters. The first chapter analyzes the changes of the environment of the Internet market to help product designers find their own positioning and determine the career evolution route of product designers. The second part introduces the methodology of product designer in detail, explains and explains many concepts such as business canvas, user story map, etc. Combining with different stages of product life cycle, this paper introduces how to grasp product direction, make clear competitive advantage and enhance commercial value. The third chapter explores advanced topics such as product design innovation, improving product design efficiency, and product design communication and growth.
From cocoon to Butterfly: The Path of User Experience Designer
By Liu Jin and Li Yue
As an independent discipline and industry, user experience design is developing rapidly and getting more and more attention. With the emergence of the concept of Internet thinking, the status and attention of “user experience” have been further enhanced and strengthened.
There are plenty of professional ux books out there, but not many that address the many real-world issues ux designers face in the workplace. From the perspective of user experience designers, this book systematically introduces their learning methods, thinking modes, working processes and ways in their career, trying to help designers solve some common problems encountered in projects and find their own career growth path.
The book is written by experienced front-line user experience designers and contains valuable professional experience and professional thinking. It has certain reference value and significance for interaction designers, visual designers and user researchers. At the same time, “Breaking cocoon into Butterfly — The Growth Path of User Experience Designers” is also suitable for product managers, operations, development and other user experience related personnel as well as students of related majors.
