设计情感：与 Rafael Conde 的对话

当你做一件事时，你有自己的愿景。你知道自己想达成什么。目标就是尽可能清晰地把这个想法传达给别人。如果我有一个功能创意，不要只设计功能并分享原型图。不要只做个原型，再录屏演示你怎么用。要做一支广告，对吧？把这个想法卖出去。

When you are working on something, you have the vision. You know what you're trying to do. The goal is to communicate this idea as cleanly as you can to someone else. If I have this idea for a feature, don't just design the feature and share mock-ups. Don't just make a prototype and do a screen recording of you using the feature. Make an ad, right? Sell this idea.

欢迎来到 Dive Club。我是 Red，在这里，设计师永不停下学习。

Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Red and this is where designers never stop learning.

今天的嘉宾是 Rafael Conde，你可能记得他是 Layout 播客里的 Rafa，我以前经常听那个播客。他现在在 Retro 担任设计工程师，Retro 是我最喜欢的消费级应用之一。所以这次对话的核心是：你怎么做出让人有感觉的软件？

Today's episode is with Rafael Conde, who you might remember as Rafa from the Layout podcast that I used to listen to all the time. Well, today he's working as a design engineer at Retro, which is one of my favorite consumer apps. So, the focus of this conversation is all about how do you create software that makes people feel something?

我们会聊到他如何为 Retro 设计新的新用户引导流程，如何用视频分享想法，以及更多。不过，让我们从 Rafa 旅程的最开始讲起。

We're going to get into how he designed the new onboarding flow for Retro, how he uses video to share his ideas, and a lot more. But, let's start by going all the way back to the beginning of Rafa's journey.

那是我的第一台 MacBook。我在商场里的店里买的，然后去了楼上的餐饮区，把电脑摆在桌上。你打开笔记本，就会看到那段有星星和文字的视频。那是一种完整的体验。直到今天我仍然记得当时的感受——‘这太酷了’。我觉得电脑很酷，但这是酷、酷。不只是电脑那种酷，这是惊艳。像电影，像科幻片。看，是太空。然后它为我接下来试用这台电脑时看到和经历的一切奠定了基调。它有那个背景和语境：这是惊艳的，这是很酷的，这是精致的。一切都是闪亮的。那时候，东西都是亮面的。我想作为设计师，我一直在追求那种感觉。这就是我想做的事。我想让人产生那样的感觉。

It was my first MacBook. I got it at a mall, at a store, and then I went to the restaurant section above and I set it up on a table. You open the laptop and you see that video with the stars and the words. There was like a whole experience. Still today I remember how I felt, which is like, 'This is cool.' I thought computers were cool, but this is like cool, cool. Even not just computer cool, this is amazing. It's like a movie, sci-fi. Look, it's space. And then it set the stage for everything else I would see and experience while trying this computer. It had that background, that context. This is amazing. This is cool. This is polished. Everything's shiny. At the time, things were glossy. I think as a designer I'm trying to chase that. That's what I want to do. I want to make people feel something like that.

你也有那种体验吗？对我来说，那个时刻其实有点不同。你玩过 iOS 上的《Draw Something》吗？它差不多是……那款游戏永远改变了我对软件的思考。因为我懂软件，我喜欢应用。我甚至会用 Adobe Illustrator 涂涂画画，做点东西瞎玩。但后来我看到《Draw Something》，它太好玩了，直接打破了我对软件能做什么、能在我生活里处于什么位置的那种框框。对我来说就是那一刻，我心里想，我真的想一辈子做这个。就做这样的东西。

Did you experience that? For me, the moment was kind of different actually, but... Did you ever play the game Draw Something on iOS? It was one of those... That changed the way that I thought about software forever, playing that game. Because I understood software. I liked apps. I was even kind of tinkering with Adobe Illustrator and just making things and playing around. But then I saw Draw Something and it was so fun, and it broke my box of what software could function as and where it could fit into my life. That was the moment for me where I'm like, I think I literally want to do this for the rest of my life. Just build stuff like this.

每个人都有那样的起源故事，无论是设计师还是做技术的人，我觉得。你总能追溯到一个让你‘哦’的时刻。虽然我在大学确实学了计算机科学，但那并不是因为我想当程序员之类的。我以前从没写过代码，甚至不知道代码怎么工作，但主要是因为喜欢技术。就是喜欢电脑、电子游戏之类的。当时感觉，‘哦，世界将全是软件，对吧？全都是电脑。’所以我觉得可以学计算机来理解这个世界，如果你懂我意思的话。我把它说得比实际深刻了。我当时就想，‘好，电脑，行，那就学这个吧。’

Everyone has that origin story as a designer or someone in tech, I think. You can always trace it back to a moment where you're like, 'Oh.' Even though I did study computer science in college, it wasn't really because I wanted to be a programmer or anything. I never had written any code or didn't even know how it worked, but it was mostly because I liked technology. Just like computers, video games, you know. And it felt like, 'Oh, the world is all going to be software, right? It's all computers.' So I felt like I might just do computers to understand the world, if that makes sense. I'm making it sound deeper than it actually was. I'm like, 'Yeah, computers, sure. I'll do that.'

嗯，但就像……对，第一年的时候，我试用了 Mac，在那里我看到了独立开发者，像 Panic 的应用，充满了小小的惊喜和彩蛋，里面撒满了人性。我能看到它背后的人。在那之前，唯一能真正感受到做东西的人、感受到幕后之人的地方，就是电子游戏。初代《Metal Gear Solid》（合金装备）是 PlayStation 平台上的，小岛秀夫是这个系列的导演，他非常喜欢把自己放进去。我记得第一个标题卡之类的东西，写着 ‘A game by Hideo Kojima’（小岛秀夫的作品）。即使在当时，电子游戏里也不会出现这种东西。你不会看到制作人员名单或背后的演员。那是电影的待遇。但小岛秀夫就会说，不，这是一款由小岛秀夫制作的游戏。‘我要把自己放进去。这是我的品味。这是我对电子游戏应该是什么样的诠释。’所以那款游戏里全是打破第四面墙、让你跳出框框思考的时刻。我给你举两个例子。我觉得那个游戏对现在听的人可能太老了，别太暴露年龄了。好吧，PlayStation 1。你知道吗？我们当时都不叫它 PlayStation 1，因为只有一台，所以就叫 PlayStation。

Um, but it was like yeah, that first year, that's when I tried a Mac, and that's where I saw indie devs, apps from Panic and full of little delight and Easter eggs, and just humanity was sprinkled into it. I could see the people behind it. And before, the only other place where I saw you could really feel the people making the thing, the people behind the thing, was video games. The game Metal Gear Solid, the first one for PlayStation, where famously Hideo Kojima, the director behind that series, he's very much like he puts himself into it. I think the first title card or something is like 'A game by Hideo Kojima.' Even at the time, that wasn't something you'd see in video games. You wouldn't get the credits or the actors behind it. That wasn't a thing in video games. That's a thing from movies. But Hideo Kojima is like, no, a game by Hideo Kojima. 'I'm going to put myself into this. This is my taste. This is my interpretation of how a video game should be.' And so that game is full of moments like breaking the fourth wall, just making you think outside of the box. I'll give you two examples. I think that game might be too old now for people listening. Let's not date ourselves too much here. Okay, PlayStation 1. You know what? We didn't even call it a PlayStation 1, because there was only one, so it was a PlayStation.

PlayStation，对。

PlayStation, yep.

对。但那个游戏，有一点你必须给一个叫 Meryl 的角色打电话。游戏一直告诉你必须联系她，比如‘对，快给 Meryl 打电话，给 Meryl 打电话。’但你不知道她的频率。你不知道怎么联系她，你不知道她的号码。游戏不会告诉你，然后你就卡住了。因为你知道你要做什么，却不知道怎么做到。所以到某个时候，你肯定会又沮丧又无聊又卡住，于是开始看游戏包装盒，你看到盒子背面。背面有游戏截图来解释游戏内容。其中一张截图是你这个角色和 Meryl 通话的画面。在那张截图里你能看到频率。那就是你得知该打哪个号码的方式。这在今天是行不通的。‘等等，你故意让玩家卡住、感到挫败？你故意让人难受？’那通常是我们作为设计师都要不惜一切代价避免的东西，对吧？我们不想让用户感到挫败。好吧，这是游戏，不是应用或工具，但对有些人来说，挫败点燃了创造力。我肯定有人放弃了，比如‘好吧，你知道吗？我不玩这个游戏了，玩不了。’但在那一刻，因为当你领悟的时候，那种‘我懂了’的感觉，你知道那种感觉非常难忘，永远都在。现在我就在跟你讲这个故事。

Yeah. But that game, at one point you have to call this character named Meryl. The game keeps telling you that you have to call her. Like, 'Oh yeah, call Meryl, call Meryl.' But you don't know her frequency. You don't know how to call her. You don't know her number. The game will not tell you and you're stuck, because you know what you have to do but you don't know how to do it. So at some point, I'm sure you get so frustrated and so bored and so stuck that you start looking at the game box, and you see the back of the box. On the back there's one of the screenshots of the game explaining what the game is. In one of the screenshots you see an image of a call between you, the character, and Meryl. In that screenshot you can see the frequency. And that's how you would know which number to call her. This would not fly nowadays. 'Wait, you're purposefully getting gamers stuck and frustrated? You're purposefully getting people frustrated?' That's usually something even as designers we avoid at all costs, right? We don't want users to get frustrated. Fine, this is a game, not an app or a tool, but frustration ignited creativity for some. I'm sure some people dropped it. Like, 'All right, you know what? I'm done with this game. I can't do it.' But that moment, because when you get it, the feeling when you're like, 'I get it.' You know, that feeling is so memorable. It's forever. Here I am telling you the story.

还有另一个角色，这个游戏的第二个时刻。有个叫 Psycho Mantis（精神螳螂）的角色，是一个 Boss，非常难打的 Boss。这个角色的设定是他有超能力，能读心。所以如果你想开枪射他之类的，他总是会抢先一步，因为他在读你的心。然后某个时刻，这个角色会说：‘来，我变个魔术，把你的手柄放在一个平面上。’你就会想：‘手柄？等等，这是什么……’它已经在打破第四面墙了。

And there's this other character, a second moment from the game. There's this other character called Psycho Mantis, a boss, a really hard boss. The whole thing about this character is he's psychic and he can read your mind. So if you're trying to shoot him or something, he will always be one step ahead, because he's reading your mind. And at some point the character says, 'Here's a magic trick, place your controller on a flat surface.' And you're like, 'Your controller? Wait, is it...' It's already breaking the fourth wall.

「你的手柄是什么意思？」因为这时候他是在跟玩家说话，而不是跟游戏角色。然后游戏用到了震动功能——这在当时是全新且富有创意的。通过震动手柄，控制器会动。他说：「看，魔术，我让你的手柄动起来了。」那也让我觉得太神奇了。而击败这个 Boss 的方法是，你必须拔掉手柄。那时候手柄还是有线的——给正在收听的朋友解释一下——你得用线把手柄连上。总之，你要把手柄从 1 号口拔出来，插到 2 号口，然后突然之间他就再也读不了你的心思了。

“What do you mean, your controller?” Because now he’s talking to the player, not the character. And then the game uses the rumble feature, which was new and innovative at the time, so by vibrating the controller it would move. He was like, “See, magic trick, I’m making your controller move.” That also blew my mind. And then the way you defeat this boss is you have to unplug the controller. There were wires back then — for anyone listening — you had to plug the controller in with a wire. Anyway, you have to unplug the controller from the Player 1 port and plug it into the Player 2 port, and then all of a sudden he couldn’t read your mind anymore.

不会吧。

No way.

