Four years ago, I embarked on a drastic career change from pre-med to product design. I dropped all my courses, attended a hackathon every weekend, and worked over 80–90 hours a week to land my first job as a designer.

˚F我们年前，我踏上了从急剧改变职业医学预科到产品设计 。 我放弃了所有课程，每个周末参加一次黑客马拉松，并每周工作80-90个小时以找到我作为设计师的第一份工作。

I promised myself that I would continue to improve my design skills with the same fervor I had when I first started. Unfortunately, growth doesn’t happen on a continuous linear scale; there are plateaus.

我向自己保证，我将像刚开始时一样不断提高自己的设计技能。 不幸的是，增长并不是在连续的线性范围内发生的。 有高原。

Throughout my design career I’ve experienced phases of plateaus and growth. Here are a few design exercises I came up with that helped me break out of those plateaus.

在我的整个设计生涯中，我经历了平稳和增长的阶段。 这是我想到的一些设计练习，这些练习有助于我突破那些高原。

People stop improving because they stop pushing themselves, and because they lose motivation to continue improving at the skill. They reach a point where they feel like they’re “good enough” and the perceived benefit of trying to get better is outweighed by the perceived benefit of being comfortable.

人们之所以停止进步，是因为他们不再努力推动自己，也因为失去了继续提高技能的动力。 他们感到自己“足够好”，而感觉变得更好的感觉却被感觉舒适带来的好处所抵消。

Like most people who’ve read Outliers, I believed 10,000 hours of any design work would make me an expert. I spent countless hours on random UI shots without a clear goal in mind.

像大多数阅读过“ 离群值”的人一样，我相信任何10,000小时的设计工作都会使我成为专家。 我花了无数小时进行随机的UI拍摄，却没有明确的目标 。

The first couple of months were a period of tremendous growth — however, it took almost a year until I noticed I had long stopped improving. The rapid exciting gains I had, in the beginning, started slowing down.

最初的几个月是一个巨大的增长期-但是，花了将近一年的时间，我才意识到我早就停止了改进。 一开始，我获得的Swift而令人兴奋的收获开始放缓。

No matter what I did, I couldn’t recreate that initial feeling of rapid improvement. One day I stumbled upon Peak by Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool and discovered what I was doing wrong.

不管我做什么，我都无法重现快速改进的最初感觉。 有一天，我偶然发现了安德斯·爱立信(Anders Ericsson)和罗伯特·普尔(Robert Pool)的Peak ，发现我做错了什么。

“When you first start learning something new, it is normal to see rapid — or at least steady — improvement, and when that improvement stops, it is natural to believe you’ve hit some sort of implacable limit. So you should stop trying to move forward, and you settle down to life on that plateau. This is the major reason that people in every area stop improving.”

“当您第一次开始学习新事物时，通常会看到快速的改进，或者至少是稳定的改进，而当这种改进停止时，很自然地认为您已经达到了某种不可逾越的极限。 因此，您应该停止尝试前进，然后在那个高原上安定下来。 这是各个地区人民不断进步的主要原因。”

To break out of my current plateau, I had to understand the difference between naive practice and purposeful practice. Deliberate practice also exists, but is not the focus of this article.

为了摆脱目前的困境，我必须了解天真的实践与有目的的实践之间的区别。 故意的实践也存在，但这不是本文的重点。

天真实践 (Naive practice)

Naive practice is comfortable and what most people do by default. It involves staying within your comfort levels and going through the motions without deeper meaning behind your actions.

天真的做法很舒服，大多数人默认情况下会做什么。 它涉及保持舒适水平并进行动作，而动作背后没有更深层的含义。

For instance, you might practice playing a song, but continue onwards when you miss notes. After reaching a level of basic proficiency, you stop improving because you haven’t set incremental goals, and thus aren’t being challenged.

例如，您可能练习弹奏一首歌曲，但错过笔记时会继续播放。 达到基本熟练程度后，您将停止改进，因为您尚未设定增量目标，因此也不会受到挑战。

This sounds obvious in retrospect, but I feel this is especially common for designers practicing outside of work.

回想起来，这听起来很明显，但是我觉得这对于在户外工作的设计师来说尤其常见。

“People often misunderstand this because they assume that the continued driving or tennis playing or pie baking is a form of practice and that if they keep doing it they are bound to get better at it, slowly perhaps, but better nonetheless… But no. Research has shown that, generally speaking, once a person reaches that level of “acceptable” performance and automaticity, the additional years of “practice” don’t lead to improvement.”

