From C-end to B-end, my product design journey

I remember when I was interviewing for Lenovo's UX design position, the interviewer asked me what the difference was between the C-end and the B-end, and what the design differences were. This question was completely confusing to me, who had only worked on the C-end at the time. Since I didn't have a clear concept of the B-end in my mind, my answer was not comprehensive and accurate, and I was asked to go home and wait for notification. Later, I joined a very good team, and my journey of B-end product design began...

It has been a while since I shifted from designing C-end products to designing B-end products. During this period, I have personally experienced some "design contrasts": different business attributes, different product positioning, different target users, different design expressions, different business processes, and different working routines. Thanks to these contrasts, I have realized the differences between C-end products and B-end products.

In recent years, the Internet has entered the second half, and the C-end traffic dividend has gradually faded. Many companies have turned to B-end services, and with it the transformation of product designers. Now more and more C-end product designers are beginning to get involved in the design of B-end products. This is a process of knowledge transfer. You need to recognize the characteristics and differences of these two types of products so that you can quickly adapt to this migration process.

In today’s world where the Internet and information technology are highly developed, we are all users of B-end and C-end products, and we can personally experience the quality of a product. So what new discoveries will we make when we put two completely different categories of products together? Today, I would like to sort out the differences and values ​​of these two products through my own design process.

C: The full name is Customer, which means the product of consumers (generally referring to users), individual users or end users, using the client. For example: WeChat, NetEase News, NetEase Cloud Music, Youdao Translator, NetEase Kaola, etc.

B: The full name is Business, which means the product of a business (generally refers to an enterprise). It is usually a system software, tool or platform used by an enterprise or a merchant for work or business purposes. For example: JD Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, NetEase Cloud, NetEase Youshu or the internal ERP system of an enterprise, etc.

1. Similarities

1. They are all used by people, from small apps for hailing taxis, food delivery and shopping to large enterprise-level business systems with complex logic that sometimes confuses even product managers. Whether you are an individual user or a corporate user, they are essentially used by people, just with different product types.

2. Balance between user experience and business Since it is a product for people to use , balance between user experience and business must be taken into account. No matter it is the C-end or B-end, no one wants to use a product that is not easy to use and slows down efficiency. Of course, there are still some products with poor user experience that users have to use because they may have a certain monopoly nature or be forced to use in certain scenarios, and users themselves have no choice. But it cannot be said that user experience is not important. It can only be said that for B-end products with more complex business and born for work, it is more difficult to do this well than for C-end products.

3. Stick to the core idea of ​​product design. For every product designer , "what method should be used to solve what problems in what scenario for what kind of users (customers)" is a familiar phrase that is often discussed or mentioned. However, when faced with sudden things that come in at work, it is often easy to ignore it. It's like if a person is too hungry and only cares about eating to fill his stomach, but forgets what he ate.

2. Differences

1. Target users First, let’s clarify who the users of C-end products and B-end products are and who the products are for.

C-end: The product is for individual users, serving everyone outside the "enterprise" scenario, that is, the life scenario. He needs to make a more detailed user portrait, for example: the user's age, occupation, education, income level, work unit, personal preferences, etc. will affect the function design. Everyone can make optimization suggestions for the product. This opinion only represents the individual, not any social group. However, as long as these opinions are verified by the product manager to improve the product value, they may be included in the iteration cycle.

Relatively speaking, C-end products far exceed B-end products in terms of service scope, penetration, and density. The reason is that it targets a wider user group and uses a core function to solve a major demand of most people. Each of us can become a C-end user anytime and anywhere, and there are also many products to choose from. The product team is more concerned about keeping us on the product longer, making users more sticky and active, and needs to use the product's special features and high-quality experience to attract us, and solve our problems in life convenience and emotions, so that we can enjoy these services and pay for them.

B-side: The products serve corporate users. This "enterprise" can be an organization, a business, a team, or some kind of business entity. Of course, the user is also an individual, but this "individual" only represents a role in the organization.

Regardless of gender, age, or region, these people are all in the same role, such as project directors, project managers, and project consultants in an enterprise. Our products should be provided to these roles, not to a certain person. Suppose we make a project management system, which is mainly provided to project managers. Zhang San and Li Si are both users of the product. Maybe Zhang San is a lively girl outside of work, who likes to watch short videos, shop, and travel, and is impressed by the simple interface style; Li Si is an introverted otaku who likes to stay at home playing games and reading books, and likes cool interface styles, but their personal preferences cannot affect the design of system functions. The main basis for the functional design mentioned here is the business positioning and assessment goals of the project manager role of the enterprise. Their common role is project manager, so the system only needs to provide the corresponding functions and experience for the project manager.

