Zhihu Product Analysis Report

This article is for self-study and use, and is a letter written to Zhihu by a cautious user. To borrow a phrase from Professor Yu Jun: I hope that my students will be self-reflective and studious, and even if they are in hell, they will not lose their ambition to rise to the top, and will always use the three elements of rationality (rational beliefs, rational goals, and rational actions) to improve their situations.

1. Modification record

2. Zhihu functional structure diagram

There are so many information structure diagrams on Zhihu that I just picked out the ones that needed to be modified and simplified. Disrespectful. terribly sorry.

3. Global Description

The global description here is based on the global description in the prototype of Teacher GaraC's top-secret file. I would like to mention in particular that Teacher GaraC is really amazing and I admire her very much. I met her through a video, and later I carefully read every article she wrote on the Renrenshijiupin website. I am very grateful to her for helping me a lot. Thank you.

4. Prototype

4.1 Navigation Bar

1. Change the color. For this function, the Zhihu bosses should consider the color of the publish button, so the interactive color of each other selected menu button is gray. But I personally think that when selecting, it is still better to choose the Zhihu color, and the publish button can have another color.
2. The live broadcast and members' positions are swapped.
3. When there is a message, the menu message button has a small red dot.

reason:

1. Gray tones, cool colors. It gives people a sense of solidity and toughness, while Zhihu's main color is blue, which shows a sense of beauty, quietness, rationality, tranquility and cleanliness.
2. This modification should be a large-scale change. I will explain in detail why I chose this later.
3. I don’t know if there is something wrong with my phone or something else. This function did not exist two days before I prepared this article, but it appeared two days when I was writing the article. It is likely that there is something wrong with my phone. Such a simple function cannot be missing.

4.2 Home Page

1. Get rid of the View Content button that keeps appearing.
2. The member is placed in the upper left corner, swapping the previous live broadcast position.
3. Added a thank you section.
4. In the content list, there are no two contents that occupy a large area. There are cases where videos and advertisements are displayed together, and they take up too much space, resulting in only 2-3 contents being displayed on one page.
5. It is very important to move the shield prompt box down and not cover the shield button.

reason:

• This function will remind you every once in a while, and if it is the content I want to watch at the moment, I may click on the wrong one, which will also make me feel irritated (maybe the content I like at the moment just wants it to disappear as soon as possible and not disturb me).
• The reason for the change will be explained later.
• There is a detailed explanation later.
• The recommendation page is to display content and make users want to read on, so more information needs to be clearly displayed on one page. Suppose there are three pieces of information displayed on a page, one of which is an advertisement. Then the remaining two are contents that users are not interested in, which will give users a bad experience when they open the page for the first time.
• When I clicked the block button, my finger was still in the original position, but I could no longer see what I had done before. For example, if you enter a paragraph of text and the cursor disappears during the input process, this experience is obviously unreasonable.

4.3 Home Page Attention

1. Add to watchlist;
2. Adding a view more button always feels weird. But I personally don’t like the horizontal sliding interaction;
3. The icon of the share button has been changed. The previous one was the menu button.

reason:

1. There is also a little red dot at the bottom of the message. It did not exist when I wrote this article, but it appeared on the morning of April 9. It is also possible that the page you follow is not updated in a timely manner.
2. This function is designed to solve the problem of too many followers. If users want to find a specific target as quickly as possible, it will take more time.
3. On 4.15, it has been changed to a share button, but the menu has become a refresh button. If you want to refresh, users can just swipe down to refresh. You may want to save it until the next version to add content and cultivate user's viewing habits.

4.4 Bookshelf interface 1

1. Compared with the previous one, the close button is replaced with the return button.
2. Separate the history and bookshelf and create a view pager with sliding effect.
3. A search function has been added, as well as a delete function. The search function searches the current history page and the bookshelf page. The deletion function refers to the history deletion function of multiple apps, and you can delete all or delete one by one.

reason:

1. One reason: the previous close button that people mistakenly thought was a history record close button turned out to be a page close button. Second: I think it is a bit ugly. This is a matter of personal perception. I hope you can forgive me if it is disrespectful.
2. I chose this because I really couldn't understand the relationship between historical records and bookshelves. Even if they were separated later, I still couldn't figure out the connection between the two (given that I'm really stupid). Is the history the browsing history or the bookshelf history? So what's on the bookshelf below?
3. As of April 15, I can no longer find the entry button to the bookshelf interface. The delete button in the history section is hidden quite deep. I need to click three levels to get to the delete button, and there is no clear button.