你就是用这种方式击败它的。你明白吗，Red？你明白这里面意味着什么吗？这种创意、这种天才、这种乐趣、这种挫败感——有太多感觉、太多情绪了。我知道这不过是电子游戏，但这些东西、这些时刻，深深印在了我身上。这就是我希望用我设计的软件、我做的任何东西，去让别人感受到的东西。我想注入一些人性，注入一点你自己的特质，在可以的时候保持创意，创造那些惊喜的瞬间。我知道“惊喜与愉悦”这个词现在被用滥了，但我还是要再用一次，因为我不知道还能怎么称呼它。没错，一点点惊喜，一点点“哇”，或者“我从没想到这也能做到”，或者“我是怎么做到的？太酷了”。这就是我做我所做的事情的原因。

That’s how you would defeat it. Do you understand, Red? Do you understand what’s going on here? The creativity, the genius, the fun, the frustration. There are so many feelings, so many emotions. I know this is video games, but these things, these moments, they imprinted on me. This is what I would love to make other people feel using software that I designed or made or whatever it is I make. I want to inject some of that humanity, inject a little bit of yourself into it, be creative when you can, and just create those moments of surprise. I know “surprise and delight” is a very overused term nowadays, but I’m going to use it again because I don’t know what else to call it. But yeah, a little surprise, a little “Oh wow,” or “I didn’t think that was possible,” or “How did I do that? That’s cool.” That’s why I do what I do.

插播一条简讯，然后我们马上回来。当你在用 AI 做原型时，如果你还在花时间从实际产品里重新创建样式、组件和布局，那我告诉你：你很可能在浪费时间，而且肯定没用对工具。所以我特别喜欢向团队推荐 Desyn。点击一下，你和团队里的每个人就能直接在你的代码库中做原型，完全不用打开 IDE。Desyn 会提取你的设计语言，给你一个完美的沙盒环境去探索，没有任何技术门槛。这真的很了不起。你可以连接代码库，今天就开工。只要访问 dive.club/desyn，也就是 d e s y n。

Real quick message, and then we’ll jump back into it. When you’re prototyping with AI, if you’re spending time recreating styles, components, and layouts from your actual product, I’ve got news for you: you’re probably wasting time and definitely not using the right tool. That’s why I love recommending Desyn to teams. In one click, you and everyone on your team can prototype directly in your codebase without ever opening an IDE. Desyn extracts your design language and gives you the perfect sandbox to explore without any of the technical hurdles. It’s a pretty big deal. You can connect your codebase and start prototyping today. Just head to dive.club/desyn — that’s d e s y n.

只要在睡觉前跟我的电脑说一声，之后智能体就会在 Paper 的画布上探索 20 个不同的概念，第二天早上我就能审阅，挑一个方向。用 Paper 来和 AI 一起扩展我的探索，这完全重塑了我对设计流程的思考。过去我手动迭代两次的时间，现在我能在这个画布上看到 10 种、20 种不同的设计。而且 AI 总能提出我没想到的东西。于是我会从几个概念里挑出我喜欢的部分，开始移动元素、做微调——这些正是画布最擅长的。等我准备好之后，我只要告诉 Claude 或 Codex 去构建选中的那一帧就可以了，中间没有任何信息损耗，因为 Paper 的画布本身用的就是 HTML 和 CSS。Paper 真的把我的设计流程提升到了一个全新的高度。我怎么推荐都不为过。想开始设计的话，直接访问 dive.club/paper 就可以了。

It’s surreal that I can just talk to my computer before bed, and then agents explore 20 different concepts on Paper’s canvas that I can review the next morning to pick a direction. Using Paper to scale my explorations with AI is totally reshaping the way I think about my design process. In the time it would take me to make two manual iterations, I can see a design 10, 20 different ways on the canvas. And AI always comes up with something I didn’t consider. So I’ll just grab my favorite parts from a handful of concepts, start moving things around, making little tweaks, and everything that the canvas is really good at. And then, when I’m ready, I can just tell Claude or Codex to build the selected frame, and there’s nothing lost in translation because Paper’s canvas already uses HTML and CSS. Paper has truly taken my design process to the next level. I cannot recommend it enough. Just head to dive.club/paper to start designing today.

好了，回到节目正题。我想聊聊你整个职业生涯里都在追逐的那种东西，它显然对你影响很大。不过在我们深入之前，我很好奇，你最近有没有在什么产品上体验过那种感觉？最好是一个比较传统的数字产品，这样大家能更容易理解你所说的东西到底是什么样的。然后我们再从这个话题展开，聊聊你是如何追求那种体验的。所以，有没有什么产品，你第一次玩或者第一次用的时候，会忍不住说：“哇，它确实打动了我。”

Now, onto the episode. I want to tap into this concept of you chasing that through your career. Like, it’s obviously played a big role. Maybe before we go into that, though, I’m curious if you’ve experienced that with any products recently. Maybe something that feels a little more like a traditional digital product, just to help people wrap their head around what this actually could look like. And then maybe from there we can talk about how you’ve pursued that. But does anything come to mind where you played it or used a product for the first time and you go, “Oh wow, this did something for me.”

有一个新的 app，用来追踪太阳的位置，以及光线是从哪里来的。

There’s this new app designed to track the position of the sun and where the light is coming from.

哦，有意思。

Oh, interesting.

比如说，你在拍电影、做制作或者拍电视，需要知道在一天中的什么时间、太阳从哪个方向照过来。而和这个界面交互的方式用了很多陀螺仪运动相关的东西，这是一个非常酷、你根本想不到的界面，而且一切都打磨得很精致。我会把链接发给你。我想到两个例子。第一个可能稍微容易理解一些，因为它非常面向大众，甚至更像游戏。你玩过 Tolen 这个 app 吗？我猜可能没玩过。

For example, if you’re doing a shoot, like a movie or production, or TV, and you need to know at what time of day the sun is coming from where. And the way you interact with this UI — there’s a lot of gyroscope motion stuff, and it’s a super cool UI that you wouldn’t really expect, and everything is really polished. So I’m going to send you the links. Two examples come to mind. One is maybe a little bit easier because it’s very consumer, almost more game-like. Have you ever played with the Tolen app? Maybe a long shot.

没有。

No.

好，Tolen——T-O-L-E-N——是一个 AI 伙伴，但非常可爱。它的品牌设计很棒。他们把产品做成了一个游戏，让你一起构建一个世界。我也不知道，我看了很多次，最后心想：我就是下载来玩玩。这个 app 的初次体验非常不可思议，因为它一下子把你丢进那个世界深处，你和一位神谕者对话，他似乎在理解你是一个什么样的人，然后你又遇到一个全新的朋友，一切都令人极其震撼。我确实觉得，在那样的大众消费级别上做产品有点像“简单模式”，因为你可以冒更多的险。但另一个我觉得很有意思的例子是，新浏览器的首次引导体验的标准一直在提高。比如 Arc 浏览器的引导体验已经非常疯狂了，真的非常疯狂。后来他们需要用 App 版本超越自己，接着 Comet 又带着 Perplexity 出现了——你会在 Mac 上看到那个太空覆盖层，周围全是音效和行星，你会觉得：哇，好吧。虽然那只是酷炫的 20 秒，他们完全没必要做那些，但我确实被打动了。

Okay, so Tolen — T-O-L-E-N — is this AI companion, but it’s cute. The branding’s amazing. They turned it into this game where you’re kind of building this world together. I don’t know, I saw it enough times where I was like, I’m just going to download this and play with it. And the initial experience of this app is unbelievable, because they throw you so deep into this world, and you’re talking with this Oracle who’s like understanding who you are as a person, and then you meet this new friend, and everything about it is sensational. I do think playing at that level of consumer is a little bit easy mode because you can take more risks. But another example that I think is interesting is we’ve continually had this raising of the bar for onboarding experiences for new browsers. So like Arc browser’s onboarding experience was crazy. Like that was crazy. And then they had to one-up themselves with the app, but then Comet came out with Perplexity, and you have the space overlay on your Mac when you have all the sound effects and the planets, and it’s like oh, okay, that was a cool 20 seconds where they didn’t need to do any of that, but I felt it for sure.

有意思的是，浏览器成了做这种体验的载体。就像开箱体验一样。毕竟它是最商品化的工具了。

Interesting that browsers became the space to do that. Like the unboxing experience. The most commodified tool ever.

对。因为你需要脱颖而出，对吧？然后就是第一印象。我很惊讶我们为什么不多做一些这种事。我是说，我也知道，也付出了代价才明白为什么不做的原因。但就像我在 Sketch 的时候，我做过原型，试过一些想法，但你不能去劫持用户的电脑。你不能播放那些可能非常打扰人的声音。有很多理由说明你不应该这么做，但也有些理由说明你应该做。而做这个决定的人是谁呢，对吧？在我感觉你为所有人设计的那个世界里，对吧？你必须考虑到各种类型的用户，这很好。我不是说我们不应该考虑。考虑可访问性、意识到可能和我们互动的每一种用户，这都很好。但与此同时，如果你试图做得太过通用，那你就更难做出那些更有针对性的体验了，如果你明白我的意思的话。

Yeah. Because you need to stand out, right? And then that first impression. I’m surprised that we don’t do more of this. I mean, I also know and learned the hard way why we don’t. But like even when I was at Sketch, I did prototyping, played around with some ideas, but you don’t want to hijack their computer. You don’t want to play sounds that can be very intrusive. There’s a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t do it, but there’s also some reasons why you should. And who’s making that call, right? In the world where I feel like you design for everyone, right? You have to take into account all kinds of users, which is great. I’m not saying we shouldn’t. It’s good. Accessibility-wise, just be aware of every type of user that might be interacting with us. But at the same time, if you try to generalize so much, then it’s harder to do those more targeted experiences, if you will.

在 Retro，我做过一个小小的——不知道能不能叫开箱——但用户第一次打开应用时，我们会播放一段带触感的短视频。它非常针对某一类受众。就像一组幻灯片，画面带点情绪，还有一条信息贯穿其中；每换一张新图片，你都会感觉到一次触感。整个信息大概是：如今这个世界充满了广告、垃圾内容、AI、短视频之类的东西，我们失去了很多和朋友、家人在一起的特殊时刻，失去了那些真正重要的东西。它一开始节奏很快，因为触感你能感觉到那种快节奏。随着播放，它逐渐慢下来，想传达的是：嘿，在这个嘈杂而快速的世界里，让我们慢下来。慢下来，回到本质，回到真正重要的东西。我觉得这是个很棒的点子，很酷，我很喜欢。也许人们看到后会想「真不错」。但问题是，你要在给他们看注册按钮之前，先播放一段 10 秒的视频。

At Retro, I worked on the little—I don't know if you call it unboxing—but we would play a little video with haptics and stuff the first time you launched it. It was very much targeted at a type of audience. It was like a slideshow of pictures, emotionally charged, with a message going through, and there was a haptic with every new picture in the slideshow. The whole message was: nowadays the world is full of ads, slop, AI, reels, and whatever, and we lose some of the special moments with friends, family, things that matter. And it starts very fast, and because of the haptics you can feel the fast pace. Then as it goes, it slows down to communicate that idea: hey, let's slow down in this world that's very noisy and very fast. Let's slow down and get back to essentials, or what matters, or whatever. I think it was a neat idea. I think it's cool. I liked it. People might see this and think, 'That's neat.' Great. But also, you're introducing a 10-second video before showing them the sign-up button.

而且，人们会直接流失的原因有很多。顺便说一句，他们确实流失了。这算是一点小洞察。

And there are a lot of reasons why people just drop. And they did, by the way. Just a little insight.

终于，这位老兄说了点对听众有用的东西。呃，那经验教训在哪里？

Finally, this guy is saying something useful for people listening. Um, where are the lessons?

嗨，我是 Rafa。我来到这个播客，深感荣幸。Reed 之前请过很多非常聪明、睿智的嘉宾。现在轮到我了。轮到我来给这个播客接接地气，让听众终于能产生共鸣，觉得「哦，他也没那么聪明。挺好的，我能在这个播客里看到自己。」总之，我们做了这个视频，然后做了测试。我觉得先看到视频的那批人，注册量大概掉了 20% 到 30%。这说得通。但好吧，注册确实掉了，可是等到引导流程结束时呢？也就是说，也许很多人流失了，但这些人在引导流程中是不是本来也会流失？这样一来，数字就变得柔和了一些，影响也没那么大。我们当时并没有做很深入的测试。我们不知道这个视频最终会吸引什么样的用户。但可以肯定地说，你当然得在之前播一段视频。

Hi, I'm Rafa. I'm on this podcast, and it's a great honor. Reed has had a bunch of brilliant, smart guests. And now it's my turn. It's my turn to ground this podcast a little bit and have the audience finally connect and relate: 'Oh, yeah, he's not that smart. That's nice. I can see myself in this podcast.' Anyway. So, we make this video and we test it. I think we lost about 20% or 30% of sign-ups from people who saw the video first. And that makes sense. But all right, sure, sign-ups drop—but what about the end of onboarding? Meaning, maybe a lot of people drop, but would those people have dropped anyway during the onboarding flow or not? And then the numbers get a little softer, and it's not that big an impact. We didn't really do much in-depth testing. We don't know what kind of users we'd get out of this. But suffice it to say, of course you're going to play a video before.