Therefore, the functional design needs to include multiple business functions to meet the multiple needs and scenarios of specific groups of people. The users it faces have specific professional attributes, which means that its users will only use it in "work" scenarios, and some are forced to use it, and individuals have no choice, because the payers are corporate leaders, not grassroots employees, and it is the grassroots employees who use it the most. Therefore, the user relationship of B-end products will be more concentrated and vertical than that of C-end. When designing functions, it is necessary to weigh the pros and cons between payers and users. They require the timeliness of the product and focus on how to meet the established goals of corporate users.

2. Usage scenarios

C-end: It exists in various scenarios in life, and the degree of freedom is very high, of course, including work scenarios, such as when I am on the subway, I check my Moments, open a certain Yiyun app to listen to music before going to bed, order a takeaway on a certain group during work breaks, and turn into a fat house to eat chicken for a day on weekends, etc. Therefore, the usage scenarios of C-end products are fragmented. Users will not stare at the same APP for several hours in a row, but switch between multiple applications at will. For example, if the phone is blocked, they will open WeChat to reply to messages, and if they are tired of listening to music, they will read e-books, etc. Therefore, we see some relatively excellent products, and they have worked hard on content and user experience, with the purpose of retaining users and reducing bounce rates. Therefore, C-end products pay more attention to direct operation, concise information, entertainment, sociality, and talkability. They are born to solve problems in life, parasitize on our emotions, and are impressed by the emotional design of products.

B-end: It is the opposite of C-end. They use the product for work, so they must use the product for a long time and immersively. At the same time, the frequency of use is predictable. They cannot use it with personal preferences. They cannot say that this product is too difficult to use, so I can stop using it. For example, when we clock in and out, the company requires us to use product A. If you think it is not easy to use, you recommend everyone to use product B. Sorry, although you are the real user of the product, the decision-makers and payers are senior leaders. Therefore, personal emotions cannot influence the usage scenario. Therefore, B-end products pay more attention to rigorous process design, scene area close to reality, low risk, high efficiency, and accurate data. It was born to solve work problems, parasitic on the corporate system, and the work efficiency is affected by the user experience of the product.

3. Business and Essence

C-end: satisfying one's own emotions: for example, social products are built with a "chat" method, which can be in the form of voice, text, pictures, sharing, etc., to solve personal emotional problems in emotions, space, work, vanity, desire, etc. In addition to the core functions, some "value-added functions" can be added, such as setting friend viewing permissions, purchasing VIP, etc., all of which are to improve the use value and profitability of the product.

Therefore, C-end products usually have only one core function (for example, the core function of music apps is listening to music, the core function of reading apps is reading, and the core function of game apps is playing games), and multiple auxiliary functions. The core function affects the characteristics, positioning, and tonality of the product, and reasonable auxiliary functions will allow the product to maintain and increase its value and enhance the differentiation between products. If these additional functions are removed, the product experience will be affected to a certain extent, but it will not actually hinder users from using core functions. For example, the comment function is removed, but users can still listen to music; the reward function is removed, and it does not affect users reading articles and authors writing articles; after sharing is removed, users can still play PUBG smoothly.

Therefore, the characteristics of C-end products can be summarized as "sharing". The "comments" and "rewards" mentioned above are actually based on the "sharing" scenario, that is: let others hear "my" voice, see "my" ideas, and agree with "my" point of view, satisfying the emotional settings of both parties.

Profit-making methods: content payment, advertising payment, platform commission, value-added services (VIP, coupons, permissions, etc.)

B side: Complete a goal together: People who use the product for daily work cannot complete a task independently. They need to collaborate with people around them to complete a closed loop of the task process. For example, I initiate a leave application, with "completion" and "rejection" as process nodes. According to the company's system settings, this process involves three roles: initiator (me), reviewer (superior), and archiver (personnel or administration).

The business logic of B-end products is complex and changeable, especially the permission system. Often, each person is a very small part of the process. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, collaboration is required. It is impossible to list every business here, because different companies have completely different businesses. Companies can selectively purchase or lease the functions in the product. For actual users, this product has no functional hierarchy. Whichever part they are responsible for is their main task and frequently used function. In other words, from the perspective of functional architecture, these core functions are flat, and they are allocated to various user roles without any ranking.

The essence of B-end products is to meet the work needs of users, but this is never satisfied by a single function. It must include the combination of multiple functions and nested application support. When users need to draw multiple different types of charts, the product must not only provide a single type of chart function; for example: Company A's product can only draw bar charts, while Company B's product can draw 10 or even more different types of charts to meet different demand scenarios. If you are a customer, which product would you choose to buy?