4.5 Bookshelf interface 2

There are four secondary columns in the bookshelf: Search, Order, Filter, and Delete.

Reason: The design here is not considered a good design. If you have any suggestions, please leave a message. The size of the four menus here will change with different states, such as clicking the search button or clicking the delete button.

4.6 Details Page Design

1. Modify the details page.
2. A previous answer button has been added. The placement of this button is indeed not very good, but it would be nice if this function existed.
3. Remove the interaction of prompting the next page button every time you enter the page. Instead of fixing the next answer button, it is better to set rules for the product. Such a large company should have the confidence to change user habits (manual dog head).
4. The like button has been changed to add a thumbs up, with interactive shaking and a +1 or -1 prompt.
5. Removed like.
6. The specific number of comments should be expressed as K if it exceeds a thousand, and 10K if it is 10,000.
7. The second prototype picture is the effect after sliding. The answer button was originally just a blue text prompt. I emphasized the prompt effect in order to get more people to answer the content.
8. View all answers pull down.

reason:

1. When reviewing the previous answer, or the answer before that, the time and energy required is enormous. Second, when I accidentally clicked on the next answer and needed to go back to the previous answer, the experience was terrible.
2. Remove the prompt interaction because I am not a fool and I will remind you every time. As mentioned in the previous example, the benefit of fixing is that it can reduce user errors. Nowadays, there is no regret button, so try to minimize it. While appreciating each answer, I always feel that the location of this button does not conform to my reading habits. No matter where it is, I always want to move it.
3. Because previously there was too much horizontal space for the like button and the like interaction was not stimulating enough for users. Since WeChat has become part of our daily lives, “liking” has become a common and advanced recognition function.
4. The reason for removing the like is that it always feels like two of the likes, likes, and collections are duplicated. And there is no record of my favorites. I clicked on a few articles I liked before and wanted to review them again but I can't find the entrance. I feel so sad.
5. The real reason to avoid mysterious numbers is that they take up too much space.
6. Add the Write Answer button, hoping that more users will participate in answering questions.
7. It's not a good choice here, but there's nowhere else to put it. Hope to give better advice.

4.7 Comments interface

1. The sort button now has a sorting prompt. Newest or hottest.
2. Add more reply information in the reply to increase the discussion.
3. Modified the publish button.

reason:

1. Originally, the basis for the sorting here was unclear, there was no feedback to users, and it increased users’ thinking, requiring users to guess the function of your function.
2. This is on the headlines because the user experience is actually quite good. Every time I see a reply to a topic with strong controversy, I want to see how many people are arguing with it and add more in-depth routines.
3. Increase users' desire to leave comments.

4.8 Search Interface

1. The search function has an entry button in many interfaces, and mine has it...
2. The Zhihu bosses must have their own reasons for bringing out the return button instead of putting it in the search box.
3. Delete record button modified for uniformity.

reason:

1. There is a search entry on my interface, which feels a bit strange.
2. The return button is inside the search bar, which doesn’t feel good as the two are independent functions. And the return key is functionally a regret function.
3. The current delete interaction is actually pretty good, but it’s easy to make mistakes because the user can’t avoid clicking the clear button twice.

4.9 My Interface

1. Remove the search box;
2. Changes in the location of the Entrepreneurship Center;
3. Add likes record.

reason:

1. My interface has the function of personal information.
2. The Entrepreneurship Center itself does not belong to a record button, but to a personal information architecture.
3. I'm sorry that I didn't keep track of the articles I liked before, and I missed a lot of articles that I wanted to read more times. Secondly, likes are more in line with the design of this module, as both are entrances to record history.

4.10 Watchlist

1. Click the Followed button again without displaying toast, you can refer to Weibo.
2. Add a follow button.

reason:

1. It will remind you to unfollow all the followers, which is terrible when you need to unfollow in bulk.
2. Change the title to the middle and add an add button. The reason for its existence is to allow users to easily obtain the content of the page they are currently following.