“人们经常误解这一点，因为他们认为持续驾驶，打网球或烘烤馅饼是一种练习，如果继续坚持下去，他们一定会慢慢地变得更好，但是仍然会更好……但是，没有。 研究表明，一般而言，一旦一个人达到了“可接受的”性能和自动化程度，那么额外的“实践”年数就不会带来改善。”

As a designer, I first learned visual design by completing the 100 day UI challenge. I developed a mental library of UI patterns, a set of common UX heuristics, and became extremely familiar with the iOS human interface guidelines.

作为设计师，我首先通过完成100天UI挑战学习了视觉设计。 我开发了一个UI模式的思想库，一组常见的UX启发式方法，并且对iOS人机界面指南非常熟悉。

Afterward I ended up creating hundreds of UI shots using the exact same knowledge base. I continued to practice the same set patterns over and over again. It’s no wonder I stopped improving.

之后，我最终使用完全相同的知识库创建了数百个UI镜头。 我继续反复练习相同的设定模式。 难怪我停止了改进。

有目的的练习 (Purposeful practice)

Purposeful practice is one step above naive practice. This kind of practice focuses on achieving specific goals rather than simply doing the activity. These goals must also be measurable, actionable, and time-bound.

有目的的练习是纯真的练习的第一步。 这种做法侧重于实现特定目标，而不是仅仅从事活动。 这些目标还必须是可衡量的，可操作的且有时限的。

For instance, you might be distracted during naive practice, but you must focus your undivided attention on purposeful practice. The purposeful practice also requires feedback and room for creative problem-solving.

例如，您可能在幼稚的练习过程中分心，但是您必须全神贯注于有目的的练习。 有目的的实践还需要反馈和创造性解决问题的空间。

Try to endure periods of discomfort & self-doubt when experimenting with new ideas and concepts. When hitting a barrier, challenge yourself to break convention and look for external sources of inspiration.

尝试新想法和新概念时，要忍受不适和自我怀疑的时期。 遇到障碍时，挑战自己，打破常规，寻找外部灵感来源。

Using what I’ve learned over the past four years working on a wide range of projects and for companies, I put together a list of six exercises and resources covering a wide spectrum of design skills to engage in purposeful practice. I’ve included exercises to help you improve in visual design, interaction design, product thinking, UX writing, information architecture, and more.

利用我过去四年在广泛的项目和公司中所学到的知识，我整理了六个练习和资源清单，涵盖了广泛的设计技能，以进行有目的的实践。 我提供了一些练习，以帮助您改善视觉设计，交互设计，产品思维，UX编写，信息体系结构等。

练习1-UI组件和模式审核 (Exercise 1 — UI component & pattern audits)

To expand your knowledge of UI patterns and UX heuristics, conduct comprehensive audits on UI components and patterns.

为了扩展您对UI模式和UX启发式的知识，请对UI组件和模式进行全面的审核。

Specifically…

特别…

• Understand the pros & cons of each permutation — e.g. What are the advantages of adding icons to a multi-select checkbox interface vs. making it plain text?
  了解每种排列的优缺点-例如，将图标添加到多选复选框界面与将其制成纯文本相比有什么优点？
• Understand the use cases behind the component — e.g. When should you use a radio button? Checkbox? Select Box?
  了解组件背后的用例-例如，何时应使用单选按钮？ 复选框？ 选择框？

• Understand the best practices of a particular pattern — e.g. Did you know the length of input fields should correlate with expected string length instead of being uniform in width?

  了解特定模式的最佳做法-例如，您是否知道输入字段的长度应与预期的字符串长度相关，而不是宽度一致 ？

• Understand all the possible interaction states of a particular component across all platforms — e.g. For web components have mouse down, mouse up, hover, and selected states that don’t exist on mobile — how does this look like for a particular component?

  了解所有平台上特定组件的所有可能的交互状态 (例如，对于Web组件而言，鼠标按下，鼠标悬停，悬停以及在移动设备上不存在的选定状态)对于特定组件来说是什么样子？

Afterward I would make use of these insights on a live product in production. Bonus points if you can set up a multivariate AB test or a usability test with specific metrics.