Profit model: Pay by functional module, pay by number of users, pay on demand, and post-maintenance fees

4. Product Demand

C-end: To meet the daily needs of users more, the sources of demand will be more diversified, because the purpose is to attract new users, promote activation, retain users, convert users, and fission users. Competitive product analysis, data analysis, and user behavior analysis may help to dig out valuable needs. There are also many times when we download an app because our friends are using it or we see an advertisement for the product, but we don’t know what to use it for after downloading. We will only open the app again when we have a demand, which may be: emptiness, boredom, wanting to shop, etc. Therefore, many ordinary users do not know what their real needs are. Sometimes they even open an app by mistake, and then are attracted by the buyer show, event promotion and other operational modules, and finally have a desire to buy.

Therefore, C-end products are from a God's perspective. Demand comes directly from user behavior and feedback, and the most authentic demands are obtained from users. Product designers need to pay attention to market trends, user preferences and opinions, convert effective analysis results into product needs, output functions, guide users to resonate, and increase conversion (monetization) probability and fission radiation area through some operational means.

B-end: B-end products are more based on the existing "business" form, converting traditional offline work into online behavior through programming, systematization, and informationization, making the business flow more efficient and office costs lower. Therefore, it is more required that product designers can master the corresponding industry knowledge and clarify the business logic.

Demand generally comes from the strategic positioning of the product, the connection between various departments, and the individual needs of tenants (customers, external payers). In order to further subdivide responsibilities, some companies that make profits by selling enterprise software usually assign designated first-line consultants to connect with tenants' needs and follow up services, and then feedback the needs to the product manager responsible for the product. The product manager here is responsible for collecting needs, analyzing, planning, setting development priorities, and then handing them over to the development team to carry out subsequent product design and other work.

The customers of B-end products may not be online, but in companies all over the country. Often, you need to go through bosses and sales to reach customers, which will result in the inability to obtain real customer needs. I call this phenomenon "demand gap", so the better way to conduct research is to do a "face-to-face" user interview, which can be real face-to-face, or video or telephone communication. This can easily communicate duplicate needs clearly, rather than through emails and texts, because target users have fixed professional fields. Sometimes the process you designed is what you think is the most reasonable, but it is very different from their actual use. So talking to real users face to face about their work habits and business rules will definitely help you design products.

Often, products are made only to meet the needs of payers (i.e. senior leaders) rather than actual users (i.e. grass-roots workers), which leads to actual users complaining about the poor usability of the product. In fact, this is a complaint caused by changing their working habits, but the leaders have achieved the purpose of monitoring and real-time data acquisition. Therefore, when collecting these needs, you will be influenced by the voices of both payers and real users, which requires product designers to have more rational thinking and processing methods.

5. Product Thinking

C-end - Traffic Thinking: When designing C-end products, the starting point of all our actions is traffic, which directly affects monetization. Whether it is the introduction of external traffic, conversion of each link, retention strategy, or improvement of product experience, process optimization, and resource investment, we are all serving to increase and convert traffic. We often do various activity topics and analyze various types of data to pursue the so-called sentiment and emotional design. The fundamental purpose is to attract traffic and find ways to obtain traffic from the entire network to improve the conversion rate of the product. This is the purpose of all C-end products. Products without traffic are just a vase.

B-end - efficiency thinking: For B-end products, we pay more attention to efficiency. Whether it is for external customers or serving various business roles/departments within the company, B-end products always solve the problem of how to improve the operational efficiency of the enterprise (i.e. work efficiency), and solve the cost-saving part of "increasing revenue and reducing expenditure". Therefore, we will improve the efficiency of each link through process optimization, tool polishing, and strategy adjustment, reduce costs in all aspects, and fundamentally improve the efficiency of the enterprise. This can be clearly reflected when we design the process. The design goal is to allow users to complete the process comfortably on the basis of rationality and efficiency. It does not mean that the company invested money to purchase a data statistics software, but the data statistics are not as accurate and convenient as manual ones.

6. Design principles

C-end: In the process of C-end product design, we must first clarify which target users the core functions are for, that is, what our initial design goal is. We need to maintain the diversity of product scenarios and highlight core functions. Because the homogeneity of C-end products is very serious, we must think carefully about how to make our products stand out from the crowd, how to make the product's brand design radiate to more places, and how to find new highlights in function and experience.