当时，你必须长按才能跳过。因为我不想让人误点跳过。我在这支视频上花了很多心思，我希望人们能看到它。当然，谁不想看呢，对吧？为什么要跳过它？它那么美。别跳。但确实很多人流失了。行吧，那或许让跳过变得更容易一点。如果你真的不想看，你不需要退出应用，点一下就行。这确实有帮助。另外，我们其实不管手机是否处于静音状态，都会播放声音，因为我想：「我们只有这一次机会展示这支视频，而配乐对情绪的影响很大。」所以我很不想冒人们听不到声音的风险，因为我自己作为用户，手机常年静音。一直都是。所以如果我为我自己设计，我会因为没听到声音而感到沮丧——你甚至不知道原来有声音。后来我们可能软化了一些，最终我们选择了尊重静音开关。

At that time, you had to tap and hold to skip. Because I didn't want people accidentally tapping and skipping. I worked a lot on this video, and I want people to see it. Of course, everyone wants to see this, right? Why would you want to skip it? It's beautiful. Stop. But yeah, a lot of people dropped. All right, let's make it easier to skip maybe. Then if you really don't want to watch it, you don't have to quit the app; you can just tap. And that helped. Also, we were actually playing the sound regardless of the phone's mute switch state, because I thought, 'We only have one opportunity to show this video, and the soundtrack plays a big role in how it makes you feel.' So I really didn't want to risk people not listening, because as a user my phone is on silent all the time. Constantly. So if I'm designing for myself, I'd be bummed if I didn't get the sound—how would you even know there was sound? And then we maybe softened that up, and eventually we respected the mute switch.

一个出色的体验——对懂得欣赏它的人来说，它会产生很大的影响，但它也会对其它一切产生很大的影响。苹果之所以在你打开 Mac 时不再播放那段视频，是有原因的。因为有人会为大型组织和公司购买这些电脑，我们要一次性设置 200 台。如果我每次打开一台来设置，都得等 10 分钟看视频，拜托，对吧？所以如果你试图为所有人设计，那就更难做出这些东西。也更难成为小岛秀夫那样的存在，比如他在做《合金装备》的时候。如果目标是做一款大众主流游戏，人人都爱玩、人人都能通关、成为对大众而言最伟大的游戏，那么他就做不到那些事。你不能故意让玩家卡住、感到挫败，对吧？你懂我的意思吗？我觉得这就是为什么现在——以前你会看到大公司去冒这些险，但现在大公司承受不起更大的风险了。所以我们会在小团队、小型开发者身上看到这种冒险。我自己的业余项目里就充满了我平时工作中不会做的那些小东西，或者做得不多、没那么用力，因为没有压力。就算失去 10% 的用户，我也无所谓。

A great experience—for people who would appreciate it, it would make a big impact, but it also has a big impact on everything else. There's a reason why Apple doesn't play the video anymore when you open your Mac. Because there are people who buy these computers for massive organizations and companies, and we have to set up 200 of these. And if I have to wait 10 minutes to watch a video every time I open one to set it up, come on, right? So if you try to design for everyone, it's harder to make these things. It's harder to be like Hideo Kojima when he was making Metal Gear Solid. If the goal was to make a mainstream game that everyone would love, everyone would beat, and that would be the greatest game ever for the masses, then he couldn't do those things. You can't purposefully get players stuck and frustrated, right? You know what I mean? I think that's why nowadays—before, you'd see big companies taking these risks, but now the big companies can't afford to make these bigger risks. That's why we see it in smaller shops, smaller devs who can take risks. My own side projects are full of these little things that I don't really do in my day job, or not as much, not as intensely, because the pressure is off. And it's fine if I lose 10% of my user base.

我觉得也有一个中间地带，挺有意思的。很多年前，我从 Maven 的一位联合创始人那里内化了一个教训：尤其作为一个略微偏技术的设计师，我会看到所有边界情况。我看到所有不同的用户画像。我看到所有那些体验可能对某种状态下的某一类人不太理想的方式。而且很容易让这些不愉快的路径压低体验的上限，而这上限本来是为了那些我们真正在意的人、那个我们真正在优化的画像而存在的。我几乎不得不把其中一些东西「反学习」掉。我会想：「不不不，我可以接受不去忽视——这个词太重了——但可以淡化对那 1% 的状态或 1% 的用户的影响，如果这意味着我能为那些我希望他们会留下来、会爱上产品的人创造出真正特别的东西。」也许那确实意味着增加一点摩擦，如果我有信心创造一种能与我所做的东西建立好感的感觉的话。我早年间做软件设计师时内化了很多规则：不要让用户滚动，不要在到处都是标签。所有这些规则都是很好的经验，因为你在让软件更容易使用。但与此同时，人们比 20 年前的新用户更习惯电脑了。有些东西我正在努力「反学习」，就像你说的。比如「哦不，用户必须横向滑动，他们不知道怎么弄，我们得加上分页指示器。」之类的。然后你去做测试，如果愿意的话，你会发现：「哦不，人们知道怎么滚动。他们会滚的。」没问题的。苹果把那个主页指示器的小横条去掉了，对吗？在 iOS 16 里。

I think there's a middle ground too that's kind of interesting. One lesson I internalized from one of the co-founders at Maven years ago: especially as a designer who skews slightly technical, I see all the edge cases. I see all the different personas. I see all the ways an experience could be suboptimal for a specific type of person in a specific type of state. And it's really easy to let those unhappy paths lower the ceiling of what the experience can be for the people we really care about, the persona we're really optimizing for. I think I've had to almost unlearn some of that. I'm like, 'No, no, no, I'm okay not ignoring—that's a strong word—but downplaying the impact for this 1% of states or 1% of users, if it means I can create something really special for the people I want to make sure are sticky and love the product.' Maybe that does mean adding a little more friction if I feel confident I can create a feeling that builds affinity with whatever I'm making. There are a lot of lessons I internalized from my early days as a designer building software: don't make users scroll, don't put labels everywhere. And all these things are great lessons because you make software more accessible. At the same time, people are more used to computers than new users were 20 years ago. Some of these things I've been trying to unlearn, like you said. Like, 'Oh no, people have to swipe horizontally, they don't know how, we have to put pagination.' Or whatever. Then you test it if you want, and you realize, 'Oh, no, people know how to scroll. They'll scroll.' It's fine. Apple removed the home indicator little grabber thing, right? From iOS 16.

你能想象我内心那个设计师吗——‘哦，不，但人们怎么会知道？’

Can you imagine being that designer in me, like, “Oh, no, but how will people know?”

这个例子太好了。你说得对。他们就这样对几十亿人做了。

It’s such a good example. You’re right. And they did that for billions of people.

对，但在那个规模上。我确定 Apple 的人有数据支持这一点。我确定他们测试过，因为他们不是一家会冒大风险的公司。

Yeah, but at that scale. And I’m sure people at Apple have the stats to back this up. I’m sure they tested it, because they’re not a company that takes big risks.

没有反弹。我一个真实的人都没听到过——不是 Twitter 上的设计师——说：‘哦不，我现在不知道怎么返回了。’

No backlash. I haven’t heard a single real person—like, not designers on Twitter—say, “Oh no, now I don’t know how to go back.”

不过我想知道一开始是否有使用量下降。肯定有某个让人沮丧的时刻，但他们心想：‘知道吗？我们知道这会有学习曲线，但我们赌人们能搞明白。我们知道这会带来更好的体验，也知道这会抬高上限，所以我们还是要做，即使会有一段停滞或挫折期。’

I wonder if there was a drop-off in the beginning, though. There had to be some moment of frustration, but they were like, “You know what? We know this is going to be a learning curve, but we bet on people’s ability to figure it out. We know this will be a better experience. We know this will raise the ceiling, so we’re going to do it anyway, even if there’s a lull or a period of frustration.”

我喜欢这个例子。我很久没想过它了，因为那是个重大决定。是啊，所以我从小就有的一些假设——我不得不稍微挑战一下自己，多信任用户一点。我这么说的时候，内心是痛的，因为它违背了我所教授和学到的所有东西：要一直让产品越来越易用。我仍然在一定程度上同意这一点，但也要稍微信任用户。用户没那么蠢，对吧？回到小岛秀夫和《合金装备》，当时机真的让人抓狂时，要相信人们会在某个时候翻到包装盒背面看看。

I love that example. I haven’t thought about it in a long time, because that was a big decision. Yeah, so some of those assumptions I grew up with—I have to challenge myself a little bit, and trust the user a little more. As I say this, it hurts on the inside because it goes against everything I’ve ever taught or learned: always make it more and more accessible. I still agree with that to a certain extent, but also trust them a little. Users aren’t all that dumb, right? And to go back to Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear Solid, trust that they’ll look on the back of the case at some point when the frustration is real.

嗯。我们能深入聊聊这个复古式引导吗？因为……对。我觉得你的触觉反馈想法其实挺天才的。很多好的设计——至少在我脑子里构思的时候——都是‘哦，这会看起来很美，或者感觉很好。’但听你讲，最让我受到启发的是，你是从某个核心认识出发去设计，你想让人们在那一刻真正体会到的是：真正的慢下来。你几乎是在设计中创造一种身体的反应，我觉得这特别有意思。你用了多久到达那个点的？我们能不能拿这个当切入点，看看你的创作过程，以及你是怎么从‘我们想做什么’的空白画布，一路走到最终方案的？

Mhm. Can we get really deep on the retro onboarding here for a second? Because... yeah. I think your haptic idea is kind of genius, actually. There’s a lot of really good design—at least in my head when I’m ideating, like, “Oh, this is going to look or feel beautiful.” But what’s inspiring to me, listening to you talk, is that you were designing from this core realization you wanted people to have in that moment: the actual slowing down. There was a physical response, almost, that you were trying to create in the design, which I think is so interesting. How quickly did you arrive there? Can we use that as a way to look at your creative process, and how you even thought about going from the blank canvas of “What do we want to do here?” to where you landed?

好，我来证明这里没有任何天才。我从‘我做一组幻灯片’开始，因为第一，技术上容易做。第二，我知道我想要触觉反馈——并不是因为那时候我就想‘我要让人们感受到那个东西’，更多是因为触觉反馈能带来动感，而且触觉很好玩，比单纯视频更有趣。所以就从那里开始了：‘好，幻灯片，因为它容易做；触觉反馈，因为随便嘛。’另外，如果我要做一段视频并播放视频文件，那触觉反馈就很难跟视频同步。也许有办法，但我不知道怎么弄，所以我就做我能做的、我知道怎么做的。这就是为什么我选了幻灯片。然后我看了一堆广告活动里的幻灯片——他们会用这种幻灯片形式——我当时是想拆解它。我的第一版动作太多了，还加了点 Ken Burns 效果之类的。我意识到那太过了。然后我分析、研究了很多其他幻灯片和广告，才意识到：哦，其实不对，照片之间没有转场，没有淡入淡出，就是咔咔咔，很简单。我把 Ken Burns 效果放到整体上，不是每张照片，而是整个动画有很慢的缩放。我从那里开始，然后做了触觉反馈。然后我发现，通过触觉反馈，我其实能感受到那支幻灯片、那段视频的节奏。然后我就在做——我们团队每天有个电话会——我给他们看，我们有测试版本，大家都在玩、在试。我很确定是我的某个同事，不知道是 Shawn 还是 Cheryl，有人说：‘我们觉得我们感受到了节奏。’然后我们又过了一遍故事，因为那时我只有脚本。我记得有人建议：‘嘿，如果我们开头快一点，然后慢下来，会不错。’然后整个事情就慢慢到位了。所以并不是一开始我就有完整的想法和愿景。而是‘我先从我懂的事做起’，然后慢慢地，‘哦，对，这挺酷，也可行。哦，对，那会很好。’一切都是过程中的小巧合。一旦我们想通了‘开始快、结束慢、逐渐慢下来’这个核心，周围很多设计决策就都以它为目标了。然后一切就变得容易了。比如说，当我要做配乐的时候——那是很短的一个小东西——我从街道噪音开始。在视频开头，你能听到一段小钢琴，它本身是一段让人平静的音乐，但我又加进了一堆街道噪音，然后……

