作为一名刚毕业的设计师，我常常会想，学校中的项目与真实工作中的项目有什么区别。这也是，以前作为一名学生，我所好奇的和想要知道的。
尽管，我的专业与现在职位对口，我们都知道学术界与真实世界的事情并不一样。
因此，了解真实世界与象牙塔的不同，是重要的。
From student to professional
从设计专业学生到职业设计师
Real world UX is never like your school project
真实世界中的 UX， 从来不像你在学校的项目
As a new grad designer, I frequently get questions on how different it is between my school and real world projects.It is also what I was curious to know as a student before. Even though my major was dedicated to my current position, we all know that things can never be similar from the academia to the real world. Hence, it is important to understand how real world is different from the ivory tower.
作为一名刚毕业的设计师，我常常会想，学校中的项目与真实工作中的项目有什么区别。这也是，以前作为一名学生，我所好奇的和想要知道的。尽管，我的专业与现在职位对口，我们都知道学术界与真实世界的事情并不一样。因此，了解真实世界与象牙塔的不同，是重要的。
A little bit of my background: I graduated from M.S.HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) program at Geoogia Tech, where most graduates become UX designers. A month after graduation, I join LinkedIn as an UX designer. After working as an UX designer for more thatn haly a year, while still having a fresh memory of my scoohl life, I would love to share some thoughts on difference between school work and real work experience. I hope this article would be valuable to HCI program (or similar programs) students who are also interested in UX designer position.
简单背景介绍：我硕士毕业于乔治亚理工学院，专业是人机交互。这里，大部分的毕业生，最后都成为 UX 设计师。毕业一个月后，我入职领英，成为一名 UX 设计师。 作为 UX 设计师，工作大半年后，同时还有着学校生活的清晰记忆。我想要分享一些想法，关于学校经历和真实世界经历的差异。希望这篇文章， 对 UX 设计职业感兴趣的、人机交互专业或相关专业的学生有价值。
First of all, before talking about the differences, I want to address that what has been taught in school will definitely be applied to industry. What you've learned is the foundation of your future career. It might be hard for you to adapt to the real world without this solid foundation. However, in order to better prepare yourself to the real battlefield, it is also good to keep in mind on the following differeneces.
首先，在讨论那些差异之前，我想要强调一点，学校所教的都会被应用到工业中。你所学的，将会成为你未来生涯的基石。如果没有这坚实的基石，也许你会难以适应真实世界。同时，为了更好使自己做好准备上真正战场，在脑子中记住以下这些差异也会对你有帮助。
- Perfect UX process doesn't exist in the real world
- 真实世界中，不存在完美的 UX 流程
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We've all learned a standard UX process in school, and perfectly followed this process in most of our school projects: We research the problem, brainstorm solutions, prototype our best solution, and then conduct user testing. Ideally, there would be several rounds of iteration after the testing. Overall, the process was quite linear.
所有人都会在学校中学习到标准的 UX 流程，并且在大部分的学校实践项目中，执行该流程：我们进行问题调研，头脑风暴获得解决方案，做解决方案原型设计，执行实施用户测试。理想情况下，用户测试后，将会有数个的迭代过程。整体来说，这个过程是相当的线性化。
Unfortunately, things can never be so perfect in the real world. There might be situations that research cannot be done at the very beginning of the project because of participants recruiting issues, or the best idea is not able to be fully implemented before launching date due to shortage of resoureces, etc. Projects with different constraints will have and need different processes. However, these different processes evolve naturally from the standard flow we've learned and practiced in school. The goal is to try our best to follow the principle of UX process, but also be flexible and contextual based on specific projects.
很不幸的是，真实世界中，事情并不是那么完美的。可能会出现的情况会有，因项目人员的招聘问题，不能到位，而导致项目开始的调研不能完成，或者资源欠缺导致好的点子，不能在发布日期中实现等等。不同实际情况的项目，有着不同的流程，也需要有不同的流程。可是，这些不同的流程都是，由我们在学校学到的，与练习的标准流程，发展改变而形成的。
- Design for scalability is key
- 可扩展性设计是关键
It is easy for new grad designers to forget scalability at work. In school, we simple need to find the best solution for the current problem, not so much for how the product will grow in the future. Hence, we wouldn't puch much efforts on the lifecycle of a product, figuring out how it evolves as time passes by.
刚毕业的设计师，工作时容易忘记可扩展性。在学校，我们只需简单地为眼前的问题，找到最好的解决方案就行了，并不会去思考太多，如关于未来产品将会如何成长。因此，我们不会在产品的生命周期上花费很多的精力，去想清楚一个产品，随着时间的变化会怎样改变。
Yet, in the real world, companies always try to make their products as scalable as possible to adapt to different future scenarios. Scenarios can be the growing quantity of users, the increasing number of features, internationalization of the product, and customizations the product should accommodate for different demography. Companies care about scalability because they want to minimize cost. Therefore, a product that could accommodate multiple scenarios would be most desirable.
然而，真实的世界里，公司总是使他们的产品，尽可能是可扩展的，以使产品可以适用于未来的不同情况。这些情况，包括用户的增长数量，产品新特性，产品国际化和适应不同用户数量的客户化定制服务。公司，如此关心可扩展性，目的是成本最小化。所以，如果一个产品可以做到适用于多样的情景，这才是很多公司都想要的产品。
- Business vs. user-centered design principle
- 业务设计原则对比，以用户为中心设计原则
In school projects, we focus 100% on user-centered design principles. However, for companies, it is the business that makes it alive. Ideally, there is no conflict between these two. The better the use experience, the more revenue company bings in eventually. Nevertheless, profits do not always align with user-centered design principles.
