出自UXGuide.net

创建产品定义说明

Create a Product Definition Statement

Before you begin designing your application, it’s essential to define precisely what your application does. A good way to do this is to craft a product definition statement—a concise declaration of your application’s main purpose and its intended audience. Creating a product definition statement isn’t merely an exercise. On the contrary, it’s one of the best ways to turn a list of features into a coherent product.

在你开始设计自己的应用程序之前，必不可少的是精确定义你的应用程序是做什么的。一个比较好的方式是用心撰写一份产品定义说明——份简洁描述你的应用程序的主要目的与目标用户的文档。创建产品定义声明并不仅仅是个练习，相反的是，这是将一大串功能特征转化为一个连贯性产品的最佳方式。

To begin with, spend some time defining your user audience: Are they experienced or novice, serious or casual, looking for help with a specific task or looking for entertainment? Knowing these things about your users helps you customize the user experience and user interface to their particular needs and wants.

首先，花些时间定义你的目标用户：他们是专家还是新手，是正式的还是随意的，是为了达成目标而寻求帮助还是在寻求娱乐。了解用户的这些事情可以帮助你定做符合他们独有需求的用户体验与用户界面。

Because you’re designing an iPhone application, you already know a lot about your users. For example:

因为你是在创建一个 iPhone 应用程序，你已经了解许多关于你的用户的信息。比如：

• They're mobile.
  他们是在移动的
• They want to be able to open your application quickly and see useful content immediately.
  他们希望能够尽快的打开应用程序并立即看到对他们有用的信息
• They need to be able to accomplish things in your application with just a few taps.
  通过你的应用程序，他们只需简单点击几下即可完成事项。

Now ask yourself what traits might set your users apart from all other iPhone OS users. Are they business people, teenagers, or retirees? Will they use your application at the end of every day, every time they check their email, or whenever they have a few extra moments? The more accurately you define your audience, the more accurate are your decisions about the look, feel, and functionality of your user interface.

现在思考下，是什么样的特性可以将你的用户群和其他所有 iPhone 操作系统用户群区分开来。他们是商人、青少年还是退休人员？他们是否会在每天结束前，或每次检查邮件的时候，亦或任何有一些空闲时间的时候，使用你的应用程序？你对目标用户的定义越精确，你在用户界面的外观、感觉和功能性方面做的决策就会越精确。

For example, if your application helps business people keep track of their expenses, your user interface should focus on providing the right categories and making it easy to enter costs, without asking for a lot of details that aren’t central to the task. In addition, you might choose a subtle color palette that appears professional and is pleasant to look at several times a day.

举例来说，如果你的程序是要帮助商务人士跟踪记录他们的开支，那么你的界面就要专注于提供正确的分类，并易于输入的开支数目，避免去问一些与核心任务无关的细节。除此之外，你最好为界面选择一种微小精致的颜色搭配方案，令其看起来显得专业且保证用户在一天使用多次仍感觉愉悦。

Or, if your application is a game for a target audience of teenagers, you might instead want a user interface that is exciting, language that imparts a feeling of exclusivity, and a color palette that evokes current fashions.

或者，如果你的应用程序是以青少年为目标用户的游戏。那么你就要需要换成一种令人兴奋的，语言能表现的独一无二的，颜色搭配方案符合当前时尚的用户界面。

Finally, examine the set of features you intend to deliver. With the image of your user audience in mind, try to distill the list of features into a single statement, a product definition statement, that describes the solution your product offers and who your users are. For example, the desktop iPhoto application allows users to, among other things, organize, edit, share, print, and view photos. But a good product definition statement doesn’t just focus on features, it also describes the intended audience. Therefore a sound product definition statement for iPhoto could be "An easy-to-use photo management application for amateur photographers." Notice how important it is to include a definition of your user audience in the product definition statement: Imagine how different an application iPhoto would be if it was designed to be “an easy-to-use photo management application for professional photographers.”