Yeah, I’ll prove there’s no genius here at all. I started with, “I’ll do a slideshow,” because one, it’s easy technically. Two, I knew I wanted haptics—not because, at that point, I was like, “I want to make people feel the thing.” It was more because haptics make it more dynamic, and haptics are fun. They make it more interesting than just a video. So it started from there: “Okay, slideshow, because it’s easy and I can do it; haptics, because whatever.” Also, if I were to make a video and play a video file, it would be so hard to sync the haptics with a video. Maybe there’s a way, but I don’t know how to do it, so I just did what I could, what I knew how to do. That’s why I settled on the slideshow. Then, as I looked at a bunch of slideshows in ad campaigns and stuff—they use this slideshow format—I was trying to deconstruct it. My first take was way too much motion, with a little Ken Burns effect and all that. I realized it was too much. Then I analyzed, studied a bunch of other slideshows and ad campaigns, and I realized, oh, actually no—there are no transitions, no fades between photos. It’s just snap, snap, snap, very easy. I did a slight Ken Burns on the whole thing, so not per photo, but the whole animation has a slow zoom. I started there, and then I did the haptics. And then I realized, with the haptics, that I was actually feeling the pacing of the slideshow, of the video. I was doing—we have a daily call with everyone on the team—and I was showing them, and we had builds, and people were playing and trying them. I’m pretty sure it was one of my co-workers. I don’t know if it was Shawn or Cheryl, but someone said, “We realized that we were feeling the pacing.” And then we were going over the story, because at that point I only had the script. I think one of them suggested, “Hey, it would be nice if we start faster and then go slower.” And then it all just fell into place a little bit. So it wasn’t that I had the whole idea and whole vision right at the start. It was like, “I’ll start doing the things I know how to do.” And slowly, “Oh, yeah, that would be cool and doable. Oh, yeah, that would be nice.” Everything was kind of a little accident of the process. Once we figured out the thing of starting fast and ending slow—slowing down—then a lot of design decisions around it had that as the goal. Everything became easier. So, for example, when it was time for me to do the soundtrack—which is a very short little thing—I started with street noise. At the top of the video, you hear this little piano thing, which in itself is a calming piece of music, but then I added a bunch of street noise and like...

嗯。

Mhm.

我觉得那像是在餐厅之类的地方。那些声音就一直放着——我记不清了，就是我能用的免费音效。对，有人说话之类的。然后我会把它放慢一点。到了视频中段，那些声音就完全听不到了，这跟幻灯片视觉上的慢下来配合得很好。有触觉反馈带来的身体感受，现在声音也在慢下来，集中在音乐上，把噪音去掉。所以一旦我有了那个主题、那个隐喻，其他所有东西都围绕它展开，自然就到位了。整个东西很短——我觉得甚至不到七秒，我忘了。没有天才。就是‘我先从我会的东西开始’，跟人聊，获得其他想法，然后一切都各就各位。

I think it was like at a restaurant or something. It just went on—I don’t know, copyright-free sounds I could use. Yeah, people talking and stuff. Then I would slow that down a little bit. And halfway through the video, you don’t hear any of that anymore, which pairs really nicely with the visual slowing down of the slideshow. There’s the physical aspect with the haptics, and now the sound is also kind of slowing down, focusing on the music and removing noise. So once I had that motif, that metaphor, everything else just worked around it and fell into place. And the whole thing is quite short—I don’t think it’s even seven seconds or something. I forget. No genius. It’s like, “I’ll just start with what I know how to do.” Talk to people. Get other ideas. And then everything kind of falls into place.

我也喜欢这一切是从触觉反馈开始的。你并不是从解决问题出发，比如‘我怎样才能让这个流程高效？’而是更像：‘天哪，如果这个东西在我手里嗡嗡震动会不会很酷？我该怎么用它？’然后你才走到了那个地方。而且很多时候——我是说，我自己也有这种体验——我可能会花好几天找一个主题。然后你找到那个主题，一切都从那里展开了。

I like that it started with the haptics, too. You didn’t start from problem-solving, like, “How do I make this flow efficient?” It was more like, “Man, wouldn’t it be cool if this thing buzzed and vibrated in my hand? How could I use that?” And then you got to that place. Also, so often—I mean, that’s my experience too—maybe I’ll spend days in search of the motif. And then you find the motif, and everything just unravels from there.

现在各方面都有好多势头。我们能稍微深入聊聊 Retro 吗？感觉我们快收尾了，但我真的很喜欢这个产品。其实我很好奇。你当初为什么加入？给我们讲讲背景吧，不过我特别感兴趣的是你的具体角色，因为我知道你拥有这种混合技能。所以我很想知道这在日常、每周的实践中是什么样子。

There's so much momentum in every direction. Can we go a little bit deeper into Retro for a second? I feel like we're winding down, but I love this product. Actually, I'm curious. Why'd you join? Give us a bit of context for it, but I'm really interested in your role specifically, because I know you kind of have this hybrid set of skills. So I'm interested to see what that looks like in a daily, weekly practice.

我当时在找新工作、新的事做。很幸运的是，我接触了一些公司、一些我天天用而且很爱的产品，它们都很棒，但通常都是大公司。我从来没去过大公司。我当时确信，这会是我去大公司试试的时候，一来是看接触的人，二来也看行业的大环境。现在不是找工作的好时机，外面很难。所以我也没有挑三拣四。我也很认真地考虑过自己单干、走独立开发这条路，这也是很大的风险，挺吓人的。这个念头我已经考虑了好多年。每次找新工作，我都会想：“会是时候了吗？”所以我一直在权衡这两条路：要么去大公司，要么走另一极端，去做独立开发。然后 Retro 的人就来找我了。我从他们最早在 TestFlight 开始用这个应用，大概 3 年前吧。Retro 就像以前的 Instagram。它是一个只给朋友和家人用的私密社交网络。没有广告、没有网红、什么都没有。就是一个非常小的、封闭的社交网络，让朋友和家人分享日常。再说一遍，就是以前 Instagram 的样子。但现在你打开 Instagram，会掉进 Reels 和广告的洞，眨个眼一小时就过去了。刚才发生了什么？而且我的朋友呢？我都看不到朋友的照片了。总之，这就是 Retro。我很久以来一直是它的忠实粉丝。他们联系我的时候，我超级兴奋，也想多了解这家公司，因为我什么都不知道。我想我认识的人里没有在那工作的，不管是公司背后还是产品背后。后来我认识了他们，团队非常小，大概六到七个人吧，我也不确定。和你在考虑的大公司完全处在光谱的另一端。

I was looking around for a new job, a new thing to do. I was fortunate enough that I was talking to some companies and products that I just use and adore, and they're great, but usually all of them were big companies. I've never done the big company thing. And I was convinced that this was my time to do the big company thing a little bit, based on the people I was talking to, and based on also just the state of the industry. It's not a good time to look for a job. It's tough out there. So I was not getting picky or anything. I was also considering very realistically just doing my own stuff and going indie, which is also a big risk, and it's very scary. I have been considering this for years and years. With every new job search, I'm like, 'Could it be now?' And so I was weighing these two. Either I go big company or go the other opposite and let me do indie stuff. And then the people at Retro approached me. I have been using that app since they started in TestFlight, way back, I think 3 years ago-ish. Retro is like what Instagram used to be. It's a private social network for friends and family. There's no ads, no influencers, nothing. It's a really small, closed social network for friends and family to share just your day-to-day. Again, what Instagram used to be, but now you open Instagram and you fall down a hole of Reels and ads, and you blink and an hour has passed. What happened? And also, where are my friends? I haven't seen the same picture of friends. Anyway, so that's what Retro is. I've been such a big fan for so long. When they reached out, I was so stoked to learn more about the company, because I knew nothing. I don't think I knew anyone working there, behind the company, behind the product. So then I got to know them, and it's a very small team, think six or seven. I don't know. Complete opposite end of the spectrum from the big company that you were considering.

这是少数几个我真正每天都会用的、让人心情好的应用之一。

It's one of the few feel-good apps that I genuinely use day to day.

这也是我加入 Sketch 的类似原因。就是我特别热爱并且会用的应用。所以动机是一样的。这是一个我喜欢的应用，是存在于世界上的一款好产品，我觉得它让世界变好了一点点。后来我还发现，这个团队本身不只是做 Retro。他们想打造一个小小的应用组合。你可以说他们是一个应用工作室。Retro 是个好应用，但他们最近还发布了一个叫 Splat 的应用。他们想拿生成式 AI 玩玩，学一点东西。Splat 也是一款 iPad 和 iPhone 应用。你可以选一张照片，或者给小孩拍张照，然后它用生成式 AI 做出一本儿童涂色书。你可以让孩子在应用里涂色，或者像我这样直接打印出来。我会给小孩拍张照，或者他们挑一张好玩的照片，然后我们做一个卡通版本，让他们涂色。这又是那种让人开心的应用，是个好东西。而且因为它是给孩子设计的，没有欺骗性设计模式，没有奇怪的二次推销和广告。感觉很简洁、很真诚，没有为了规模、为了商业而设计的那种压力和负担。所以总之，Retro 和这个团队刚好在中点。他们不是大公司，但也不是独立开发，而是在做那种我认为如果有资源和时间，我一般会想在自己空闲时间做的应用和工作。所以感觉非常棒。后来我见了每个人，大家都是很好的团队。所以我加入就成了理所当然的事。我是 2 月份加入的，所以 3 个月了。我们有 6 到 7 个人。我们其实没有正式头衔，但我想我是设计工程师。这是我的官方头衔，合同里写的就是这个。反正这是现在最热门的流行词。

It was also a similar reason why I joined Sketch. An app that I absolutely adore and use. So it was the same motivation. This is an app that I like, a good product to exist in the world. Makes the world a little bit better, I think. And then I also discovered that the team itself, they don't just do Retro. They're trying to build a little portfolio of apps. They're like an app studio, if you will. Retro is a good app, but they recently shipped this app called Splat. They were trying to play around with generative AI and just learn a bit. Splat is an app for iPad and iPhone as well. You select a picture or take a picture of your kids and stuff, and with generative AI, it creates a coloring book for kids. You can have the kids color in the app itself, or how I use it: I just print it. I take a picture of my kids, or they pick a funny photo, and we create a cartoon version of it that they can color. Again, one of those apps that feel good, a nice thing. And because it's designed a little bit for kids, no dark patterns, no weird upsells and ads. Feels very simple, very genuine, without the pressure and burden of design for scale and for business and for all that. So anyway, here comes Retro and this team, and they're right in the middle. They're not a big company, but they're also not going indie, but it's doing the type of apps and the type of work that I think I would generally want to do on my free time if I had the resources and time. So it felt really nice. And then after I got to meet everyone, everyone's just a great team. So it was a no-brainer for me to join. I joined in February, so 3 months. We're six or seven people. We don't really have titles, but I think I'm a design engineer. That's my official title, that's what's in the contract. It's the hot buzz word right now, anyway.

是啊。

Yeah.

