What makes a tool well designed? As a designer, I’ve thought about this question for a long time, and over the past few years I’ve developed a system that I now use with every new project I approach, from small startups to large companies like LinkedIn and Netflix. I find it helps clarify which features to prioritize and gives novel insights about a product’s strengths and weaknesses. This has been surprisingly valuable to me, and I believe this has real value for other Designers, Product Managers, and Design Researchers, too.

是什么使工具設計得當？ 作為一名設計師，我已經思考了很長時間，在過去的幾年中，我已經開發了一種系統，現在可以將其用于我所處理的每個新項目，從小型創業公司到大型公司，如LinkedIn和Netflix。 我發現它有助于闡明應優先考慮的功能，并提供有關產品優缺點的新穎見解。 這對我來說是非常有價值的，而且我相信這對于其他設計師，產品經理和設計研究人員也具有真正的價值。

I know you’re busy! This is Part 1 of a series of articles where I’ll dive into various ways this system can be applied. Each article will take less than 10 minutes to read.

我知道你很忙！ 這是系列文章的第1部分，我將深入探討該系統的各種應用方式。 每篇文章的閱讀時間都少于10分鐘。

So stay tuned! For now, let’s kick things off with an introduction.

敬請期待！ 現在，讓我們從介紹開始。

向Vim學習 (Learning from Vim)

As a designer, I find Vim very interesting.

作為設計師，我發現Vim 非常有趣。

If you’re not already familiar, Vim is a text editor that’s somewhat infamous in the world of software development. It’s been around for nearly 30 years and has a reputation for being horrendously difficult at first.

如果您還不熟悉，Vim是一個文本編輯器，在軟件開發領域中它是臭名昭著的。 它已經存在了將近30年，并以一開始的巨大難度而聞名。

As a text editor, Vim is unusual. You’ll see a blinking cursor, but typing doesn’t input text like you’d expect. Your cursor may start jumping, and whole lines of text may start disappearing. On first run, your mouse doesn’t even work — there are no toolbars or menus!

作為文本編輯器，Vim不尋常。 您會看到一個閃爍的光標，但是鍵入并沒有輸入您期望的文本。 您的光標可能開始跳動，整行文本可能開始消失。 首次運行時，您的鼠標甚至不起作用-沒有工具欄或菜單！

In fact, it’s so confusing that at the time of writing, the Stack Overflow page “How do I exit the Vim editor?” ranks as the 86th most viewed question out of over 18 million questions. According to them, “during peak traffic hours on weekdays, there are about 80 people per hour that need help getting out of Vim.”

實際上，它是如此令人困惑，以至于在撰寫本文時，“堆棧溢出”頁面“ 如何退出Vim編輯器？ 在超過1800萬個問題中 ，第86最受歡迎的問題 。 他們說 ，“在工作日的高峰時段，每小時大約有80個人需要離開Vim的幫助。”

Vim is famous for being extremely frustrating the first few times you encounter it, because there is no obvious way to use the text editor for editing text. So it might come as some surprise that Vim is considered to be one of the absolute best text editors on the planet by many, boasting an army of passionate supporters. In fact, when you watch Vim being used by someone who knows it well, it’s incredible. It’s like watching a ballet performance — fluid, unencumbered. Graceful, even!

Vim因在遇到它的前幾次感到非常沮喪而聞名，因為沒有明顯的方法可以使用文本編輯器來編輯文本。 因此，令人驚訝的是，Vim擁有一支熱情的支持者軍隊，被許多人視為地球上絕對最佳的文本編輯器之一。 實際上，當您看到Vim被非常了解它的人使用時，這是不可思議的。 就像觀看芭蕾舞表演一樣—流暢，不受阻礙。 優雅，甚至！

(If you’ve never seen someone use Vim before, watch this 34 second clip. Don’t worry about the code itself—just notice how smoothly he navigates without ever taking his hands off the keyboard. Bear in mind, this is just the tip of the Vim-berg, as it’s an incredibly flexible tool.)

(如果您以前從未見過有人使用過Vim，請觀看這34秒的剪輯 。不必擔心代碼本身—只需注意他導航的平穩程度，而無需將手從鍵盤上移開即可。請記住，這只是Vim-berg的尖端，因為它是一種非常靈活的工具。)

People who regularly use Vim tend to love Vim. They are often very vocal in their support for it, raving about how the tool “gets out of the way” so that they can “code at the speed of thought”. There are massive nerdwars pitting Vim against other editors, with staunch supporters even calling Vim a “way of life”.

經常使用Vim的人傾向于愛 Vim。 他們經常對此表示支持，他們熱衷于該工具如何“擺脫干擾”，以便他們可以“以思考的速度進行編碼”。 有大量的書呆子使Vim與其他編輯競爭，堅定的支持者甚至稱Vim為“ 生活方式 ”。

Yet if you took this to user testing, it would likely fail immediately.