之后，我将在生产中的现场产品中利用这些见解。 如果您可以设置具有特定指标的多变量AB测试或可用性测试，则可获得加分。

There’s a relevant project called UI recipes that aims to help with this, but I don’t think it has been updated in a while. You can also find a library of mobile UI patterns on Pttrns.

有一个名为UI配方的相关项目旨在帮助解决此问题，但我认为它不会在一段时间内进行更新。 您还可以在Pttrns上找到移动UI模式库。

Your best bet would be to start curating a personal collection of interesting and unique UI components and patterns you stumble across; and doing an in-depth audit of a particular piece once you have enough material to work with.

最好的选择是开始策划您偶然发现的有趣且独特的UI组件和模式的个人集合； 一旦有足够的材料可以使用，就对特定的零件进行深入的审核。

练习2－为新平台重新设计产品 (Exercise 2—Redesign products for new platforms)

To expand your knowledge of design systems and UI frameworks, you first need to become familiar with the core platform differences, then find products that don’t exist on all platforms and design the missing platforms from scratch.

为了扩展您对设计系统和UI框架的了解，您首先需要熟悉核心平台的差异，然后查找所有平台上都不存在的产品并从头开始设计缺失的平台。

A good place to start is the Material Design Guidelines for Android by Google, and the Human Interface Guidelines for iOS by Apple. Web guidelines are a bit like the wild west, but I had great success from learning @Webflow, and going through Webflow University, reading articles on Smashing, and learning a bit of front end development from the Odin Project.

一个不错的起点是Google的《 Android的材料设计指南》和Apple的iOS的《 人机界面指南》 。 Web指南有点像狂野的西部，但是通过学习@ Webflow并遍历Webflow University ，阅读有关Smashing的文章以及从Odin Project中学习了一些前端开发方面，我获得了巨大的成功。

I’ve also had success downloading established design systems on Design Systems Repo, dissecting how it was built, and attempting to recreate screens from that design system without using the system itself or referencing the source file.

我还成功地在Design Systems Repo上下载了已建立的设计系统，剖析了它的构建方式，并尝试从该设计系统重新创建屏幕而不使用系统本身或引用源文件。

练习3-互动费用固定 (Exercise 3—Interaction cost fixing)

To improve your interaction design skills, start by learning how to use a flow tool like Whimsical, Overflow, or any of the flow plugins available on @Sketch and @Figma.

要提高您的交互设计技能，请先学习如何使用流工具，例如Whimsical ， Overflow或@Sketch和@Figma上提供的任何流插件。

Then in your tool of choice…

然后在您选择的工具中…

• Take screenshots of each screen within a product’s particular interaction flow. I use the Full Page Screen Capture Chrome extension for web (or shortcut Shift+Cmd+3 on Mac) and the native screen capture for iOS and Android.

  拍摄产品特定交互流程中每个屏幕的屏幕截图。 我使用Web的全页屏幕捕获Chrome扩展 (在Mac上为快捷键Shift + Cmd + 3)以及iOS和Android的本机屏幕捕获。

• Draw connector arrows between each screen from the trigger UI element (if applicable) to the next screen. Make sure to label the interaction type somewhere around the connector.
  从触发器UI元素(如果适用)到下一个屏幕，在每个屏幕之间绘制连接器箭头。 确保在连接器周围的某处标记交互类型。

• Above each connector, annotate the interaction cost above it. I don’t believe there’s a formal calculation for interaction cost, but I use a combination of Fitt’s Law and a scale for various input gestures (e.g. on mobile a vertical scroll has less interaction cost compared to h-scroll) for physical cost; then a scale for cognitive cost based on my understanding of UX principles.

  在每个连接器上方，注释其上方的交互成本 。 我不相信会有正式的互动成本计算方法，但是我将菲特定律和比例尺结合起来用于各种输入手势(例如，在移动设备上，垂直滚动与水平滚动相比，互动成本要低)； 然后根据我对UX原理的理解得出一个认知成本量表。

• Identify the critical paths using a Red Route Analysis (sometimes using logic & intuition is fine here).

  使用红色路径分析来识别关键路径(有时可以使用逻辑和直觉来确定)。

• Redesign the user flows & interaction patterns for critical paths that have an unreasonable amount of interaction cost.
  重新设计关键流程的用户流程和交互模式，这些关键路径的交互成本不合理。

练习4：持续的白板挑战 (Exercise 4—Continuing whiteboard challenges)

To improve your problem solving and reasoning, continue to practice various white-boarding exercises (even if you’re not looking for a new job). Here’s a list of 100 challenges to get you started.