The second thing is to maintain good operation methods, because C-end users are free (low loyalty, can change products at any time), so some operation methods are needed to bind user retention. The essence of C-end products is a core function, so designers need to consider the whole process in the early stage of the product, which function is the most core and the most indispensable, and which function is the icing on the cake to enhance the added value of the product. Therefore, we put aside these basic principles and need to shape user behavior. Shaping user behavior is to "kidnap" users:

1. Grasp the key moment Grasp the key moment of user's attention when using C-end products. When users use products, the distribution of attention is uneven. For example, there are too many similar products. Users download 2 or 3 for trial first. When they enter the product, they don't know what to do. They just browse around and delete the APP. This is a typical case of not grasping the key moment of users and not providing users with useful things. It fails at the product strategy and instinct level: users are not informed of what the product does at the first time? What can they get from it? Where is the highlight content? How do you guide me to use it? Then, as a product interface designer, you need to know at which key nodes the user's attention is concentrated, which nodes are scattered, and how to guide users to pay attention to this point.

Therefore, by studying the key nodes in the user's use process, we can seize the key moments to shape user behavior. Then, these so-called "key" moments are reflected in the attention theory, corresponding to the "center point" of attention, and vice versa as the "dispersion point". When users use a product, their attention always switches back and forth between the center and the edge. For example: let the interaction designer make a reading prompt on the information flow page for the scenario after the user updates the message flow. The purpose is to allow users to find the reading position before the update and refresh here to prevent duplicate information from appearing and affect the user experience.

A. Center point: The position and timing of the prompt message "Last seen here, click to refresh" are important: since they appear before the old message and after the newly refreshed message, the user's reading attention is shifting from the new information flow to the old information flow, and there will be a center point of attention discontinuity in the middle. Therefore, the prompt that appears here is easier to be noticed by the user, and the prompt content can play a greater role, so plan A is the most appropriate.

B. Dispersion point: The message prompt appears at the bottom after the user refreshes the page. Although this method is the least disruptive in the toast hierarchy, because its position at the bottom will appropriately reduce the interference caused by users browsing content, it is obviously inappropriate from the perspective of user behavior path. The user's behavior is to flip through the information flow, and the way it appears is contrary to the behavior of "browsing". On the contrary, it will still hinder the user's browsing. Although it is highly perceived and allows users to discover this thoughtful function at first glance, it appears at the wrong time, which affects the user experience.

2. Increase the fun The so-called fun refers to "the ability to trigger positive emotions in users, such as making people feel happy, interesting, infecting, touching and educating people, which is an important factor that can attract users' attention." There are many ways to increase the fun of products. Take WeChat H5 as an example:

With the breakthrough in H5 page technology and the explosive development of WeChat promotion programs, WeChat H5 promotion has become a battleground for major C-end products. The form of promotion can be expanded in various forms based on the H5 framework, such as: small games, inviting friends to win red envelopes, small programs, etc. The advantage of WeChat H5 promotion is that it integrates the fun of promotion into the product and applies marketing methods to the user's use process. The benefits of doing so are obvious. By opening up the gap in the market through interesting game programs, users have a strong motivation to share based on the fun of the promotion program.

When it comes to sharing motivation, we have to mention the recent post "Everyone who can get into *** is a talent" that has been all over the circle of friends. This long picture is very interesting. Every paragraph of content can resonate with users. No one would have thought that this is an advertising tweet. It was not until the last small paragraph that the brand and product were exposed, but the effect is obvious (more than 100,000 readings in just a few days). Therefore, this interesting operation method can easily drive users to share. Sharing is fission-like dissemination, and the operation purpose of C-end products is to attract traffic and fission.

3. Increase creativity. Honor of Kings is undoubtedly the most popular online mobile game with the most users and the highest profits in recent years. By analyzing such a benchmark product, we can find out what role creativity plays in the success of a product? Why is this game so popular that a group of people sit in a coffee shop and play it for a whole afternoon? I want to use my design perspective to examine Honor of Kings. What kind of experience does it provide for the majority of players?

"Easy to use" is almost the common feeling of King of Glory players, and this intuitive feeling determines the popularity of a mobile game. On the one hand, King of Glory adopts a dual-wheel control method (one control area on the left and right sides), and players control it through virtual buttons on the left and right sides. At the same time, they can control automatic attacks. New players are set to automatic attacks by default, which greatly reduces the user's learning cost from the perspective of playability.

The dual-wheel operation method was not invented by King of Glory, but it created this classic interactive method and set a successful example for later products. The innovation of the operation method also lies in the way of canceling skill casting. Different from PC games, mobile terminals do not have a mouse to control whether skills are released or not. King of Glory adopts the method of canceling skills by sliding to the upper right, which innovatively solves the problem of small screen interaction.

In addition to the above design points, there are many other design methods for C-end products, including push reminders, various red dot prompts, pop-up prompts, embedded ads, sharing incentives, reward incentives, etc. Regardless of the design method used, the core goal is always to focus on the user's attention and shape user behavior by attracting the user's attention.

