Traditional mechanical and electrical product architecture design case

What is a product architecture diagram?

Product architecture diagram is a conceptual diagram used by product managers to express their product design mechanism;

It abstracts the specific visual product functions into an information-based, modular and clear-cut architecture, and conveys the business process, business model and design idea of the product through the interaction of different levels, the combination of functional modules and the flow of data and information.

Because product architecture diagram is usually used in complex product projects, there are few books and materials about product architecture diagram at present (especially at the entry level), but it is one of the essential documents when designing complex products.

The exploration process without data is long and directionless. After the final decision, I spent four weeks writing this summary, hoping to provide you with a concise reference when drawing the product frame diagram.

Why draw?

Sort out your own judgment on the direction of products;

The process of thinking about how to design this picture will also help you sort out "where should your product go after half a year, how should the demand land in stages, and the degree of dependence on other products &; What is the competitive relationship and where is the future scalability? "

For technology &; The output of the operation forms support:

When designing this diagram, according to the structure and path of the product architecture diagram, the road map of the project can be clearly decomposed, and at the same time, the project members can also generate plans that strongly depend on the product direction, such as operation plan and technical system architecture scheme.

Let others intuitively understand your product architecture:

Be able to put forward your own ideas clearly and simply, define your product boundaries and point out the development direction. Often used in project planning or project summary demonstration, to help people who don't know your product quickly establish an understanding of your product structure, function and complexity.

When do you need to draw?

It is recommended to write before the start of complex projects:

When you want to start designing a systematic and complete requirement, if you skip the steps of drawing product architecture diagram and start drawing prototype, writing PRD and kicking off, it will be easy to "change and change" and "overturn the requirement after making a version".

But "the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, followed by now":

If your project is halfway through, but you have never made this diagram yourself, then from now on, try to make a product architecture diagram for your product according to the following steps.

How to draw

I have shared the most complete dry goods and data design AR products before. Do you have to read the summary? You may already know something about the background of AR. In order to share the continuity, let's make a bold assumption *:

Suppose you are the product manager of WeChat code scanning function, and one day the boss calls you to the office, pats you on the shoulder after some encouragement and says to you:

"Did you see the Apple conference? Apple attaches so much importance to the support of AR capabilities, and we should also quickly do the AR function on WeChat. This is a project that Allen (Zhang Xiaolong) attaches great importance to. Go back and design well, and come and discuss the plan with me tomorrow. Remember, it must be a hit and the whole people will participate! "

Ah, Zhang Xiaolong-level projects! The plan will be made tomorrow. What should we do?

Preparation before painting

List problem domains

At the beginning of demand, the product manager can only get a vague description of demand, which may come from the boss, the operator or the user.

It is not appropriate to take this sentence directly as the core product function. It is reasonable to list all the problem areas of this product first.

"Problem domain" refers to the spatial collection of all problems that can be solved by one's own products. Starting from the core requirements, putting the problems that need to be solved at present and those that may be solved in the future into the scope of product framework can help your product architecture diagram have higher expansibility and iterative optimization space in the future.

Taking the demand of WeChat AR as an example, the problem domain is such a collection:

Detailed operation steps:

1. Find the words and expressions related to the product form and product objectives in the received requirements, and list the problems such as "What will the process of XX be like" and "How to achieve XX". Until these problems are solved, the direction and business objectives of the core requirements can be achieved.

2. In the process of solving these problems one by one, find out whether there are other problems that need to be solved first or other business-related problems that can be solved/improved.

3. List all the questions according to the hierarchy and attach your own preliminary answers, thus forming a preliminary "problem domain" that your own products can solve.

Determine the product direction

After listing the problem areas, you should be able to get a vague product direction and functional scope. Summarize the answers to these questions into a clear product requirement.

Taking the demand of WeChat AR as an example, according to the problem domain, we find that the demand is not just as simple as the code scanning component to increase the recognition ability of AR. The role of advertisers needs to be introduced in the whole demand, and it needs to cooperate with teams such as Guangdiantong and Tencent Open Platform. The final product description is as follows:

Detailed operation steps:

Links in the problem domain are very scattered. This step needs to go back to the basics and supplement, expand and translate the vague requirements into a product requirement that can form a closed loop in business model and user experience.

1. Determination of core requirements: Which users and whose needs are the core of my product?

2. Product goal: If I use a numerical indicator to measure my product, what should it be?

3. User scenario: What are the basic product forms of core requirements and the paths used by users?

Clear business process

This step needs to draw a simple business process according to the core product requirements and the answers to the problem domain. Business process is a common chart in product design, and the drawing method is not repeated here.

Take the demand of WeChat AR as an example, from the preparation of AR interaction by advertisers to the participation of users with cameras at the front desk, the whole business process is as follows:

Set about painting

Establish a basic framework

The basic product framework is born out of the business process, but compared with the business process, it pays more attention to the enumeration of product functions and the demarcation between functional modules.

Detailed operation steps:

1. List the required pages according to the business process, product mechanism, basic product form and user usage path &; Functional modules and other front-end logic.

2.？ Put together all the mechanisms/functions with similar functions or scope in the newly obtained flowchart to form a simple matrix diagram in a modular form.

3. Put the modules that are obviously in the same product range and the same group of product functions at the same level, and get a basic product framework.

Clear hierarchy of architecture

A contextual product architecture diagram can be divided into at least three layers: user perception layer (in which scenario, how to reach users), functional module layer (which functional modules realize the core functions of products and which external platform functions have information interaction), and data layer (where product data comes from and where product data is deposited).

After the simple stratification in the previous step, we have a preliminary framework, but it is inevitable that there will be problems of unclear stratification. At this time, it is necessary to deal with the hierarchy of the architecture diagram according to two dimensions: the boundaries of different information levels and the boundaries of modules within the same level.

1.？ Handle the boundaries of different information levels:

The hierarchical structure of the architecture diagram actually expresses the flowing relationship between information, and there must be a logical relationship between different information levels.

Among them, the user perception layer and the data layer can usually be simplified into one layer (the function expression of the client is often simple in logic, and the data source is not the core function of its own product), while the function module layer needs to change the main modules in the function module layer to a new level according to the logic of its own product.

2.？ Handle the boundaries of submodules in the same level:

Although all levels are related, the sub-modules within the same level must be independent and clearly defined (often corresponding to different development teams and system applications). The function of solving different problems is divided into two sub-modules, so that a problem can only be solved at the same level, avoiding the situation of pulling one hair and moving the whole body.

3. Clear the boundaries between products:

Product boundary is very important for developing and designing system architecture and cooperation mode between enterprises. Use different colors to identify the product boundaries of each part in the product framework. The parts that usually belong to your own team are indicated by bright colors.

Join the information flow mechanism

In addition to expressing the core functions of the product, the product architecture diagram should also reflect the path of information flow: the data interaction at the current level forms the product function, and the product function generates new data, thus promoting the function operation at the next level.

If the current product has only one main user role, just use arrows to indicate the information flow mode between modules. If the current product involves multiple main roles, it is necessary to concretize the information interaction between them and each module with lines of different colors.

Final inspection

A good product architecture diagram should have the following characteristics.

Clear functional boundaries of modules

Functions are abstract, standardized and independent.

The functional boundaries of upstream and downstream products are clear, and the hierarchical structure is clear and reasonable.

Have the ability of iterative optimization

Remember to constantly update the product architecture diagram according to the development of your product. The process of each modification is very helpful to improve the product architecture ability.

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Original address:/pmcaff2008/article/details/78111282.