How to make product design more youthful? I summarized these 5 points

The target users of our products are relatively young, mostly those born after 1995 and 2000. We have been paying attention to the characteristics of this group of people.

After reading some industry reports online and analyzing many youth-oriented products, I summarized some common features.

Of course, the most important thing about a product is definitely its content and functions themselves. Today we will just talk briefly about the design dimension and where the design focus can be for youth-oriented products.

If the target audience of your product is also young and you are a designer, I hope I can give you some inspiration on the direction.

High appearance

The young generation today has been exposed to things that are incomparable to previous generations since childhood. The rise of the Internet has raised their vision and aesthetic threshold to a very high level. For such a group of people, the content we produce must be of high quality and good value.

If the design is not different and has no highlights, the product will lack vitality.

My personal favorite app is Lying Flat:

These are all excellent in appearance and the differentiation is also obvious.

The appearance of an app tests the designer's control over the overall design language, including concepts, creativity, extension, execution and other aspects. It is the main focus of our design. However, this kind of large design language construction is not common. If you don’t have the opportunity to experience it for the time being, you can look down and see that small design entry points can also be focused on.

Sense of accomplishment

To be honest, people of all ages need a sense of accomplishment, such as the number one and number two on the live broadcast list, and the WeChat reading rankings, all of which are manifestations of a sense of accomplishment.

But I think young people are more likely to do things for the sake of achievement (even if it is a trivial achievement), such as QQ's so-called achievement, such as going on vacation to the beach, traveling with family, etc.:

When you get older, you may find it boring, but for children, it may still be attractive.

When users want to add achievements, they will be directed to view a 15-second ad:

It is also a great help to business improvement.

At the end of 2019, we upgraded the level system based on the principle of sense of achievement. The original level labels did not change from level 1 to level 40:

This will not inspire the user's sense of achievement and honor, so there are subsequent level style upgrades:

User feedback after the revision is also very positive.

Personalization

Young people value individuality and self-esteem. If everyone has the same things, it will definitely not satisfy their psychological desires. Therefore, personalized settings of many contents become very necessary.

For example, QQ’s personalized label setting:

It shows everyone's personality to a certain extent, and the design techniques are also very good.

Another example is some personalized avatar frames on our platform (the designer of the picture below is Linlin):

Users are required to complete certain specific tasks before they can receive the rewards. When the avatar frame you wear is different from others, it satisfies your personalized psychological needs.

Immersion

Many young people like to play games, and many games have a good sense of immersion. The general login loading is just an ordinary loading animation, but the login page of the game below allows you to log into the elevator and then take the elevator to the game base. It is very immersive.

The banner image on our product homepage has become immersive, which is also based on this principle. Later, the TCD content operation and design team also advanced to "content implantation operation", such as incorporating some plots, scenes, etc. into the banner:

We want to make the screen more informative and more engaging, so that users can be more immersed. This is also the focus of our design.

Emotional

Usually we have seen a lot of emotional summaries, such as putting an illustration on a blank page, making an illustration guide page, etc. I think these can also be regarded as emotional designs, but strictly speaking, they are not enough. Even from a visual perspective, the real emotionality should be derived from life and can even arouse emotional resonance. For example, this QR code display on Bilibili is very interesting. I worked hard to hold up a sign and wait for you to take a photo of me, but you took a selfie there. It’s so ruthless:

Only in this way can we leave a deep memory for users.

Of course, this is not easy to do. We all need to work harder to achieve true emotional resonance and emotionalization. This is also the starting point for us to achieve a higher level in design.

Summarize

The above is my personal summary of the design focus of youth-oriented products. It can be regarded as a brief talk, hoping to inspire others.