B-side: Product designers know the needs of users to a certain extent, so B-side products assist user behavior. For example, if we want to make a corporate reimbursement system, these processes and work behaviors already have a set of standard processes. We only need to convert these scenarios into process design. What scenarios will exist in this system? You only need to find the corresponding user roles and talk to dig them out. Moreover, the scenarios are relatively fixed. You don’t need to consider whether the user likes this function, because this is a company system requirement, and you have to use it even if you don’t like it. Therefore, in the early stages of design, what we have to do is to fully explore the corresponding functional requirements and try to make the process perfect. In terms of design, we must have: reasonable division of functions and modules, rigorous business process design, consistent operating experience, and clean and simple interface design.

Reasonable division of functions and modules - that is, when making product information architecture, you need to carefully consider the division of functions and modules, what are the commonly used functional modules for customers, and what is the relationship between modules. Of course, some product versions are personalized according to customer needs. For example, some customers require a set of workflows to be designed for their companies. So how to combine the functional modules of the customer? This is also a common demand for B-side products. For people in different positions, their authority division is also different. For example, what are the differences in the pages displayed when people with different permissions log in? What modules can be viewed, and what is the interface status inside? If a person in a certain position has different authority ranges, how to set his functional visibility? How do people with different permissions work together? When multiple people need to work together, how to transfer business, remind, and display workflows? These are all points that designers need to consider carefully. It is said that the business of B-side products is complex. When broken down, authority design is the most important thing to think about, because it involves different user roles, positions, and scenarios, and cannot be as conventional as C-side.

Rigorous business process design - B-end products do not need to speculate what customers will do when they open the product, or guide them to do it, because it is a work software. When using it, customers must have a clear purpose, and they will open what they need, because they are all the business scopes they are most familiar with. It is impossible to use fragmented time to relax on work software, this scenario is obviously not true. At the same time, designers need to have a certain understanding of the industry and business of the product. If the product is only aimed at a single industry, designers only need to understand the characteristics and needs of the corresponding industry. If it is a platform product, it needs to be oriented to multiple industries, then designers need to understand the characteristics of all target industries, find their similarities and differences, analyze the specific needs of customers for different usage scenarios, and finally produce reasonable and professional process solutions. If you don’t understand the customer’s work business, you can’t have a quality output of process solutions that they are satisfied with. Therefore, when making B-end products, you must not only learn the skills of your job position, but also understand the target customers’ work processes and business knowledge.

Consistent user experience - both B-end and C-end products should follow this point. This is the most basic quality of Internet products, namely: maintain consistency in interaction and vision, so that users can feel familiar and friendly when using it, and can intuitively understand what results the operation will bring. Give feedback in time when users are confused, and provide help when they encounter difficulties. When users are confused, effectively guide users. This is a smart product that can predict what users want and need in advance. At the same time, the reuse area of ​​interface elements of B-end products will be wider and larger than that of C-end, so B-end products should pay more attention to the consistency of interaction. Those who have worked in the background should know that a reminder method and a form control can cover 80% of the pages.

Clean and simple interface design - B-end products are born for work, and "content is king" in the interface. It is not easy to use too strong color contrast, nor too exaggerated design. The overall product tone should be as simple as possible, and visual effects should not be overshadowed. Instead, "redundant design" that interferes with users should be reduced. This does not mean that cool designs are impractical, but that the target users of B-end products are different from C-end users. B-end users mainly use products to complete boring work. Even if the visual effects are attractive to users, they will not bring traffic and stickiness to your products, because the payers are senior executives and the usage time is relatively fixed. So it is better to put the development and design costs on improving product performance and process experience.

Although I am a designer, there is no doubt that when making B-end products, we must maintain the following design principles: function-oriented design principles, and product quality that visuals serve functions. This is why many B-end products like to use blue, because there is little negative information related to blue, and the color is not too strong or stimulating, so most people will not reject it. In addition, the color also means "rationality", "business", and "technology", which is more suitable for the characteristics of B-end products.

3. Focus

C-end focuses on human nature

Product emphasis: rigid demand, pain points, high frequency, experience

In the design of B-end products, we often face rigid needs. Users will tell you very clearly, almost without digging, "What function do I want, how do I complete this task process offline, I will pay if I have this function, and I will not pay if I don't have this function." Of course, what users say is not what they need, and the needs still need to be sorted out and verified. Why do C-end products deliberately emphasize "rigid needs"? Because the needs of C-end products are different from those of B-end products. The number of users of C-end products is large, scattered, and wide, lacking organization, and the needs are ambiguous, so they need to be deliberately dug. It is often seen that some products YY some customer needs (the design that "I" think), but in fact, these needs are not needed by users at all.