他们就像：“行，这家伙会写代码。”有意思的是，这个情况甚至从我和别人交谈、认识团队、面试的时候就已经在变。等我真正加入、开始工作的时候，已经变了。我们有一位产品设计师 Shawn，我刚开始和他聊的时候，他会说：“嗯，我们主要是用 Figma 之类的，但我越来越用 AI 来做原型这些东西。”那是他当时的状态，至少我第一次和他说话时是这么个印象。我想：“哦，好吧，他更像一个传统产品设计师，主要做 Figma 这些。”但现在有了这些 AI 工具，他用代码做越来越多的原型。我还和 Cheryl 聊过，她一直做了很多市场推广的工作，也做一些产品设计。但我和她第一次聊的时候，她并没有真正用代码做什么，至少这是我的印象。而到了现在，每个人都在做所有事情。因为我原本想：“哦，我会是那个会写代码的设计师。”但现在是：“不，每个人都会写代码”，差不多是这样。我们都在用 AI 工具，都在用代码做原型。有时我直接在正式应用的主代码库里做原型，有时我会建一个单独的 Xcode 项目来做原型。但像 Shawn，他当时说：“是啊，我开始用 AI 做一些原型了。”现在最近的一个功能，Recap 贴纸，大部分都是他写的，就是真正进入生产环境的代码。现在 Cheryl 也在做一堆原型，开 PR 之类的，还有很棒的产品功能。这看起来很迷人，但也很难驾驭，因为我们看得到风险。有时我们想把整个原型塞进生产环境，实际上呢，没错，它相当多 bug，很难驾驭，也有点乱。

They're like, all right, this guy knows how to code. And it was funny because it changed even from the time I was talking to people, getting to know the team and interviewing. By the time I actually joined and started working, it already changed. In the sense that we have this other product designer, Shawn, who at the time when I would talk to them, they were like, 'Yeah, I mean, we do primarily Figma and stuff, but I've been more and more, like with AI, working on building prototypes and stuff.' And that's where he was at, at least that's the impression I got the first time I spoke to him. Like, 'Oh okay, he's more of a traditional product designer who does mostly Figma stuff.' But now with these AI tools, he's doing more and more prototypes in code. And then also spoke to Cheryl, who has been doing a lot of the marketing stuff and also doing some of the product design. But first time I spoke with her, she was not really doing anything with code, at least that's the impression I got. And right now, everyone's doing everything. Because I thought, 'Oh, I'm going to be the guy, the designer who knows how to code.' And now it's like, 'No, everyone knows how to code,' kind of. We're all using AI tools, we're all building prototypes in code. Sometimes I build a prototype directly in the main app, in the code base. Sometimes I create a separate Xcode project for prototypes. But like Shawn, who was like, 'Yeah, I'm starting to do some prototypes with AI,' now the most recent feature, the recap stickers, he built most of it, the actual code that went into production. And now Cheryl is also doing a bunch of prototypes and opening PRs and stuff with some cool product features. It's fascinating to see, but also tricky to navigate, because we see the risks. Sometimes we try to incorporate a whole prototype into production, and actually yeah, it's quite buggy and hard to navigate, and it's a bit messy.

我们一直在边学边做，有时候进两步、退一步。连我自己都是：每当我有一个想法，我就得想——我是要在 Figma 里做，还是用代码单独做个原型，还是直接在 App 里另开一个分支来尝试？其实更关键的是：哪个更快？这通常是我的首选，尤其是在早期探索阶段，因为目标是要把想法传达出去。所以有时候 Figma 更快，但说实话，很多时候未必。我觉得我最快——至少最高效——的时候，是在一个独立的代码项目里做，比如新建一个 Xcode 项目。那是我的舒适区。但有时候我也会想：'其实我需要真实数据，或者需要 App 的其他功能配合。' 这时候直接在主 App 上开个新分支，从里面拉出来做，反而更快。不管我最后选了哪种流程，对我来说，它通常都会以一支视频收尾——一支中等制作的小视频，我会发到 Slack 上。因为我觉得，当你在做某件事时，你脑子里有那个愿景，你知道自己要做什么——但愿如此。但至少你有那个想法。目标就是尽可能清晰地把这个想法传达给别人，因为你觉得它很棒。如果你能做到想法的完美传递、一点都不遗漏，对方也会觉得它很棒。这是最理想的情况。而对我来说，视频是让想法在人与人之间传递时最有效的方式。它是信息损耗最小的形式。如果我只做一个静态 mock-up——发一张图——那会漏掉很多信息，可能传递不过去。但如果是支小视频，就有动效，有个小原型。这时你在传达更多东西：流程、动画（如果有的话）。你做得更多。如果你做一个完整原型，然后把一个 build 发给对方试用，好，你又在传达更多。但对我来说，视频的好处是：我可以展示东西，一边讲，一边口头告诉你哪些地方该关注、哪些东西重要。我还能传达兴奋感，再配上一段很轻快、很向上的背景音乐，或者随便什么。

So we're learning—two steps forward, one step back sometimes. Even for me, when I have an idea, I have to think: am I going to do a Figma thing, a separate prototype in code, or go try to build this in a separate branch directly in the app? It's more like, what's going to be faster? That's usually my go-to, especially in early exploration phases where the goal is to communicate something. So sometimes the Figma thing is faster. But honestly, not a lot of times. I think the fastest—or at least the most efficient—I am is in a separate isolated code project, like a new Xcode project. That's my sweet spot. But sometimes I'm like, 'Actually, I need real data, or I need other features of the app to work with this.' And sometimes it is just faster to create a new branch of the main app and pull from there. Whatever flow or process I decide to go with, for me it ends usually with a video—a medium-production little video I share on Slack. Because I feel like when you're working on something, you have the vision of what you're trying to do. I hope so. But you have the idea. The goal is to communicate this idea as cleanly as you can to someone else, because you think it's awesome. If you do a perfect transfer of the idea without losing anything, the other person is going to think it's awesome as well. That's the ideal. And for me, video is the most effective way of transferring an idea from one person to another. It's the format with the least loss of information. If I just do a static mock-up—here's a picture—there's a lot missing that might not transfer. But if it's a little video, there's motion, there's a little prototype. Now you're communicating more: communicating the flow, communicating animation if there is any. You're doing more. If you make a whole prototype and send them a build to try it, okay, you're communicating even more. But for me, the video lets me show you things, talk over it, and verbally tell you all the things you should focus on and what's important. I can communicate excitement, paired with a very light upbeat soundtrack or whatever.

你还会加背景音乐？

You add soundtracks to it?

哦，兄弟，会啊。我会搞一个小的迷你——

Oh, dude, yeah. I do like a little mini—

好了好了，我们懂了。那再往深说说：一支好的视频应该包含什么？我从来没加过配乐，但现在非常想了解。

Okay, we get it. Okay, go deeper here. What makes a good video? Talk about what is included in it, because I've never added a soundtrack, but now I'm very interested.

哦，这算是我在做这种视频时要遵守的准则。必须控制在 10 分钟以内，这是一条铁律，因为没人会坐在那里看一支发在 Slack 上的 30 分钟视频。10 分钟以内，理想是 5 分钟。这是最精华的片段——我乐意看完一支 5 分钟的视频。如果一支视频要 8 分钟，我就会想：'也许等我有更多时间了再看吧。'它就没那么——

Oh, these are the guidelines I have to follow when I'm making one of these. It has to be under 10 minutes. That's a rule, because people are not going to sit down and watch a 30-minute video on Slack. Under 10, ideally five. That's the best little nugget—I'll sit through a five-minute video. If it's an eight-minute video, I'm like, 'Maybe I'll watch it later when I have more time.' It's not as—

如果是 8 分钟，我会开到 1.5 倍速看。

I'll turn it up to 1.5 on it if it's eight minutes.

所以要这样做——视频要短。配乐的原因是：尤其当讲话很多时，如果只是在说话，就会很无聊。加一点轻快的配乐，会让它保持有趣。另外，如果你讲完一个点、要转向另一个点时，可以换一下配乐。这样对方会觉得：'好，现在是新内容了。'它感觉不一样了。然后你再加点幽默感，开些玩笑，让视频看起来好玩。只要它好玩，人们就会想看，因为有趣。说到底就是这样——做得有趣。他们会投入注意力，他们想消费这个内容，他们想看。它好玩、它很酷。做一个既有趣、又有意思、还能把想法传达得很好的东西。比如，如果我对某个功能有个想法，不要只设计功能、分享 mock-up；也不要只做个原型、录一段你使用的屏幕录制。你要做一支广告，对吧？把想法卖出去。如果你在做的新功能是那种'哇，这会很酷'的东西，那就展示别人使用它的样子，让它看起来很酷。如果是那种'我觉得这会很打动人心，人们会非常感激'的东西——比如你做的是一个给父母和祖父母用的 App——那就把它做得感人。比如我会去把皮克斯《飞屋环游记》的配乐拿来用，你懂的？啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦啦……

So you do that—it's a short video. You do the soundtrack just because, especially if there's a lot of talking, if it's just talking, it's more boring. If you add a little upbeat soundtrack, it keeps it interesting. And also, if you're talking about one point and then you move to another point, you do a little soundtrack change. Now the person feels like, 'Okay, now it's a new thing.' It feels different. Then you add some humor, you make some jokes, you make it funny to watch. And if it's funny, people will want to watch it, because it's entertaining. Ultimately, that's it—make it entertaining. They're paying attention. They want to consume this. They want to see this. It's funny. It's cool. Make something that's interesting, funny, and hopefully communicates the idea very well. Like, if I have this idea for a feature, don't just design the feature and share mock-ups. Don't just make a prototype and do a screen recording of you using the feature. Make an ad, right? Sell this idea. If you're making a new feature that's like, 'Oh, this would be so cool,' show someone using it. Make it look cool. If it's something like, 'Oh, I think this would be very emotional and people would really appreciate it'—you make this app for parents and grandparents—oh, make it emotional. Like I'd go back and drop Pixar's Up on the soundtrack, you know? Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na.

天哪，你都要让我看哭了。

Oh, man. You're going to make me tear up.

对。那段小小的钢琴曲——光是它就能在你内心唤起情感。也许这招很廉价，但嘿，你懂的。

Yeah. That little piano composition—that by itself is going to create and invoke emotion in you. And maybe it's a cheap shot, but hey, you know.

管用就行。

Whatever works.

把它卖出去。你可能会想：'这主意不错，但我不会做视频，而且听起来工作量很大。'也许是，但对我来说不会——不是因为我多擅长，而是因为多做几次就变容易了。你只需要蒙混过关、能 hack 就 hack。它不需要完美。把它做得糙一点，糙反而可能更好笑。总之，我只是想说，这种做法我仍然很少见到。我觉得它被严重低估了。但作为设计师，我们一直在推销想法、传达想法。如果你还没试过用视频去推销这些想法，那就试试吧。

Sell it. And so you might think, 'That's great, but I don't know how to do video, and that sounds like a lot of work.' It might, but for me it's not—not because I'm so good at it, but because you do it a bunch of times and then it becomes easier. You just fake it and hack it. It doesn't need to be perfect. Just make it scrappy, which can make it even more funny. Anyway, I'm just saying that's something I still don't see a lot. I think it's very underutilized. But as designers, we're always trying to sell ideas and communicate ideas. And if you haven't been using videos to sell those ideas, try it.

在过去一年里，Dive Club 让我非常清楚地看到一件事：设计实践正在改变。旧的反馈流程在当今世界已经不太够用了。所以我很兴奋地宣布，InFlight 正式进入公开测试版。它是我一直想要的反馈工具，而且是为一个以 AI 的速度运转的世界而打造的。我可以分享原型，用视频演示来补充背景信息，而 InFlight 能让我轻松拿到推进所需的精确反馈——无论是投票决定方向，还是给新想法开绿灯、准备上线。这一切都可以通过一个链接完成，我可以丢进 Slack，或者发给核心用户去体验新原型。我每天都会用 InFlight，它彻底改变了我分享工作的方式。所以我很期待你来试试这个产品；如果你想聊聊它，就发邮件到 rid@inflight.co。

One thing that Dive Club has made abundantly clear to me over the last year is that the practice of design is changing. And the old process of getting feedback just doesn't quite cut it in today's world. That's why I'm excited to announce that InFlight is officially in open beta. It's the feedback tool that I've always wanted, and it's built for a world that moves at the speed of AI. So I can share my prototypes, give context in video walkthroughs, and InFlight makes it easy to get the exact feedback that I need to move forward—whether it's voting on directions or maybe even getting the green light to ship a new idea. And all of this is available in a single link that I can drop into Slack or maybe even share with power users to test out a new prototype. I use InFlight every day, and it's totally transformed the way that I share work. So I'm excited for you to try the product, and if you ever want to jam about it, just email me at rid@inflight.co.

我喜欢这个说法。它让我想起一件我至今仍在思考的事——大概是我最早做的 30 期节目里，Gabe Valdivia 说过：最优秀的设计师几乎就像自己组织里的小型 TikTok 创作者。

I love that. It ties back to something I still think about—from one of my first 30 episodes probably—where Gabe Valdivia talked about how the best designers are almost like little TikTok creators inside their orgs.