4.11 Publish Button

When I write this, I no longer have the passion I had at the beginning. When I wrote this article, I intended to complain about Zhihu in the form of chatting with old friends, because I have learned some product knowledge recently and I have always liked Zhihu, so I planned to use it as a practice demo. It’s 1:11 in the morning and it’s very noisy at home. I’m a little sleepy. continue.

Publish Button:

Reason: The Zhihu bigwigs must have their reasons for this. Mine is that after clicking this button, the background itself is Moss. It would be better to directly display the background content behind it (more grand?), and the recommended answers below have basically nothing to do with me clicking the publish button. I am not very knowledgeable and have not yet understood the reason for its existence.

4.12 Message Interface

1. Why is the main interface of the message button notification? So I use the message as the main interface here;
2. The previous search button was on the second level in the upper right corner. I took it out and I didn’t know what the button did at first.
3. The data shows that the content of the message should be the likes, replies, and likes of the published article, etc.;
4. Add a delete button.

reason:

1. As we all know, the ringtone button means message, but when opened, the main page turns out to be notifications.
2. The upper right corner itself has a message search page that you can click on. The search level is too high, so why do we need a separate portal?
3. Subjective feelings.
4. Need help here, think this delete function is needed but it looks ugly here.

4.13 Notification Interface

1. Same as above for the delete button;
2. Remove the settings, and go to my place to set them. The ideas of the Zhihu masters must have reasons. This is just my personal opinion.
3. The notification should be the official message.

reason:

1. If the setting button is to be symmetrical with the message interface, I have solved the problem for you (manual dog head), the settings can be modified in the settings of my interface.
2. For example, after this article was sent out, Renren officials responded with a similar notification that the article did not pass the review.

4.14 Live Streaming Interface

ps: The purpose of putting live broadcast on the first-level menu is because membership is on the first level and is too commercialized. It seems to be telling me all the time that I am a poor bastard and I should buy a membership, otherwise I will not even be qualified to know what I care about. The second reason is that although live streaming has passed its peak, it is gradually becoming a norm rather than being abandoned. This is the live broadcast page. There is not much content in Zhihu live broadcast. After opening it, it is basically all female avatars. I thought it was ghs. Zhihu is a content platform that can create a vertical live broadcast module.

It is divided into three modules: knowledge, entertainment and attention.

Zhixue: Provides learning and a literary part (try to be as classy as possible).

Entertainment: singing, dancing (try to have B points).

Live broadcast list: picture, title, popularity, name.

Search, just search the content of the live broadcast module.

reason:

1. A live broadcast of popular science in a vertical field.
2. One that leans toward more versatile entertainment.
3. The entries are more inclined to the display of content. I think the live broadcast module of Bilibili is very well done, neither mediocre nor ordinary. The live broadcast module has a very clear positioning field.

4.15 Thank you for your invitation interface

The reason I put this at the end is because this idea is rather naive. This interface was added because the public opinion and social reputation of Zhihu has become more intense recently. We often get negative news about Zhihu from various channels, from laxatives to getting off the plane, etc., all of which are bad. I hope that Zhihu can develop better. This page is a thank you interface, inviting the world and thanking all living beings. Through this interface, you can express your acceptance of social criticism and make fun of yourself, which is more down-to-earth. (Zhihu doesn’t have to be serious and rigid, it also has a humorous side)

a. This page is the thank you invitation section of the homepage. We hope that Zhihu can transform from online ridicule to mockery, and then into a better knowledge platform.

b. The interface is mainly sorted by content. The ranking is based on the number of times you are invited and answer questions. The more times you are invited, the higher you are ranked.

c. The number of sorting times is counted starting from when the user creates his account.

d. The interface asks for content sorting (of course, this is not rigorous, considering the two conditions, a weighting problem needs to be set).

e. The number of sortings is counted from the time the question is asked.

5. Conclusion

This concludes my first post. Although the quality is not very good, it is full of passion. If you are truly offended or if I have been disrespectful, I sincerely ask for forgiveness.

If someday the big guys on Zhihu read this article and adopt their opinions, I will be sincerely happy. I hope Zhihu will get better and better, no longer be bound by public opinion, and return to its original state.

Zhihu: Knowing what I care about, I care about the people and things I like to be more beautiful.

Author: Xiaokuo

Source: Xiaokuo