但是，如果將其用于用戶測試，則可能會立即失敗。

So now, the question: Is Vim well designed?

現在，問題來了： Vim是否設計合理？

Well, how do we usually decide if a product we’re building is “well-designed”? We’ve all taken products to user testing for validation, and we like to listen for phrases like “user-friendly”, “usable”, “easy”, or “simple”. We often ask “does this do what the user needs it to?”

那么，我們通常如何確定我們正在構建的產品是否“設計合理”？ 我們都將產品帶到用戶測試中進行驗證，我們喜歡聽“用戶友好”，“可用”，“簡單”或“簡單”之類的短語。 我們經常問：“這是用戶需要的嗎？”

To give this some basic language, we can call that last part Capability, as in “is it capable of performing the task the user needs it to perform?” Then, we have what we usually call Usability, as in “how easy is it to use this?”

為了提供一些基本語言，我們可以將最后一部分稱為Capability ，例如“它是否能夠執行用戶需要執行的任務？” 然后，我們有了通常所說的可用性 ，例如“ 使用它有多容易？”

Unfortunately, “Usability” doesn’t tell the whole story. We know that Vim is certainly “capable” of producing files containing code. But “Usability” doesn’t give us enough detail here. Is Vim actually “usable”?

不幸的是，“可用性”并不能說明全部。 我們知道Vim當然可以“產生”包含代碼的文件。 但是“可用性”在這里沒有給我們足夠的細節。 Vim真的“ 可用 ”嗎？

On one hand, Vim is next to impossible to use the first time you see it. On the other, it’s beautifully fluid once you’ve learned it.

一方面，Vim在您第一次看到它時幾乎無法使用。 另一方面，一旦您學會了它，它就會變得很漂亮。

Instead, we can break Usability into two pieces I call Learnability and Ergonomics:

相反，我們可以將可用性分為兩部分，分別稱為學習性和人機工程學 ：

“Learnability” is a measure of how easy it is to learn a thing. This relates to the “learning curve” we often talk about.

“可學習性”是學習事物的難易程度的度量。 這與我們經常談論的“學習曲線”有關。

“Ergonomics”, then, is a measure of how easy it is to use something once it has been learned.

因此，“人機工程學”衡量了使用某種東西有多容易 一旦學會了 。

In my view, Vim is poorly designed for Learnability, but fantastically designed for Ergonomics.

在我看來，Vim的學習能力設計很差，但為人體工程學設計的卻非常出色 。

Now, why do I call this “Ergonomic”?

現在，為什么我稱其為“人體工程學”？

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “ergonomic” as “relating to or designed for efficiency and comfort in the working environment”. These two things — efficiency and comfort — are things we seldom measure explicitly when trying to determine whether we’ve designed something well. (If we wanted to, would we even know how?)

牛津英語詞典將“人機工程學”定義為“與工作環境中的效率和舒適有關或設計為與之相關”。 效率和舒適度這兩件事是我們在試圖確定我們是否設計得很好時很少明確衡量的事情。 (如果我們愿意，我們甚至會知道嗎？)

Throughout this article series, I’ll be referring to “products” where I mean any sort of digital tool, with special attention given to (but not limited to) tools used by professionals. I’ll also be giving special attention to UI Ergonomics and the interplay it has with Learnability and Capability. In my opinion, this does not get nearly enough attention relative to how valuable it is.

在本系列文章中，我將指的是“產品”，指的是任何種類的數字工具，尤其要注意(但不限于)專業人員使用的工具。 我還將特別關注UI人機工程學及其與可學習性和功能性之間的相互作用。 在我看來，這并不相對于它是多么寶貴的近足夠的重視得到。

So, to put it another way, you can think of the “Capability” of a tool as the results that can be achieved, “Learnability” as how quickly a user can get up to speed, and “Ergonomics” as how quickly & smoothly a user can go at full speed.

因此，換句話說，您可以將工具的“功能”視為 可以實現的結果 ，“學習能力”為 用戶能多快上手 ，以及“人體工程學” 用戶全速前進的速度和流暢程度 。

Breaking apart “Usability” into buckets for “those who are learning” and “those who already know how” can give us an interesting set of tools both for improving a product and seeing how it compares to other products. In other words, understanding how to leverage both Learnability and Ergonomics can be a competitive advantage. Let’s take a look an an example!

將“可用性”劃分為“正在學習的人”和“已經知道如何做”的用戶群，可以為我們提供一組有趣的工具，既可以改進產品，又可以查看產品與其他產品的比較。 換句話說，了解如何同時利用可學習性和人機工程學可以是一項競爭優勢 。 讓我們來看一個例子！

贏得人機工程學 (Winning with Ergonomics)

Here, we’ll do a sort of Interaction Cost analysis, where we break down a task into a set of interactions to measure how ergonomic a workflow is. Let’s take a look at a couple desktop publishing tools and go through a workflow with a few common steps — we’ll be drawing a text box, pasting text into it, repositioning elements, and editing text.