The pain point is that in B-side products, users have enough time and opportunities to be persuaded during the decision-making process of choosing products. In addition, price will also be a very important reference factor.

In C-end products, users prefer products with low switching costs (social C-end products such as QQ and WeChat have very high switching costs and are not included in this list) and short decision-making time, so it is very important to grasp the user's pain points in an extreme time. For example, through operational activities and emotional visual design, users can resonate with each other in a short period of time and form hot-spot drainage. If the user's pain points are not grasped, the product is likely not to be downloaded. Even if it is downloaded, the frequency of use will be very low. It will gradually hide in a corner of the phone for several months without being updated, and gradually move from hiding to deletion. Such products will lose their competitiveness. Therefore, many C-end products often push some operational messages, and the copywriting is particularly attractive. The purpose is to get users to return and tell you that it still misses you.

High frequency In B-side products, the frequency of user usage is determined by the business and workload, so there are not many opportunities to increase the frequency of user usage of B-side products. It is impossible to push a message during holidays saying "Young man, come back to work soon, now is the time for a salary increase and promotion." Doing so is meaningless and violates its own commercial value.

In C-end products, user stickiness, payment rate, conversion rate, activity, etc. are often closely related to the frequency of user use. Many C-end products are free to use, and are charged through value-added services, such as recharging VIP to enjoy more privileges. Only by letting users use it for free can the frequency of use be cultivated, which is the basis for charging value-added services. Therefore, high frequency and traffic have become the key points for realizing value-added charging.

Experience: Since users lack organizational pressure and the cost of changing products is so low that there is no cost, deleting you only requires a few interactive gestures. Therefore, C-end products must attach great importance to user experience, and do everything possible to retain and lock users, and let users regard the product as an inseparable part of their lives (do you dare to delete WeChat? The kind that you will never download again).

User experience is also very important for B-side products, but customers usually pay more attention to functions, processes and efficiency, while user experience is more reflected in product performance. Imagine that you use a software to work, and because the product performance response is very slow and the data is inaccurate, you will definitely be crazy. It is very likely that your work plan for the day will be delayed by this "damn" product. Therefore, in terms of user experience, performance is more important than interface.

Having written this, Zixuan pondered for a while, please let me pay tribute to those interface optimizations that are scheduled to be scheduled for next year!

B-side focuses on organization and business

Core product demands: function, process, efficiency

Unlike C-end products, which require in-depth exploration of user needs, the needs of B-end products are often very clear. In terms of the coverage of functional scenarios, they are exactly the opposite of C-end products. They have many functions and are large and comprehensive, which represents the integrity of a B-end product. However, the so-called "many functions" here do not refer to some miscellaneous icing on the cake functions, but to the main functions that cover more business scenarios, so that they can be sold for money, can be selectively used by customers, and have more commercial competition opportunities.

As for the high learning cost caused by too many functions, it is not a big problem in the B-side field, because customers in the B-side field often need professional learning, and customers usually do not regard it as a burden. On the contrary, they realize the increase in their own value by mastering these skills. Because B-side products are actively required by the company for employees to use, otherwise why would they spend money to buy them? Secondly, as developers of B-side products, many companies will also provide corresponding business training and after-sales services.

Of course, SAAS products (one of the B-side products) require comprehensive functions and be easy to use due to their implementation-free nature. Therefore, SAAS products are the most difficult to design among B-side products, and require a balance between business and experience.

Since B-end products need to meet the needs of business informatization, process design is inevitable. The B-end system must be able to fit the business process of enterprise users to operate normally, and the processes of different enterprises are different, so the process design of B-end products is a very big challenge.

Because many times, B-end products transfer offline processes to online to realize paperless office and agile office, so there is a complete set of offline processes. It only needs to be simplified and integrated into the existing processes. Even when some offline paper documents are turned online into electronic files, customers are required to be close to the original documents. Only in this way can they follow the previous usage scenarios and reduce learning costs. So why did you say that you need to understand business when designing B-end products? It is because the functional processes in the product are transferred offline to online. Understanding offline business can help you design online processes more rigorously.

Efficiency The business of B-end products often involves massive data, so in B-end products, efficiency is far more important than user experience. Customers do not play with your products during leisure time, but complete work tasks through your products. For example, if you want to upload 1,000 pieces of data, then efficient functional design and performance guarantee such as batch upload are much more important than optimizing the user experience of the upload interface.

To this day, we can still see that some supermarkets are still using cash register systems developed on some DOS platforms. Although these systems are very old and have poor user experience. However, due to their long use and high efficiency, they still maintain strong vitality.