最后，来计算下你打算提供的功能特征集合。在脑海中想象着你的目标用户，试着将功能特征列表提取到一份单独的说明上，这就是一份产品定义说明，它描述了你的产品可以提供的解决方案和你的目标用户。例如，桌面版的 iPhoto 应用程序，除了别的之外，还允许用户整理，编辑，共享，打印和查看照片。但一份好的产品定义声明不仅仅是只把重点放在功能特征上面，它还要描述你的目标用户。因此，一份健全的iPhoto产品定义说明可以是“一个为业余摄影爱好者设计的简单易用的图片管理应用程序”。注意一下在产品定义说明中描述你的目标用户是多么重要：你只要想象一下如果iPhoto是“为专业摄影爱好者设计的图片管理程序”,那将有多大的不同。

A good product definition statement is a tool you should use throughout the development process to determine the suitability of features, tools, and terminology. It’s especially important to eliminate those elements that don’t support the product definition statement, because iPhone applications have no room to spare for functionality that isn’t focused on the main task.

一份优秀的产品定义说明就像一个工具，你应该在整个产品开发进程中使用它来判断提供的功能特征，工具和术语是否合适。他尤其重要的作用是排除那些不符合产品定义说明的元素，因为 iPhone 应用程序没有多余的空间提供给那些不是已主任务为核心的功能。

Imagine, for example, that you’re thinking of developing an iPhone application people can use when they shop for groceries. In the planning stage, you might consider including a wide range of activities users might like to perform, such as:

想象一下，例如，你想开发一款当用户在杂货店购物的时候可以使用的 iPhone 应用程序。在计划阶段，你可能需要考虑到许多各种不同的用户可能去做的活动，如：

• Getting nutritional information about specific foods
  获得特定事物的营养信息
• Finding coupons and special offers
  寻找电子优惠卷或特价优惠
• Creating and using shopping lists
  创建和使用购物列表
• Locating stores
  定位商店
• Looking up recipes
  查阅食谱
• Comparing prices
  比较价格
• Keeping a running total of prices
  随时查看购物总金额

However, you believe that your users are most concerned with remembering everything they need to buy, that they would like to save money if possible, and that they’re probably in a hurry to get home with their purchases. Using this audience definition, you craft a product definition statement for your application, such as "A shopping list creation and coupon-finding tool for people in a hurry." Filtering your list of potential features through this product definition statement, you decide to focus primarily on making shopping lists easy to create, store, and use. You also offer users the ability to find coupons for the items on their list. Even though the other features are useful (and might become primary features of other applications), they don’t fit the product definition statement for this application.

然而，你相信你的用户最关心的是要记得他们想买的每一样东西，同时尽可能的省钱，同时他们很可能是急着想把东西买回家。根据这些对用户的定义，你可以为你的应用程序制作一个产品定义说明，如“为匆忙的人提供的一个可创建购物列表并查找折扣信息的工具”。使用这份产品定义说明，去过滤你创建的潜在功能特征列表，你决定首要的应该是专注于让购物列表容易创建，保存和使用。同时，你还提供给用户查找与购物列表上商品对应的折扣信息的功能。即使其他功能也是有用的（并且可能成为其他应用程序的主要功能特征），但是他们不符合这个应用程序的产品定义说明。

When you’ve settled on a solid product definition statement and you’ve started to use it as a filter for your proposed features, you might also want to use it to make sure your initial decision on application type is still the right one. If you began your development process with a specific application type in mind, you might find that the process of defining a product definition statement has changed the landscape. (See “Three Application Styles” for more on different types of applications you can develop.)

当你确立了一个固定的产品定义说明并且已经开始把它作为过滤器去筛选你的提议的功能特征，你大概也希望用它来确定关于你最初的应用程序样式的决定也是正确的。如果你在脑海中计划开始了一个特定应用程序的开发进程，你可能会发现定义产品定义声明的过程改变了全局。（关于你所能开发的不同类型的应用程序请参见“三种应用程序样式”）