你需要娱乐大家，才能获得对你想法的认同（buy-in）。这是一种技能，感觉它不太属于设计师该负责的边界之内，也不像是我们该思考的工艺和实践方式。但如果你真正投入其中，它真的非常、非常宝贵。然而，我不知道，我很少听到有人谈论它。我觉得它被严重低估了。我们经常说，嗯，定义问题，提供好的背景。对，完全同意。但你如何让事情变得有娱乐性，比如音乐、幽默？我觉得这非常迷人。对于一个受到启发、心想“好吧，我要试试这个”的人来说，他们根本不知道你用什么工具。一个人是怎么想到拍第一个视频的？

And you got to entertain people in order to get buy-in for your ideas. It's one of those skills that doesn't feel like it fits inside the boundary lines of what a designer should be responsible for, or how we should think about our craft and our practice. But if you lean into it, it's really, really valuable. And yet, I don't hear a lot of people talk about it. I think it's radically underutilized. We talk a lot about framing the problem and giving good context. Yes, totally. But how can you make things entertaining—music, humor? I think that's fascinating. For somebody who's inspired and thinks, 'All right, I'm going to try this,' they have no idea what tools you even use. How does somebody think about the very first video?

屏幕录制这类东西，如果是快速录屏，我大部分时候用 ScreenFlow。再退一步，如果事情很简单、很快，而且我不需要配乐之类，我只是录个屏展示原型什么的，我会用 CleanShot。我就直接录屏。但 CleanShot 有个功能，可以把你的摄像头画面加进去，作为一个画中画的小圆圈。如果你能看到对方的脸，而不是只在背景里有个声音，效果会更好。但那并不是很有趣或娱乐性很强。所以我不用那些。我打开 Hand Mirror。这是个很棒的 App，你应该——每个人都应该下载。我觉得它是最好的 App 之一。

For screen recordings, I'll use ScreenFlow for a quick screen recording, mostly. Even one step back—if it's something very simple and quick, and I'm not doing soundtracks or anything, I'm just recording the screen to show a prototype or whatever—I'll use CleanShot. I'll just record the screen. But CleanShot has this feature where you can add your camera as a little picture-in-picture circle. It helps if you see your face instead of just hearing a voice in the background. But that's not very funny or entertaining. So what I do is I don't use those. I use Hand Mirror. It's a great app. You should—everyone should download it. I feel like it's one of the best apps.

我觉得 Hand Mirror 可能是有史以来最伟大的 App 之一。

I think Hand Mirror might be one of the greatest apps ever made.

对。绝对。绝对的传奇。总之，我用 Hand——

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely a legend. Anyway, I use Hand—

也许人们不会——我是说，我开玩笑的。我不是……我们下一个问题再找你。继续讲吧，你做得很好。

Maybe people don't—I mean, I'm joking. I don't... We'll get you at the next question. Just keep going. You're doing great.

总之，我打开 Hand Mirror，它有一个小窗口。我把这个窗口拖进我正在录制的画面里，调整大小。就连你开始视频的方式也很重要。如果你开头说：“大家好，我想给你看看我做的这个原型。”这是一种方式。你也可以这样：开始录制屏幕，然后把一个带你自己画面的 Hand Mirror 视频窗口拖进镜头，说：“哦，嘿，我想给你看看这个原型……”你知道，这有点傻。你得习惯有点傻。没关系的，人们不会取笑你。这样做会有点粗糙，但也让它更不同、更有娱乐性。我会用 CleanShot 和 ScreenFlow 做录屏后的基础剪辑。但我还会常用 Keynote，也会用手机拍一些 B-roll。我注意到——如果你去我的 Twitter 看刚才说的那个复古片头视频——如果你只是放一段视频的屏幕录制，它是有一些情感分量的。但如果你录一个人拿着手机看同样的内容，感觉完全不一样。更真实。所以很多时候，其实是大多数时候，我不会去录屏幕上的模拟器，而是把 App 加载到我的设备上，拿着设备，以轻微的角度录我自己在用的样子。这样更真实。展示角色在看着什么是一回事，展示角色看着那些东西时的表情反应又是另一回事，它承载的分量不同。这些小技巧——我会拍很多 B-roll，很多我自己使用 App 的画面。比如我想说：“好，想象你下班回家，坐到书桌前，打开这个 App。”我就会录自己走进来、坐下、打开 App 的过程。

Anyway, what I do is I open Hand Mirror and there's a little window. I drag the window into the frame I'm recording, resize it. Even just the way you start the video matters. If you start by saying, 'Hey everyone, I want to show you this prototype I made,' that's one way to go. You can do that. But you can also start recording the screen, then drag a Hand Mirror video window with yourself in it into the frame, and say, 'Ooh, hey. I want to show you the prototype...' You know, it's kind of silly. You have to be comfortable being a bit silly. It's okay—people won't make fun of you. Doing something scrappier makes it different and more entertaining. And yes, I use CleanShot and ScreenFlow for basic editing after recording. But I also use Keynote a lot, and I use my phone to record B-roll. I've noticed—if you go on my Twitter, you can see that retro intro we just talked about—a screen recording of the video carries some emotional weight. But if you record someone holding the phone and seeing the same content, it hits differently. It's more real. So a lot of times—most of the time, actually—instead of recording the simulator on screen, I'll load it on my device, hold the device, and record myself using it at a slight angle. It makes it more real. It's one thing to show what a character is looking at; it's another to show the character's face reacting to what they're seeing. It carries a different weight. Those little tips—I do a lot of B-roll, a lot of me using the app. Like, if I'm trying to say, 'Okay, imagine you come home from work, sit at your desk, and open this app,' I'll record myself coming in, sitting down, and opening the app.

不会吧。就是为了让你在说的时候能看到那个画面，这太酷了。

No way. Just so you can see that as you're—That's cool.

当我说的时候，你也能看到。这样会让内容更有趣一点。所以对，用你的手机拍一些视频，也拍一些你手机上的画面。然后再做些小剪辑。我用 Final Cut，因为我是老古董。我不是老古董，但有时候我觉得自己是。

As I'm saying it, you see it too. Again, it makes it a bit more entertaining. So yeah, use your phone, record some video, record videos of your phone. Then do little edits. I use Final Cut because I'm a boomer. I'm not a boomer, but sometimes I feel like one.

你一直试图暴露自己的年龄。

You keep trying to date yourself.

我没那么老，但我确实觉得自己很老。对吧？每次我说自己没那么老，就不得不加上一句我觉得自己很老。我们一开始在聊 Leopard——这期播客就是这么开场的。

I'm not that old, but I do feel very old. Right? Every time I say I'm not that old, I have to add that I feel very old. We started talking about Leopard—that's how we opened this podcast.

对，是你起的头。是什么？Snow Leopard 吗？

Yes, you started. What is it? Snow Leopard?

我说：“不是。”不，我比那更老。天哪。

I'm like, 'No.' No, I'm older than that. Oh man.

我们来聊聊 Hand Mirror 和一篮子个人项目吧。我们聊了很多关于你的个人表达、软件创作，以及创造那些能让人有所感触的东西，还有这些在你的职业生涯中有多大程度的激励作用。我觉得你有很多机会真正投入其中，因为你在某种程度上是为自己设计。所以，有没有一些个人产品的例子，我们可以深入看看？考虑到这种渴望——创造让人有感觉的软件，加入惊喜和愉悦，甚至反映作为创作者的你是谁——这在实践中是什么样子？有没有一些地方或作品，你做过之后会说：“对，这就是我真正追求那种感觉的地方？”

Let's talk about Hand Mirror and the bucket of personal projects. We've talked a lot about your personal expression and software, creating things that make people feel something, and how much of a motivating factor that's been in your career. I think you've had a lot of opportunities to really lean into that because you're designing for yourself in some ways. So are there examples from personal products we can go deep into? Given this desire to create software that makes people feel something and adds surprise and delight—a reflection of who you are as a creator—what does that look like in practice? Are there places or things you've made where you thought, 'Yeah, this is where I really reached for that feeling?'

这是我现在仍在试图弄清楚的一件事。我不知道答案是什么。如果我知道没有人会看到我的作品，结果会不会不一样？我不知道答案。

It's one thing I'm still trying to figure out. I don't know what the answer is. If I somehow knew that no one was going to see my work, would it look different? I don't know the answer.

有意思。对。

Interesting. Yeah.

你知道，我做的所有小 App，所有业余项目——我一开始的假设都是没人会用。它们通常非常小众，而且 100% 是从解决我自己的需求开始的。比如，我想要一个能做这个事的 App，于是我开始做。从一开始，我就在想：“对，但我要把它做成一个产品，我要发布它，我要把它放到商店里。”它会是一个产品，但它永远始于“我需要它，我希望这个 App 存在”。有时候它们已经存在了，但方式不同。我知道可能已经有能打开相机的 App，但我觉得我可以做得更简单。我希望它以某种方式工作。构建这个东西的过程本身很有趣。而在这个过程中把它做得更有趣、更有娱乐性，有点像我的货币、我的燃料。如果我不喜欢它，不想去构建某个东西，我就没有动力和精力。要么我不会去做，要么我会做得很差。所以我需要找到能让我有动力、有热情去做某些事情的方法。

You know, all the little apps I make on the side, all my side projects—I start with the assumption that no one's going to use this. They're usually very niche, and 100% started as me scratching my own itch. Like, I want an app that does this, so I start building it. And right from the start, I build it already thinking, 'Yeah, but I'll make an app out of it. I'll distribute it. I'll put it in the store.' It's going to be a product, but it always starts with 'I need it. I want this app to exist.' Sometimes they already exist, but differently. I know maybe there are already apps that open the camera, but I feel like I can make it even simpler. I want it to work in a certain way. The journey of building the thing is fun. Making it funnier and more entertaining during the process is kind of like my currency, my fuel. If I don't like it, if I don't want to build something, I don't have the motivation and energy. Either I won't do it, or I'll do a bad job. So I need to find ways that make me motivated and excited to do certain things.

Hand Mirror 是我目前最受欢迎的个人项目，也是唯一一个真正破圈、冲出我所处的这个小极客圈子的项目。它起源于新冠疫情期间。当时我想在加入视频通话前检查一下摄像头。现在 Zoom、Google Meet 这类工具里都有这个功能：通话开始前你可以看到自己的摄像头画面。但那时候还没有。是因为 Hand Mirror 才有的吗？谁知道呢，没人知道。不是啦。反正我想检查摄像头，就打开 Photo Booth。当时我用的是 Raycast 或 Spotlight，输入 p h o，Photo Booth 就会慢慢冒出来，然后我按回车。Spotlight 这类应用会学习你的行为。所以如果你输入 p h，按回车并选择 Photo Booth，它就会把 Photo Booth 顶到第一位。以后你每次输入 PH，Photo Booth 就在那里。但我不想让 Photo Booth 排第一，我想要的是「照片」（Photos）。你输入 PH 时，我脑子里默认的是「照片」。所以我很烦 Photo Booth 被用得那么频繁。我就想：『我不想这样。』于是我说：『我要做一个小东西，点一下菜单栏里的按钮，就能看到摄像头画面。』就是这样。而且各位，那是在 AI 之前，我是纯手动把它们写出来的。

Hand Mirror is by far my most popular side project. It's the only one that really broke out of the little nerd circle that I'm in. It started during COVID. I wanted to check my camera before joining video calls. Nowadays, Zoom and Google Meet and all of that, I think they have this feature where before joining a call you can see your camera feed. But at the time that didn't exist. Was it because of Hand Mirror? Who knows? No one knows. No. But I wanted to check my camera, and I was opening Photo Booth. So I use Raycast or Spotlight at the time, and I would type 'pho' and eventually Photo Booth would appear. I'd hit Enter. Spotlight and those types of apps learn from your behavior. So if you do 'ph' and then hit Enter and select Photo Booth, it'll promote that to the top spot. So every time you do 'ph', Photo Booth is there. But I don't want Photo Booth to be the top spot. I want Photos. If you do 'ph', my brain expects Photos. So I was annoyed that Photo Booth had been used so often. And I think, 'I don't want to do this.' So I'm like, 'I want to build a thing where you click a button in the menu bar and you see your camera.' That was it. And I built that before AI, y'all. I did this by hand.

反正，这是再简单不过的一个应用。真的就像一个小演示项目。简单到后来我提交 App Store 时，被拒了，因为审核说：『这个应用太简单了，你需要加更多东西。』

Anyway, it was the simplest app possible. This is like a little demo project, really. It was so simple, in fact, that when I submitted to the App Store, it got rejected because it said, 'It's too simple of an app. You need to add more stuff.'