4. Comparison of product characteristics

1. Customer vs. User

Customer: People or organizations that use B-end products. To put it bluntly, they are partners who give money. They are usually a company that purchases or rents products developed by your company in the name of a company or department.

User: People who use C-end products. Individual users are everyone who is not restricted by work scenarios. They can register and log in by picking up a product and get started playing directly.

Customers are rational, users are emotional. Customers care about ROI (input-output ratio), and users care about the process (satisfied with a certain weakness of human nature) first. Double Eleven is now basically a full-name carnival, and many people have to buy food even if they eat dirt. Why? Because it is cheap, many people take advantage of the atmosphere to chop and chop all kinds of chop. But we rarely hear that there are B-end products that are promoting. First, because the company's procurement is usually planned and may also require various financial approvals. It is unlikely that the company needs to purchase just when you are promoting. Second, the company's procurement must consider the input-output ratio, and will not decide to buy your products just because you give a discount. This is related to the interests of the company and your own interests. Do you think you should be rigorous?

But individual users are different. After saving goods for a long time in the shopping cart, they always feel expensive and reluctant to buy them. However, when they suddenly get 50% off on Double Eleven, they now have an impulse excuse. After all, if you miss it, you will wait for another year.

Customers are divided into levels, while users are basically the same. Companies are divided into sizes. Micro-enterprises with 10 people are different from small businesses with 100 people. Medium-sized enterprises with 1000 people are also different from large businesses with 10,000 people. To be more precise, the needs of enterprises of different sizes of similar products are different. Perhaps because the management methods of enterprises are different, some companies will put forward some personalized needs.

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What is mentioned above is that there are different sizes of customers for B-end products. Let’s take a look at how the users for C-end products are basically the same.

Let’s take WeChat as an example. From the perspective of identity, status and income, the users of WeChat also vary greatly, but from the perspective of the human weaknesses that WeChat meets (laziness, peeping, lust, presence, vanity, greed, impulse, follower, sharing, jealousy...), there is no difference between users and users. A successful person and an unemployed vagrant have weaknesses such as laziness and vanity. However, the severity may vary. They all have various "showing" needs through the circle of friends, but the content of showing off may be different. Therefore, as a C-end product, it can theoretically meet the needs of all users. Of course, a very small number of people do not read or post on the circle of friends. This small probability group can be included. Therefore, the needs of users who stay in the C-end product are all solved by the product because these users have the same needs, although their identities are different.

2. Tools vs. "Toys"

The goal of the tool is cost-effective, and the goal of the toy is casual cost-effective. It includes two indicators, performance (efficiency) and price. It is not difficult to understand that competition among enterprises is essentially a competition for production efficiency. Therefore, the tools (B-end products) purchased by enterprises must be to improve production efficiency. For example, various management systems are to improve customer management efficiency, and database systems are to improve recording and computing efficiency. On this basis, the price is horizontally compared. Of course, the most cost-effective one is the most suitable. To attract companies to buy products, B-end products have to consider product efficiency and price.

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The life cycle of a tool is longer than that of a "toy", compared with the C-end products, the life cycle of a B-end product is longer. First, because B-end products are more complex as business tools, and developing such products requires a lot of industry experience and technical accumulation. Therefore, once a B-end product wins market recognition, it can establish experience and technical barriers. Second, B-end products basically cost money to buy. Once the company purchases the product, employees are familiar with how to use it, and the cost of replacing a new product is relatively high, so the willingness to replace it will be relatively low.

C-end products exist for fun. When newly launched products are more fun, the life cycle and status of old products may face challenges. For example, after QQ and WeChat are launched, SMS will be replaced. Both communication products are also very fun. Some people may say that because SMS charges, this is not the most important reason. Even if SMS is completely free now, not many people probably use it, because WeChat can not only send messages, but also send various expressions, pictures, voice, videos, payments, etc. Naturally, the former is replaced by the latter. Similarly, when WeChat is tired of playing and people find that the next product is more fun, WeChat will also be challenged. You can compare the quality of original articles from Moments and subscription accounts three years ago and now. By the way, there is also "flash-of-the-pan Bullet SMS". All products are cyclical, but C-end products have a shorter life cycle than B-end products.

It is well known that the tools are complex and difficult to use. Toys are simple and easy to use. B-end products are complex and difficult to use. This is well known. The elderly can use C-end products very much. Why? On the one hand, B-end products are tools, used for production, not our daily life. Using tools is often not a human instinct, but a skill learned to achieve a certain goal. Therefore, it is generally necessary to be trained and learned before use. Therefore, many B-end products include pre-sales/after-sales solutions, user manuals, business training, etc. On the other hand, this is related to the goals of B-end products (efficiency, accuracy, and safety). When development resources are used to create product performance, development resources used in user experience will inevitably be insufficient. The so-called "function first" is this truth. The goal of C-end products is ease of use and easy to communicate. Only when the user experience is better than competitors can they win users and traffic. If C-end products need to be played with the product manual, then this product will definitely be eliminated.