学校项目中，我们百分之一百聚焦在以用户为中心设计原则。可是，业务才是公司是否可生存的关键。理想情况下，两者之间并没有冲突。更好的用户体验，最终会为了公司带来更多的利润。虽然如此，利润与以用户为中心设计原则并不是正相关的。
For example, most companies display ads on their products to earn money, which negatively affects user experience. Ads can be distractive when you are browsing content within a product. Some companies even make ads disguised as other kinds of content or navigation in order to get users click on them. There are other dark patterns being used to make money, such as starting chargine credit card after free trial without any warning, hidding some unexpected charges until the last step during checkout, etc.
例如，绝大部分公司，通过在产品上方广告来获得收入，这绝对是影响用户体验的。用户在产品中浏览内容时，而广告将会扰乱用户的产品使用。有些公司，甚至将广告伪装成其他的内容或导航，目的就是让用户产生点击。其中，还存在使用其他的、隐蔽的方式来获得收益，如：(1)在免费体验结束后，没有提醒用户，就开始从信用扣费；(2)隐藏额外的付款条款，直到扣费流程的最后一步等等。
None of them obey the principles of user-centered design. Definitely companies who go too extreme in those 'tricks' will eventually lose users, but it is also obvious that they cannot survive without trying hard to get profits. When there is a conflict between these two, it is UX designers' responsibility to find a balance that allows us to provide the best user experience while still making products profitable.
以上的都违背了，以用户为中心的设计原则。那些丝毫不考虑用户，而毫无忌惮使用这些“技巧”的公司，肯定会失去用户。明显的是，如果公司不努力盈利，那么就无法存活下去。两者间有冲突时，这就是 UX 设计师的职责，UX 设计需要去找到平衡，使产品保持盈利，同时提供最好的用户体验。
- Systematical thinking is essential
- 系统性思维非常罕见
Because most our school projects were independent of each other, we didn't get exposed to enough opportunities to think systematically.
因为大多数的在校项目都是相互独立，没有系统性的。作为 UX 设计师专业的学生，根本没有足够多的机会来进行系统性的思考。
While at work, systematical thinking is essential. There is a high chance that you only own part of the product line your company has. Responsible for just a portion of the ecosystem, you can never succed without thinking systematically.
工作中，系统性思维是非常罕见。很大的机率，一名 UX 设计师 只是负责公司产品线中某一部分。负责产品生态系统的一部分，这让你难以形成系统性思维。你也会缺乏系统性思维，而难以设计出优秀的产品。
Like the picture on the left, all the dots are connected. Moving any one of them can affect the whole system. The bigger the company, the more complex the ecosystem is. Understanding the whole context is important before starting your design. As one of the many dots, it is a bad idea to isolate yourself in the little cozy room sketching out cool ideas without talking anyone else. Never hesitate to collaborate. You should make sure that your one dot can best fit the rest of the picture.
如左图所示，所有的点都互相关联的。移动它们其中的任何一个，都会影响到整个系统。公司越大，公司的微生态系统就越复杂。开始设计之前，理解整个项目情况是非常重要的。作为众多点中的某一点，你将自己孤立，在一个舒适的房间中为某些很酷的点子设计原型，而不与其他人交流，这很愚蠢的。永远不要犹豫去合作。你应该确保你这一点，可以很好的与图片中其他的点互相配合。
- rioritization happens everywhere
- 对无处不在的突发情况，使用优先排序
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You might be disappointed when first entering the industry.
刚进入该行业，你或许会感到失望。
"There are so many good ideas around the product, why can't we do all of them at once?"
“这个产品有那么多的好点子，为什么我们不能一次性将这些都实现了呢？”
Yes, we've all experienced the excitement to list all cool ideas and realize each of them in the prototype, winning applause and compliments from professor.
是的，我们都体验过这种冲动的兴奋，把所有的好点子列出来，把每一个点子实现在原型上，赢得了教授的掌声和称赞。
While in reality, concerns such as how long it takes to implement, how much the cost will be, and what the timeline lookslike, can never be neglected. Every second counts, every dollar matters. This is why prioritization happens in almost every project. Metrics such as urgency, importance, and engineer difficulty are normally used for prioritization. What comes after is that product development gets divide into serveral phases. As designers, we should always have the final picture in mind, but also understand how the design moves forwards incrementally to match development phases.
真实情况中，关心的是，需要多少的时间实现，成本是多少，以及项目的开发计划是什么样的，这些是从不能被忽略的。每秒都是要算的，每美元成本计算都是必须的。这就是，为什么几乎每个项目都具有优先排序。然后，随之而来的是，把产品开发划分为某几个阶段。作为设计师，在脑海中，我们应该要有一个最终的产品模样，与此同时，要懂得如何逐步往前设计，与每个开发阶段相互配合。
What has been listed above are some key points that I found important while working, but failed to pay enough attention at school. It is based on my personal experience, which may not apply to everyone. However, I hope that what has been addressed here can provide some insights to current design students who are looking into UX designer position in the future.
以上所写的，都是从我的工作中所发现到的重要关键点。可惜的是，关于学校的内容写得太少。该文章关于个人的经历，不一定合适所有人。可是，我希望这里所提出的，可以让那些现在是设计专业的，但是将来想要寻找 UX 设计师职位的学生们，进行思考。
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