不会吧。

No way.

是啊，好吧。我当时想：『行吧，我也不知道还能加什么。这应用就这样了。』所以上线的时候，它根本不在 App Store，我就把它放到网站上。结果因为疫情，还有天知道为什么，The Verge 看中了它，写了篇文章。然后它就火了。后来我才想：『好吧，我真的很想让它上架 App Store，因为我连更新的途径都没做。』所以我又加了些东西：加了个「关于」页，加了个设置页。我强迫自己做成有设置的样子。所以就有了一些小图标、不同的图标之类的。结果苹果居然就允许它上架了。

Yeah, okay. I was like, 'Okay, I don't know what else to add. This is the app.' So it wasn't in the App Store when I launched it. I just put it on the website. And then, because of COVID and I don't know, The Verge picked it up and wrote about it. And then it blew up. After the fact, I was like, 'All right, I really want to put it in the App Store because I didn't even build a way to update the app.' So then I added some more stuff. I added an about page and a settings page. I forced myself to have settings. So I had little icons, different icons, or whatever. And apparently that was enough for Apple to allow it in the App Store.

这已经是最简单的应用了，没什么好琢磨的。但我想：『好吧，我有个「关于」页，那这个页面里放什么呢？当然要有图标、名称、版本号，然后再加些致谢吧。』所以就有了「创建者」「特别感谢」之类的内容。然后应用图标是一面小镜子，带着 Photo Booth 的那种幕帘。我们用的就是红色幕帘。我心想：『如果在这里能把幕帘拉开，然后你会在应用图标里看到自己，因为那是一面镜子，那该多好啊。』所以我就把摄像头画面接到那里。你一弄，就会觉得：『哈哈，这挺有意思的。』虽然只是个小东西，但你会觉得：『哎，真不错。』

This is like the simplest app possible and there's not much for you to play around with. But I'm like, 'Okay, I have an about page. What should I do in the about page? Well, it should be the icon and the name and the version name, and then let me add some credits.' So you'd have 'Created by' and 'Special thanks to' and all that stuff. And then the app icon was like a little mirror with the Photo Booth curtain. That's why we had the red curtain. And I thought, 'Wouldn't it be nice if I could move the curtain here and then you could see yourself in the app icon because it's a mirror.' So I'd do the camera view from there. And then you'd do it and you're like, 'Yeah, that's funny.' I mean, it's a little thing, but you're like, 'Yeah, that's cool.'

接着我就想：『嘿，如果我给自己挖个坑，做成一个需要解锁 Hand Mirror Plus 的东西——而且每个人都应该解锁——那是不是很有意思？』其实，对我职业生涯帮助最大的事情之一，就是当你们解锁 Hand Mirror Plus 的时候。那真是……是啊，我觉得每个人都该解锁。

And then, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny if I designed myself into a corner where if you unlocked Hand Mirror Plus—which everyone should do.' Actually, one of the best things for my career is when you unlocked Hand Mirror Plus. That was... Yeah, everyone should do it, I think.

我很骄傲地说，我解锁了。我确实解锁了，真的解锁了。

I'm proud to say that I did it. I did it. I did it.

那当然，所以你才位列最厉害的人之一。

Of course, and that's why you're one of the greats.

呃，第三个理由是什么？

What's um... this third reason?

反正我给自己挖了个坑，把那个做成一个开关。比如你订阅后，开关就打开。然后我想：『哦等等，但你不能退订。』而且我人也懒。我非常懒，不想再设计别的东西。所以我就想：『嘿，也许这个开关，如果你试着关掉它，它会晃一晃然后说：不，抱歉，你不能这么做。』于是我就这么做了。我就想：『如果你试，它就会晃动然后说：抱歉，概不退回。你已经开通了。』所以很多这种小事就是：『嘿，是不是很有趣？做吧，做吧。』在做个人项目的时候，没什么压力，谁在乎呢，做就完了。

Anyway, so I designed myself into a corner where I put that as a toggle. So if you subscribe, it turns on the toggle. And then I thought, 'Oh wait, but you can't unsubscribe.' So I was lazy also. I'm very lazy, so I don't want to design something else. So I was like, 'Hey, maybe the toggle, if you try to turn it off, shakes and says, No, sorry, you can't do that.' So that's what I did. I was like, 'If you try it, it just shakes and says, Sorry, no take-backsies. Like, you have it.' So a lot of these little things like, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny? Just do it.' In a side project, in that type of no pressure, who cares, do it.

到了该给这个可解锁的 Hand Mirror 起名的时候，我脑子里是『Hand Mirror Plus、Hand Mirror Plus』，因为大家都在做 Plus 或者 Hand Mirror Pro，对吧？但到底该用「＋」号还是单词「Plus」？我当时也不知道。然后我想在界面里测试一下，所以我做了个小功能：如果你点击它，它就会切换文字、标签。这样我就能看看效果，然后觉得：『嗯，这还挺好笑的。』接着我又加了更多，比如 Hand Mirror Ultra、Hand Mirror Plus Plus、Hand Mirror 随便什么。我就是不停地加。然后如果你点它，标签就会切换。我就想：『哦，如果人们能自己切换名字，那还真挺有趣的。』然后我又想到：『应用里还有哪些地方显示了 Hand Mirror Plus 这个名字？』于是我把应用里所有的标签都做成可点击切换名字。然后我又加了 Hand Mirror 3000、hand mirror 3000，能想到什么就加什么。这样挺好的。

When it was time for me to come up with a name for the unlockable Hand Mirror or whatever, I was like, 'Hand Mirror Plus, Hand Mirror Plus' because everyone's doing the Plus or Hand Mirror Pro, right? But should it be 'Plus' or the plus sign or the word 'Plus'? And I just didn't know. And then I wanted to test in the UI, so I built the thing where if you clicked on it, it would switch the string, the label. So I could look at it and I'm like, 'Well, that's kind of funny.' And then I added more like Hand Mirror Ultra, Hand Mirror Plus Plus, Hand Mirror Whatever. I just started adding more and more. And then if you clicked on it, it would switch the labels. Like, 'Oh, that actually could be funny if people could switch the name.' And then I got, 'What else in the app do I show the name Hand Mirror Plus?' So then everywhere in the app, if you click on the label, it changes the name. And then I added Hand Mirror 3000, hand mirror 3000, whatever I can come up with. That's good.

我当时在看《我为喜剧狂》（30 Rock），所以就想到 Hand Mirror Rural Juror 这种梗。不知道你知不知道这剧。反正不管了。只要我觉得有点好笑，哪怕只是一点点，我就会加上去。这些东西让开发过程变得更轻松、更有意思。哪怕只是因为它能让你截个图发条推文，那就很有趣。所以一定要这样做。如果你想着：『这会不会很有趣？』那就去做。就是去做，为什么不呢？

I was watching 30 Rock, so like Hand Mirror Rural Juror. I don't know if you know that. Like, whatever. If I think it's even just a tiny bit funny, I add it. So these things just make the process of building it a bit easier. It's a bit more entertaining. Even if it's just because then you can take a screenshot and tweet about it. That's funny. So totally do it. If you think, 'Wouldn't it be funny?', do it. Just do it. Why not?

是啊。这正是让我对这个时代感到特别兴奋的原因之一——你会看到多得多的设计师个人项目，因为你不需要用多年编程经验来换取这种能力。哪怕你完全不懂这些东西是怎么运作的，你依然能做出点什么。于是你就有了一片可以表达自我的空间。因为我还记得，天哪，我已经不记得我当时用的什么了，也许是 Hand Mirror。我不记得是怎么发现你的东西的。但当时我就想：『这家伙是谁？』然后我点进你的网站，看到你在网页首屏那儿探出身子，朝我挥手，像是要把我赶走。我就想：『你知道吗？这很好玩。』幽默是用户体验里很重要的一部分，你知道吗？我们平时不会这么想。我们会觉得幽默不算 UX 设计。但不是的，实际上，这是你很多个人项目的核心原则，也是它们之所以出色的重要原因。再往前说，看看我们这些专业人士、播客主持人，还有这一切串联起来的缘分。

Yeah. It's one of the things that makes me so excited about the era that we're in right now — you see way more designer side projects because you didn't have to earn the ability with years of coding under your belt. Even if you have no idea how any of it works, you can still kind of make something. So you have this surface area where you can do the kind of personal expression. Because I remember, gosh, I don't remember what I would have been using. Maybe it was Hand Mirror. I can't remember when I found your stuff. But then I was like, 'Who is this guy?' And then I clicked through to your website, and it's you leaning over the hero section and waving, trying to shoo me on. I'm like, 'You know what? This is funny.' Humor is a big part of a user experience, you know? We don't think about it. We think humor isn't UX design. But no, actually this is a core tenet of a lot of your side projects, and it's what makes them good in many ways. To go all the way back, look at us professionals, podcasters, and the tying up of everything.

回到最开始——做那些能让人产生感受的东西。如果你做的东西有趣、让人发笑，我不是说非得笑出声，而是你会想‘嗯？’那也是一种感受。发现某个东西有趣，让你觉得它好笑，这本身就是一种方式，让人能感受到你的作品，感受到一些东西。而一旦你让人产生了某种感受，就会更容易被记住。你会记住那些让你有特定感受的事物，而非那些让你觉得‘天哪，这工作流真快，十年前那款 app，还记得吗？’——你不记得。我并不是说那些东西不重要，它们非常重要，但情绪，情绪会留下来。

To go back to the beginning, doing something that makes people feel something. If you do something that is funny and makes people laugh—I don't mean necessarily out loud, but if you're like, 'huh?' That's a feeling. Finding something funny makes you feel like it's funny, and that's one way of making people feel your work, feel something. And if you make people feel something, it's way more memorable. You'll remember the things that made you feel a certain way. Not necessarily the things like, 'Oh man, that was such a fast workflow—that app from 10 years ago, remember?' No, you don't. And I'm not saying those things aren't important—they are very important—but the emotion, that will stay.

我网站上的那个东西——又一次，我把自己逼到了墙角，因为大家喜欢它，而我现在没有更好的想法。你没法改。因为我有个绿幕，一个朋友送我的。Marissa——我想特别感谢她，因为我们在 Netlify 共事过——有一天她送了我一块绿幕，改变了我的人生。总之，然后我就做了那个（视频），我想：‘既然我在这儿，我打了招呼，那接下来还能干什么？我怎么离开，对吧？还是说我要循环这个视频？’循环视频从来都不好看。所以我又想：‘好吧，也许这样会有趣。’再一次打破第四面墙，还有那种我变得无聊、或者变得尴尬的桥段。所以在我网站上，我一跳出来打招呼，然后我变得特别尴尬，因为我觉得：‘你为什么还在看着我？请滚动。’如果你滚动了——这才是你该做的——那你就不会看到我尴尬，所以就不尴尬。没问题。但如果你留在那儿看着我——别这样，别太诡异。是的，我会尴尬，然后我会试着告诉你：‘走开。’然后我就消失了。如果你一直等着，我最终会回来，然后说：‘你怎么还在？’而且我真的把这一点发挥到了极致。但说到底，这只是因为它简单。做视频比做一个超级酷的动画交互首屏要容易得多，因为我懒，而且我不知道怎么做那些东西。所以我想：‘好吧，我就做视频，因为这简单。’

The thing on my website—again, I designed myself into a corner because people liked it, and now I don't have a better idea. You can't change it. I had a green screen because a friend of mine sent me one. Marissa—I want to give her a shout-out because we worked together at Netlify—one day she sent me a green screen and changed my life. Anyway, so then I did that and I thought, 'Well, since I'm here and I say hi, what else am I going to do? How do I leave, right? Or do I loop this video?' A looping video is never nice to see. So then I thought, 'Okay, maybe it'll be funny.' Again, breaking the fourth wall, and things like where I get bored or it gets awkward. So on my website, I jump out and say hi, and then I get really awkward because I'm like, 'Why are you still looking at me? Please scroll.' And if you scroll—which is what you should be doing—then you don't see me get awkward, so it's not awkward. So it's okay. But if you stay there and look at me—don't do it, don't be creepy. Yeah, I get awkward, and then I try to tell you, 'Go away.' And then I leave. And if you just wait, I eventually come back and I'm like, 'Why are you still here?' And then I really pushed that to the max as far as I could go. But again, it's just because it was easy. It's way easier for me to make a video than to create a super cool animated interactive hero section, because I'm lazy and I don't know how to do that stuff. So I'm like, 'Well, I'll do the video because that's easy.'

