DingTalk has launched two new functions, "Text Expressions" and "Shortcut Command". A brief understanding will reveal that these two new functions continue the pace of recent years, and are still focusing on scene social experiences, and are still small innovations in team communication scenarios. In everyone's impression, B-end products are aimed at enterprises or organizations, and do not meet the personal needs of users. You may also have this question - why does DingTalk continue to work in the field of IM (instant messaging) for many years? Today, we will use these two new functions as entry points to analyze and try to disassemble DingTalk's product design ideas in recent years to see if we can explore the design direction and focus of this type of B-end products.
"Text Expressions" is not the demand of the manager, and the "shortcut command" is also
Usually, text and expressions are always discussed separately by us, because there are great differences in the uses of the two.
Most of the time, text is used to carry information and content. I believe everyone has a deep understanding. In the work scenario, when we convey some information through text, although the expression is more accurate, because simple text is separated from the scene, the emotions that can be conveyed are quite limited, and the communication will appear too serious, which can easily cause greater psychological pressure on both sides.
More people will add expressions to messages in order to avoid these disadvantages, or directly use expressions to communicate and communicate internally and externally. This method is convenient and easy, and it is easy to generate emotional identification. If you look through the chat records, you will find that in more personal communication scenarios, expressions account for a very large proportion of communication. However, in work scenarios, using expressions to communicate without talking about whether it is not serious enough or too casual, the core point of efficiency alone is unqualified.
When the transmission of information and content needs to meet the emotional needs of users at the same time, how can IM products solve this problem through product innovation? DingTalk has made a new attempt - text expression.
"Text Expression" as the name implies is a combination of text and expression. Its form is a four-character phrase or an English abbreviation with a colored square as the background. Its content can mainly include high-frequency workplace vocabulary such as "Thank you for your hard work" and "completed", as well as some more interactive phrases such as "I deserve to be you", "YYDS", and "I am shocked".
After a few simple uses, you will find that it has many similarities with the "barrage" that young people prefer now, and you can even regard it as a variant of "barrage". "Barcé" can produce chemical reactions through the combination of short text and video content, expressing richer emotions, and "text expressions" can also attach a layer of temperature to lightweight text expression through its own unique form. When facing notifications, you can no longer reply to the dry "received"; when the team achieves results, you can also express enough emotions through simple operations, and the messages sent casually can appear more sincere. The custom support for system-level emojis of
"text emojis" is considered to have a certain degree of freedom. After adding some "internal memes" that companies and organizations have tacit understanding, it will be more interesting to use. The limit of up to 4 characters maintains the bottom line of sufficient restraint for B-end products. At present, even if the discussions in the group are fierce, the interference to others is within an acceptable range.
Another main function of DingTalk's update, "shortcut command", is designed to solve problems such as failure to find functions, long operation links, and many application jumps. This function applies the "/" command to IM, main search, document and other scenarios that users use frequently. In these interfaces, we can all call the application menu by entering "/", combine keyword search to quickly find the functions and content we want, and solve more problems in the same interface.
The way of connecting multiple business modules in one instruction is not just to improve operational efficiency. After opening an app, being confused by the cumbersome and numerous entrances should be something that many people have experienced.Not only DingTalk, but more products have rich business scenarios, various entrances will accumulate in the product, adding more burden to users. I personally believe that the purpose of launching the "Shortcut Command" is more to balance the complexity brought by business growth and avoid unnecessary cognitive costs.
"Text Expressions" and "Shortcut Commands" can be regarded as "small updates of existing functions to meet the needs of emotional expression" and "self-rescue means for complex and old applications". They are relatively novel and practical from the perspective of product function design, but they obviously consider the value of individual users more than the demands of simple enterprise number one position and managers. Compared with WeChat, DingTalk, as a B-end product, obviously needs to think about more dimensions.
. Why can WeChat not be troubled by DingTalk?
