What is a self-service product?
Written on the 7th month of contacting merchant help products 2021.01
01 —Introduction: How to design a self-service product?
The merchant self-service hall is a self-service platform for Taobao and Tmall merchants to seek help from the official platform when they encounter problems. This article was written half a year after I came into contact with the merchant platform service business. It will be combined with the actual business of merchant self-service to talk about my feelings about the b-side self-service design.
My initial thought was - "What is the difference between this and the traditional help center Q&A manual, which provides a knowledge base; or is it an old yellow page similar to the navigation center?"
In fact, how do the helpcenter/supportcenter of many products work? It can be roughly divided into two categories: 1. FAQ for knowledge questions and answers; 2. Navigation for operation portals.
The main line of design still lies in the user rather than the ability
When I received the design proposition for self-service, it was based on the product business goals of "What capabilities does our platform have?" There is nothing wrong with this in itself. This is indeed a self-service capability asset. However, if product capabilities are regarded as the main focus of experience design, it is easy to be limited to the dilemma of the above solutions. The design ideas derived are nothing more than the above two solutions - the layout and layout of functional modules. Sort.
In the actual design and thinking process, I gradually felt that the focus of designing self-service is not so much to make a detailed instruction manual, but rather to position it more like a productized customer service. In the past, one-on-one services were provided manually, but now they are provided in a productized manner. So we are still serving users, so the main line of design is always about users and people. When receiving a demand, regardless of what capabilities we can provide, the first thing we should think about is "the real scenario of the users: where they come from, what problems they encountered when they came here, and what services they hope to receive"; and then for these The ability to appeal is matched.
Putting aside the shackles, the essence of self-service is: tasks that users traditionally required assistance from others can now be completed independently. With a broader understanding of the experience requirements of self-service, the design focus can be brought back to the user - back to human behavior itself to think about the focus of the design challenge.
02 —Framework: Service Framework Design
2.1 Layout differences
2.1.1 How to balance the screen effect and content capacity on the PC side?
Strategy: Define the page frame layout, cluster and divide different regional functions; let the content be spread out and spread out.
2.1.2 How can mobile get information quickly and quickly?
Strategy: Because it is limited, focus on important information at different levels to reduce the cost of concentration. The main forward link is to jump out of the escape hatch.
2.1.3 How does the pendant end appear?
Strategy: The interaction form and container size are user-controllable; the content provides insight into user behavior data; the overall page-level lightweight assistance is provided.
03 —Content: Service content design
Self-service is like walking on your own without a guide. To get a map, the user must be able to walk to the end while holding the map.
3.1 State awareness is the first step
“What’s the bottom line: Am I helping myself and talking to a robot, or am I being served by a real person????!!!”
Strategy: Make self-service more self-service and artificial intelligence more real-person
3.2 Four realms of good guidance language
Based on this principle, our search path has been optimized as follows: when the user does not have an answer, in addition to telling the user that he has no answer, we will also give the user guidance on guessing and correcting errors. According to business rules or entering manual, we also It can provide the configuration of other action points, and establish a mechanism for knowledge feedback production, which can make up for the knowledge in a timely manner.