为了改善您的问题解决和推理能力，请继续练习各种白板练习 (即使您不想找新工作)。 以下是100项入门指南。

It’s best if you can find a mentor to evaluate your white-boarding solution, otherwise, make sure to set measurable goals or add additional constraints to keep yourself accountable. The ideal scenario would be to find a peer group or mentor that can evaluate your solutions. A good place to look is the DesignX Slack community, the Designers Guild, and HH Design Group on Facebook.

最好是找到指导者来评估您的白板解决方案，否则，请确保设置可衡量的目标或添加其他约束以确保自己负责。 理想的情况是找到可以评估您的解决方案的同级小组或指导者。 在Facebook上， DesignX Slack社区 ， Designers Guild和HH Design Group是一个不错的选择。

练习5－信息架构审核+树测试 (Exercise 5—Information architecture audits + tree tests)

To improve your understanding of information architecture (IA), I would suggest reading this book to build a solid foundation, then completing the following exercise.

为了提高您对信息体系结构(IA)的理解，我建议您阅读本书以奠定坚实的基础，然后完成以下练习。

• Complete an audit of all the main pages connected to the homepage of a particular site (start with sites with 25 core pages of less)
  完成对连接到特定网站首页的所有主页的审核(从少于25个核心页面的网站开始)

• Set up a tree test for 30–50 participants (either in person, or online using Optimal Workshop)

  为30–50名参与者设置树测试 (亲自或使用Optimal Workshop进行在线测试 )

• Look at the results and evaluate how intuitive the navigation is
  查看结果并评估导航的直观程度

• Revise the sitemap, using card sorting as needed

  修改站点地图， 根据需要使用卡片分类

• Set up more tree tests and compare the results using the first test as the control variable
  设置更多的树测试并使用第一个测试作为控制变量来比较结果
• Iterate until most (>95 percent) of your participants were able to navigate to the correct page for each task
  进行迭代，直到大多数(> 95％)的参与者能够导航到每个任务的正确页面

练习6-重写目标网页内容+ 5秒测试 (Exercise 6—Rewrite landing page content + 5 second tests)

To improve your marketing design chops and UX writing skills try the exercise below.

要提高您的营销设计技巧和用户体验写作技巧，请尝试以下练习。

• Find a landing page to improve on Landingfolio or Landbook

  查找登陆页面以改善Landingfolio或Landbook

• Figure out what message the landing page is attempting to communicate in each content section to its visitors
  找出目标网页试图在每个内容部分中与其访问者交流的消息

• Conduct 5-second tests using Usability Hub

  使用可用性中心 进行5秒钟的测试

• Evaluate how effective the copy communicates the website’s intended message by looking at specific words and phrases the participants use. Sometimes I find generating a word cloud out of the results to be helpful.

  通过查看参与者使用的特定单词和短语来评估副本传达网站预期消息的效果。 有时我发现从结果中生成词云是有帮助的。

• Collect snippets of copy that weren’t performing well in the test, and paste them into a word document and attempt to rewrite alternative copy
  收集在测试中效果不佳的副本片段，然后将其粘贴到Word文档中，并尝试重写其他副本

• Use a tool like Canvas Flip Visual Inspector or Chrome’s Developer Tools to replace the website copy with yours

  使用Canvas Flip Visual Inspector或Chrome的开发人员工具之类的工具将网站副本替换为您的网站副本

• Run additional 5-second tests and iterate as needed
  运行其他5秒测试并根据需要进行迭代

停止做同样的旧练习 (Stop doing the same old exercises)

In conclusion, to break out of your design plateaus you must constantly strive to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Discomfort is a sign of growth. If you keep doing the same design exercises, or the same type of projects, you’ll never grow past them. There will come a time when these six exercises also become obsolete. At that point you’ll be more than equipped to find the unique exercises that would afford you the most personal growth.

总之，要突破设计平台，您必须不断努力使自己处于不舒适的境地。 不适是增长的标志。 如果您继续进行相同的设计练习或相同类型的项目，那么您将永远不会超越它们。 有时这六个练习也将过时。 届时，您将有足够的能力找到独特的练习，这些练习将使您获得最大的个人成长。