In the eyes of most people, B-end products usually choose to "live flat" after grasping the core needs of large customers. They do not need to be iterated frequently like C-end products. When some good ideas emerge in the fierce competition of C-end products, they can pursue "take-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it-it- But if you follow the IM field in recent years, you will find that this is not the case at all. DingTalk's overall operation frequency is much higher than that of WeChat, which we are familiar with. Why is this? This still depends on the underlying logic and strategic positioning of B-end products and C-end products. After the
software has developed to a certain stage, it will no longer perform frequent or large-scale functional updates. We can see this more clearly from WeChat in recent years. WeChat, which emphasizes liquidity and immediacy, will choose the latter in efficiency and interactivity in more scenarios. Therefore, we often encounter a strange scene where notifications are "received" when they are flooding the screen. We would rather let everyone climb the stairs than fold the information sent by any participant. In addition to the video account function that has been forced to be promoted, some of WeChat's recent functions that allow users to generate memory points "Expression explosion", "Snap a shot", etc. These features focus on the fun of social and interactiveness, and in some cases it can bother the user, which is a bit interesting and annoying, but it is absolutely unpractical.
As a seven-year-old product, DingTalk has naturally reached the stage of "sanding details". However, as a B-end product, it needs to pay more attention to the efficiency of message delivery. So in the same scenario where you receive notifications, you will see that it aggregates repeated messages together, leaving more space for more important backbone information, so that the receiver of the message can feel greater efficiency improvement.
However, although DingTalk is a B-end product, aimed at enterprises or organizations, the final user is still an individual. Individuals belong to the organization, and the organization has its own culture and consensus. When we hand over the heavy responsibility of communication to DingTalk, it has to consider the emotional needs of individual users beyond efficiency. The business scenarios it faces are more complex, and in product design, it is necessary to better understand user scenarios and business processes and solve user problems through innovation.
Do you still remember the incident of "students collectively taking one-star" in the field of education? Why is an application that is recognized as easy to use so much is overwhelmed by negative reviews? As time goes by, when we no longer use this incident as a "performance art" to make fun of it, we will find that this can actually be regarded as an outbreak of "dissatisfaction". Compared with the workplace who dares to be angry but dares not speak out, the children are the first to attack, but also sound the alarm for application manufacturers.
When we take our perspective on every grassroots user, every enterprise and organization, things become easy to understand. From top-down management functions like "check-in" and "read" to clearly hierarchical project management and approval reports, the initiative is less and more grassroots users are forced to feel more or less pressure and discomfort.This kind of "anxiety" was originally a negative emotion that every to B product would give grassroots users to a greater or lesser extent. A mature and easy-to-use to B product may only need to consider the needs of the boss and middle-level managers at the No. 1 position, but when DingTalk gradually becomes a national-level application with over 100 million users, this negative emotion is exponentially amplified, focusing on the feelings of a large number of grassroots users and considering the demands of employees, it becomes imperative. Finally, the product manager of to B product not only understands business, technology, and products, but also has higher insight and empathy.
Whether it is B-side applications or C-side applications, whether it is ease of use or flattening, they are actually making final efforts to improve "use efficiency". For enterprises, improving communication efficiency is to reduce costs. DingTalk currently accounts for more than 30% of the 1995 users, while the proportion of the 1990 users is only a large one. As a national application that is mainstream with young people and already has 500 million users, we will find that DingTalk, as a B-end product, is gradually paying attention to the interaction between members during the communication process, and gradually adding materials to communication and improving efficiency under the premise of minimizing noise.
was written at the end
DingTalk President Ye Jun (nickname: non-quan) once expressed some expressions about the view of to B products, "toB products should have the same experience as To C products, allowing users to complete the use of functions in the shortest path, and the use will not be distracted, the process will not jump away, and any interface noise will be minimized." Efficiency and emotion are both challenging for B-end products that are not very good in general experience. The seven-year-old DingTalk is dealing with challenges in its own way.