3. "Selling Software" VS "Showing Software"

The reason why B-end products are "selling software" is that the business model of B-end products is "selling software" is because B-end products are actually paid in one hand, which means that B-end products need to be directly sold. That is, B-end products need to be sold directly from the first day of birth. Some development teams even use prototype demos to discuss customers, and in the end they have completed the transaction.

Generally speaking, if a B-end product can have hundreds of thousands of customers, it is already a product with a particularly large number of users, unlike a C-end product that can be tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or even tens of billions of users. Therefore, the method of monetizing traffic cannot work. It can be imagined that if a corporate tool inserts various miscellaneous advertisements, it will be criticized by many corporate users. The key is that these advertisements cannot be directly monetized, and the most basic reputation here will be gone. On the other hand, for B-end products with high cost performance, companies are willing to pay for them independently. Naturally, a vertical monetization business model has been formed.

The business model of C-end products "Show Software" is usually indirectly monetized. By developing the products needed by users, making the product experience well, and the content form is targeted, thereby attracting more users to use. The product itself is free, such as Baidu, Alipay, WeChat and other products. On the premise that the number of users is large enough, monetizing through advertising, promotion and other methods is essentially a business model of indirect monetization of traffic. The reason why C-end products do this is because the user group is large enough. When the number of users is large enough, the revenue generated by advertising is considerable. At the same time, it can also achieve traffic in similar products, and guide users to various "half-parent" applications to create secondary traffic. For example, "Mobile Baidu" must open "National Short Video" and "Good Video" to watch short videos on "Mobile Baidu"

5. What does it feel like to switch from C to B?

Many designers feel lacking passion and diversity after designing B-end products for a period of time, because they have very good opportunities to create cool visual effects and fashionable micro-interactions. Over time, you will find that it is both boring and monotonous. When will you stand out when facing some forms and visual data all day long? Over time, you will doubt your life.

Because of this, designers cannot feel the sense of accomplishment brought by design. If they do not re-recognize themselves, adjust their mentality, and set up work plans, it is easy to stand still. This is not to say that designers are not conducive to making B-end products, but to make choices based on their career plans.

After I switched from the C-end to the B-end, I found that the B-end products attracted me the following points:

1. More challenging. B-end products have relatively more complex scenarios, functions, business processes, and information architecture than C-end, and face more abnormal situations. Some industries with strong professionalism even require certain background thresholds. For example, some Internet finance companies will help PMs and designers obtain relevant qualification certificates in the financial industry. It is precisely because of the greater difficulty that designing B-end products is more challenging.

C-end products are currently basically mature in various industries, and product homogeneity is quite serious. Most of the competitors are similar. Many times the work of designers is to "learn and learn" the design of mature competitors. The B-end market is still in a development state. Now is the time for market dividends. Although there are few competitors, business competition is cruel. Even if you download competitors, you still can't enter without an experience account. So in a sense, when designing B-end products, you often need to study user needs, explore design methods, and make plans to verify it. For UI and interaction designers, complex business scenarios and product logic can allow you to develop rigorous design habits (thinking). In the future, UI conversion or product managers are a very solid foundation.

2. It is also said that the value of the designer is better reflected . There are many mature products on the C-end, and the products have also been tested by the market. Excellent products are from a higher perspective. Eliminate the designer's own feelings. It is difficult to make breakthrough innovations for a period of time. They can only be micro-innovated in details and experience. It is mainly based on the product manager's discovery of functional pain points or "conspiracy" means of operation. In this case, the value of the designer is limited and often has a low status. In general Internet companies, many designers are executors and it is difficult to participate in product-level work. In the eyes of development, they think that designers are drawing drawings.

3. Better to deepen the industry. B-end designers have a much deeper understanding of the industry and business . They do more than just the framework and performance layer. For each function design, you must understand the location of the function in the entire industrial chain, the purpose of the function, what impact it has on other business links, etc. Only by understanding the industry more deeply can you have more opportunities to enjoy the dividends brought by the industry.

The above is my personal opinion. Of course, how designers choose C-end and B-end is very closely related to their interests and career direction. A visual designer will definitely have some limitations when making B-end products. After you have experienced the B-end product design, you will find that the logic of the C-end is really simple. So no matter how you choose, please consider your own personal factors first. You can't just follow the trend because the B-end is popular now. Whether you like it or not, whether you can survive in the B-end field depends on yourself.