在這里，我們將進行一種“ 交互成本”分析 ，在該分析中 ，我們將一個任務分解為一組交互，以衡量工作流程的人體工程學水平。 讓我們看一下幾個桌面發布工具，并通過幾個常規步驟來完成工作流程-我們將繪制一個文本框，將文本粘貼到其中，重新放置元素并編輯文本。

For the sake of example, we’ll be looking at some older tools for this process. Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with these tools yourself. All you need to know is that both tools can perform the same task. We’ll be walking through the process in each tool step-by-step with a full breakdown at the end.

舉例來說，我們將研究一些較舊的工具來完成此過程。 如果您自己不熟悉這些工具，請不要擔心 。 您需要知道的是，這兩個工具都可以執行相同的任務。 我們將逐步介紹每個工具的過程，并在最后進行完整的分解。

To start, let’s look at QuarkXpress 5.0. Below, a knowledgeable user goes through the fastest process in QuarkXPress:

首先，讓我們看一下QuarkXpress 5.0。 下面，知識淵博的用戶在QuarkXPress中經歷了最快的過程：

Now, let’s look at that same process in Adobe InDesign CS. Once again, we’re looking at this through the eyes of someone who knows it well:

現在，讓我們看看Adobe InDesign CS中的相同過程。 再一次，我們通過一個非常了解它的人的眼光來看待這個問題：

Here’s a breakdown of those two flows:

這是這兩個流程的分解：

It’s worth noting — a user could go through the exact same workflow in InDesign as QuarkXPress by clicking the comparable tool for each step. As a result, the baseline Learnability of this flow is no different between the two. But InDesign has a few important ergonomic improvements QuarkXPress doesn’t have.

值得注意的是，用戶可以通過在每個步驟中單擊可比較的工具，在InDesign中與QuarkXPress進行完全相同的工作流程 。 結果，這兩個流程之間的基線可學習性相同。 但是InDesign具有QuarkXPress沒有的一些重要的人體工程學改進。

Specifically, this workflow in QuarkXPress requires a number of “fiddly” clicks (steps 1, 4, and 7), which has users moving back and forth to click on a tiny icons in the tool box again and again. But InDesign gives users more ergonomic ways of creating text boxes, repositioning, and placing their text cursor — all of which are common tasks! — which removes the friction of repeated mouse moves away from their work and the need for precise interactions with tiny controls. As a result, this workflow is far more ergonomic in InDesign than in QuarkXPress.

特別是，QuarkXPress中的此工作流程需要多次“輕率地”單擊(步驟1、4和7)，使用戶來回移動以一次又一次地單擊工具箱中的小圖標。 但是InDesign為用戶提供了更符合人體工程學的方式來創建文本框，重新定位和放置其文本光標-所有這些都是常見的任務！ -消除了重復的鼠標移動帶來的摩擦，擺脫了工作，并消除了與微小控件進行精確交互的需要。 結果， 在InDesign中此工作流程比在QuarkXPress中更符合人體工程學 。

I want to stress that it’s not simply a matter of the results each tool could get, as both tools are equally capable of performing this task. And it’s not about the upfront pain of learning how to achieve these results. It’s about the amount of required friction in a known process, as that friction is felt during every use.

我想強調的是，這不僅僅是每個工具都能獲得的結果，因為這兩個工具都具有執行此任務的能力。 這與學習如何獲得這些結果的前期痛苦無關。 這是在已知過程中所需的摩擦量，因為在每次使用時都會感覺到這種摩擦。

In other words, it’s not better because of Capability or Learnability, but because of Ergonomics. And as we’ll see next, this mattered to users.

換句話說，并不是因為能力或可學習性而是因為人體工程學。 正如我們接下來將要看到的，這對用戶很重要。

一個警示故事 (A cautionary tale)

Here’s a quote from Denise Williams (@lettergrade), who regularly worked with QuarkXPress and was being given a demo of InDesign:

這是Denise Williams ( @lettergrade )的報價 ，他經常與QuarkXPress合作，并收到InDesign的演示：

“We all actually got emotional. The room was nuts. The Quark reps were humiliated. It was so obvious that all this stuff was going to take the friction out of our departments, which sometimes moved up to 200 ads a day. I remember this PM from Brooklyn sitting beside me who grabbed my arm partway through the demo, and we actually held each other while we listened. CRAZY.”