那我们聊聊，如果有人受这段对话启发呢？他们想把自己作品的可能性往这个新方向挖掘。他们现在感受不到与产出的那种连接，也许原因在于他们所在的工作环境更像 Netlify，而不是 Retro。他们会有一种追寻，比如‘我该拿这个怎么办？’你对这样的人有什么建议吗？

Can we talk to somebody who is inspired by this conversation? They want to tap into this new strain of what their work can be, you know? They don't feel this connection to output right now, and maybe the reason is because they're working somewhere that feels a lot more like Netlify than Retro. And they're kind of hunting for, like, what do I even do with this, you know? Do you have any thoughts for that person?

回到那种感觉——就是‘会不会很有趣？’99% 的时候，是的，会很有趣，但是别想了。我们有很多理由不去做某件事。但你要一直去追那些小念头。不要只是觉得‘那样会不会有意思？’然后就算了。也许给我看看。做个小型 mockup，做个原型。你在想什么？这样会不会有趣？如果你问自己这个问题，那就回答它。试一试。你觉得有趣吗？顺便说一句，只要你自己觉得有趣，对我来说就够了。在那个意义上，我总是为自己设计。我不是要坐下来想：‘好，现在来点儿搞笑的，讲个笑话。’你懂我的意思吗？就像有人甚至对喜剧演员说：‘嘿，逗我笑。’

Going back to that feeling—like, wouldn't it be funny? 99% of the time, yeah, it would, but no, come on. There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn't do whatever. But always chase those little ideas. Don't just think, 'Wouldn't it be funny?' and move on. Maybe show me. Do a little mock, do a little prototype. What are you thinking? Would it be funny? If that's a question you ask yourself, answer it. Give it a try. Do you think it's funny? If you think it's funny, that's good enough for me, by the way. I always like to design for myself in that sense. I'm not trying to sit down and say, 'All right, now here, try to be funny, tell a joke.' You know what I mean? It's like if someone even said to comedians, 'Hey, make me laugh.'

对。

Yeah.

他们，我打赌他们会很挣扎。他们没法直接——我不知道。不是那样的。你不能说‘嘿，要有意义。嘿，要有趣。’我做不到。所以更像是，别强迫它。别在这里试图做点什么有意义的东西。只是让自己处于一种对这些时刻开放的状态。不是盯着屏幕说‘哦，这是一个空状态’——嘿，空状态很适合这种连接，因为空状态就是‘嗯，这是空的，没关系，没什么可显示的’。所以我们天然就可以画插画。你知道，我觉得这个行业就是这么起家的。但与其试图强加一些东西，不如让自己变得脆弱、对这些时刻敞开。所以当你设计的时候，你会想：‘嘿，这样会不会有意思？’或‘这会成为一件什么样的事？’然后去追它们。但不要强迫。也许——我觉得这么说也没问题——也许你不是那种会做搞笑工作的人。我不知道。

They, I bet they struggle. They can't just—I don't know. That's not how it works. You can't say, 'Hey, be meaningful. Hey, be funny.' I can't do that. So it's more like, don't force it. Don't try to do something meaningful here. Just put yourself in a state where you are open to those moments. Instead of looking at a screen and thinking, 'Oh, this is an empty state'—hey, empty states are great for this type of connection, because empty states are like, well, it's empty, it's fine, there's nothing to show. So we're already like, do illustrations. You know, that's how I think the industry started. But instead of trying to force something, just make yourself vulnerable and open to these moments. So as you're designing, be like, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny?' or 'Wouldn't this be something?' and then chase them. But don't force them. Maybe—I think this is fine to say—but maybe you're not the type of person that is going to do funny work. I don't know.

对，这正是我在想的。我在想，我不知道自己是不是天生会走到那个方向，但我试图找到那些小小的……但就是，做人就好。

Yeah, and that's where I was thinking. I'm like, I don't know if I naturally go to that place, but I'm trying to find the little... But just be human.

对，做人就好。对这样的小互动、小情绪保持敞开。我们之前谈到 Retro 那个视频。它并不是搞笑的。如果你对某些想法有某种感觉，其他人可能也会有类似的感觉。所以如果你有个想法，像是‘哦，这其实会很有意义。哦，这其实会很不一样。哦，这其实会很有创意。哦，这其实会特别酷。’酷也非常有力量。是的，酷很棒。

Yeah, just be human. Be available and open to these little interactions, these little emotions. We talked about the video in Retro. It's not funny. If you feel a certain way about certain ideas, other people will probably feel similarly. So if you have an idea that would be like, 'Oh, actually this would be really meaningful. Oh, actually this would be really different. Oh, actually this would be very creative. Oh, actually this would be really cool.' Cool is also super powerful. Yeah, cool is awesome.

酷很棒。

Cool is great.

就像‘这样会不会很酷？’是啊，试试看。

Like wouldn't this be cool? Yeah, try it.

‘人’这个词。这是我现在的抓手。因为我不搞笑。我不会靠设计中的幽默赢得人心。那完全不是我的强项。但我想在细微处接入这个东西。而且我认为‘人’——当你说‘人’的时候，我脑子所想到的是——要真的刻意去想象一个具体的另一个人正在使用它。什么会让他们开心？什么会让我开心？什么会让我措手不及？你提到了惊喜和愉悦。显然这个词被用滥了，但我们不断回到它，是有原因的。里面确实有东西。

The human word. That's the word that I'm latching onto right now. Because I'm not funny. I'm not going to win people's hearts with humor in my design. That's not where I spike at all. But I want to tap into this in little ways. And I think the human—where my brain went when you said human—is like really intentionally imagining one other person using this. Like, what would make them happy? What would make me happy? What would catch me off guard? You said the surprise and delight. Obviously incredibly overused, but there's a reason we keep coming back to it, you know? There's something there.

有一个小例子——我不知道，有点傻，不算有意义，但我喜欢它，它让我感觉很好——我在设计一个只有一个人能改动的状态，比如 InFlight 里这个项目的所有者。所以界面上会写：‘你是这个人吗？是的话请登录。’当你悬停在登录按钮上，文字变了，一个小 emoji 手会向你挥挥，然后上面写着：‘哦，你好，Rafa。’你知道吗？就是这么一个特别小的细节，但我觉得：是的，我喜欢这个。我一直在试着找这种不起眼的小东西。但说实话，现在建这些东西太容易了——只花了我 30 秒。只花了我 30 秒。我就想：‘为什么不呢？’我试了一下，然后觉得：‘嗯，我喜欢。我要把它留下来。’

A little example that—I don't know, it's kind of silly, it's not meaningful, but I liked it and it made me feel good—is I was designing this state where only one person, like the owner of this project in InFlight, could make a change. And so it was like, 'Are you this person? If yes, sign in.' And when you hover over the sign-in button, the text changes, and a little emoji hand kind of waves, and it just says, 'Oh, hi Rafa.' You know? It's such a small little detail, but I was like, yeah, I like that. And I'm trying to find little things like that where it does nothing. But honestly, now with how easy it is to build a lot of this stuff—it took me 30 seconds. It took me 30 seconds. I was like, 'Why not?' I tried it, and I was like, 'Yeah, I like that. I'm leaving that in there.'

好，对。这个真的给了我一个想法。就像设计师刚开始的时候——说实话，我不知道那种经典建议在现在的 AI 世界是否还有效，无所谓——但当设计师刚开始起步时，我总是会说：‘嘿，你还没有自己的风格。’

Okay, yeah. So, that actually gave me an idea. Just like when designers are starting out—and honestly, I don't know if that kind of classic advice is still relevant in this AI world, whatever—but like when a designer is starting out, I would always say, 'Hey, you don't have your own style yet.'

你其实并不知道自己一无所知，只是边做边摸索。一个很好的入门方法是挑一件你觉得很棒、真正喜欢的东西，然后用 Sketch 或 Figma 照着重新做一遍。光是摆放屏幕或页面上的元素，你就能慢慢学到什么是 padding 和基线，然后恍然大悟：‘哦，这些东西原来是这样对齐的。’仅仅是复刻你喜欢的作品，这个动作本身就能帮你学到东西。这有点像难过的时候强迫自己微笑：哪怕是装的，这个动作也会让你好受一点。设计屏幕时也是这样——你不是从零开始设计，而是在描摹它。但正是这个动作让你学到了一些东西，而且有些东西会留下来。

You don't really know that you don't know anything; you're just figuring it out. One great way to start is to pick something you think is great, something you really like, and recreate it in Sketch or Figma. Just by laying out elements on a screen or a page, you slowly learn about padding and baseline. You realize, 'Oh, all these things are aligned here.' The simple act of recreating things you like helps you learn. It's a bit like forcing yourself to smile when you're sad: even if it's fake, the act itself makes you feel a little happier. That's how it is—you're not designing the screen from scratch, you're tracing over it. But the act of doing it teaches you things, and some of it stays with you.

而且在这种情况下，与其告诉你‘有想法就去做’，更有用的做法是让自己进入一种状态：当你看到其他产品或其他人做的那些小交互时，把它记下来。‘哦，我刚才用了某个 App，鼠标悬停时出现了一个小小的挥手表情，真好，真可爱。’无论触发的是哪种情绪，都记下一笔。把它存起来。也许你有一个文件夹专门收集截图，或者用 Apple 备忘录随手写下来。

And in this case, rather than just telling you 'if you have an idea, do it,' it's more useful to put yourself in a mindset where, when you see little interactions from other products or other people, you make a note of it. 'Oh yes, I was using someone's app and I hovered, and a little wave emoji appeared. That was nice. That was cute.' Whatever emotion it triggers, take note. Save it somewhere. Maybe you have a folder where you keep screenshots, or an Apple Note where you jot it down.

比如，我记得几年前读了一篇博客文章。我年纪不小了，具体时间不记得了。那篇文章写得非常好，末尾有作者的签名——一个矢量签名。我当时就想：‘太酷了。’为什么？因为整篇文章里没有任何手写的东西，可那个签名就是特别酷。所以你猜怎么着？在我最早的一个个人项目——Apple Watch 游戏 Break the Safe——里，我写了一篇案例分析。然后在结尾处，我把一个签名转成矢量图放了进去。因为，没错，这样的小细节让人觉得很棒。

For instance, I remember reading a blog post years ago. I'm quite old, so I don't remember exactly when. I read a really nice piece, and at the end there was the author's signature—a vector signature. I remember thinking, 'That's so cool.' Why? Nowhere else on the page was there any kind of handwriting. But that signature—so cool. So guess what? For one of my first side projects—an Apple Watch game called Break the Safe—I wrote a case study. And at the end, I converted a signature into a vector and placed it there. Because, yes, a little detail like that is nice.

所以要时刻留意。当你刷 Twitter 或别的什么时，你会看到很多优秀的作品。其中有些会让你觉得‘哇，这个真酷’。那就记下来、存起来。等下次你做类似的事情时——就像我下次写博客文章时，就会想：‘我记得有人用了签名，感觉很优雅，那我也这么做。’

So be on the lookout. When you're scrolling through Twitter or anything else, you see so much good work. But some pieces will strike you: 'Oh, that's cool.' Make a note, save it. Then the next time you're doing something similar—like the next time I wrote a blog post, I thought, 'I remember someone used a signature, and it felt classy. I'll do that.'

Rafa，我觉得我们可以聊上好几个小时。我真的很享受这次对话的一切。在一个充满机器人、规模、效率和各种新技术讨论的世界里，这场对话非常有人情味，我很珍惜。你的视角充满生命力，令人愉悦。感谢你今天抽出时间来。

Rafa, I think we could talk for hours. I genuinely enjoyed everything about this conversation. And in a world where so much of the discourse is about robots, scale, efficiency, and all the new technology, this was a very human conversation that I appreciated. Everything about your perspective is life-giving and enjoyable. So thank you for taking the time today.

谢谢你。这真的聊得很开心。我很喜欢和你聊天。也谢谢你的邀请。

Thank you. This has been a blast. I love talking to you. Thanks for having me.