“ 我們實際上都情緒激動 。 房間很堅果。 夸克代表被羞辱了。 顯而易見，所有這些東西都將使我們各部門之間的糾纏消失，有時每天會增加200個廣告 。 我記得布魯克林的一位總理坐在我旁邊，他在演示過程中抓住了我的手臂，在聆聽的過程中我們實際上是互相抱著的。 瘋。”

And this is from Dave Girard, writing in the same article for Ars Technica:

這是戴夫·吉拉德 ( Dave Girard )在同一篇文章中為Ars Technica撰寫的：

“The widely reported statistics were that XPress enjoyed 95 percent dominance of the publishing market [in the 90s, before InDesign…] But things swiftly changed, and by 2004, Quark’s market share reportedly declined to 25 percent. That is what we in the publishing biz refer to as ‘totally insane.’”

“被廣泛報道的統計數據表明，XPress在90年代(在InDesign之前……)就占據了出版市場95％的統治地位 ，但是情況很快發生了變化，到2004年，夸克的市場份額據稱下降到25％ 。 這就是我們在出版業務中所說的“完全瘋狂”。”

People left Quark for InDesign in droves shortly after it launched. There were certainly other factors that contributed to people making the switch, but I believe Ergonomics played a central role. The daily pain people felt made it much easier for them to make the switch to a competing product.

推出后不久，人們就大批離開Quark進入InDesign。 當然，還有其他因素促使人們做出了轉變，但是我相信人體工程學起著核心作用。 人們每天的痛苦使他們更容易轉向競爭產品。

結論 (In conclusion)

• Better UI Ergonomics can be the deciding factor in a user choosing one product over another, so understanding what it is and how to improve it may be key to your product’s success.

  更好的UI人體工程學可以成為用戶選擇一種產品而不是另一種產品的決定因素，因此了解產品的本質以及如何改進它可能是產品成功的關鍵。

• Top-notch Ergonomics not only gives people a reason to switch to your tool, it also gives them a reason to stay with it—and proudly advocate for it.
  一流的人機工程學不僅為人們提供了使用您的工具的理由，而且還為他們提供了使用它的理由，并為此而自豪。
• Discussing “Usability” without distinguishing between new and experienced audiences ignores important differences in a user’s relationship with the tool.
  在不區分新用戶和有經驗的受眾的情況下討論“可用性”時，會忽略用戶與工具之間關系的重要差異。

• Distinguishing clearly between Learnability and Ergonomics helps us to better target improvements to these distinct audiences, and as we’ll see in the next article, can help us to better reposition products against competitors.

  在可學習性和人機工程學之間進行明確區分可以幫助我們更好地針對這些不同的受眾進行改進，正如我們將在下一篇文章中看到的那樣 ，可以幫助我們更好地將產品重新定位于競爭對手。

推薦建議 (Recommendations)

• When reviewing your backlog, start asking yourself “Is this a new Capability, a Learnability improvement, or an Ergonomic improvement?” Learn to recognize the differences between each.

  在查看您的積壓訂單時，請問自己“這是一項新的功能 ，一項可學習性的改進還是一項符合人體工程學的改進？” 學會認識彼此之間的差異。

• Understand that these improvements affect different audiences, and can have a markedly different impact on the success of your product. We’ll discuss how you can start prioritizing these elements in the next article.

  了解這些改進會影響不同的受眾，并且會對產品的成功產生明顯不同的影響。 在下一篇文章中，我們將討論如何開始優先考慮這些元素。

接下來的是 (Coming up next)

In next week’s article, we’ll play with a simple tool for understanding how your product compares to the competition, and explore how to start making smart, focused design improvements that affect adoption and drive rabid, obsessive user love for your product. New articles every Monday — make sure you follow for updates!

在下周的文章中 ，我們將使用一個簡單的工具來了解您的產品與競爭對手的比較，并探索如何開始進行明智的，專注的設計改進，從而影響產品的采用并吸引狂熱的，癡迷的用戶對您產品的喜愛。 每個星期一都有新文章-確保您關注更新！

Continue to Part 2

繼續第二部分

This article series is the culmination of several years of collected learnings. If this was valuable to you, take a moment to think about who else you know who might benefit from reading it — Your team? Your Twitter or LinkedIn followers? — and send it their way. It would really help 🙏

本系列文章是多年收集的學習成果的結晶。 如果這對您有價值，請花點時間考慮一下您認識的其他人，誰可能會從中受益—您的團隊？ 您的Twitter或LinkedIn關注者？ -并以自己的方式發送。 真的有幫助🙏

Hans van de Bruggen is a designer living in California. He has previously worked for LinkedIn and Netflix, and currently leads product design for a team at Dave, a humane banking app. Follow Hans on Twitter and here on Medium (from at least 6 feet away, please! 😷)

Hans van de Bruggen是居住在加利福尼亞的設計師。 他之前曾在LinkedIn和Netflix工作，目前在 人道銀行應用程序 Dave 的團隊負責產品設計 。 在Twitter上關注Hans， 在Medium 上關注 此處(請至少保持6英尺遠！away)