Case Study: The What, Why, and How of Yuque’s Consumer Product Line

How does Yuque think about its positioning, goals, users, and scenarios for end users?

Positioning and Goals

Before talking about planning, let’s first define what the consumer product line is doing: for people who want to grow through recording knowledge, it provides tools for knowledge construction and sharing, solving problems in fragmented information recording, structured knowledge building, knowledge review, and knowledge sharing.

The What and Why of the Consumer Product Line

What Is Recording, Why Do We Record, and What Problems Does Recording Have?

Recording is the process of using a tool or method to store valuable information outside the brain. Its purpose is later review.

• Every day, we process a large amount of information, some valuable and some meaningless
• This information is scattered and fragmented
• Because we are afraid of forgetting, we record the information we believe is valuable
• The information we believe is valuable is often more than what is actually valuable, driven by greed, hoarding, or the need to keep up
• But human memory is limited
• Working memory has limited capacity
• Long-term memory is unreliable
• The abundance of information and the limits of memory create a tension
• Fragmented information recording is an attempt to solve this problem: using tools to strengthen human memory and preserve information we consider valuable for later review
• Recording has its own challenges
• Ideas can appear anytime, anywhere; how do we capture them on the go?
• Recording comes in many forms; text is just one
• After recording a large amount of content, how can we review it easily later?
• A good recording tool should help users overcome these challenges

What Is Knowledge Construction, Why Do We Build Knowledge, and What Problems Does It Have?

Knowledge construction is the process of internalizing information. It is the process of learning: recording information, defining it clearly, organizing and categorizing it, and building connections. Its purpose is growth.

• People have a drive to become better versions of themselves
• Buying and using tools makes people feel psychologically closer to “better”
• How do we actually become better? By learning: internalizing information, expanding our knowledge system, and strengthening our ability to apply knowledge
• But learning is hard
• Learning means clarifying definitions, sorting out relationships, and connecting new information with an existing knowledge system. This process remains difficult today
• In modern society, the amount of knowledge in every field exceeds what the human brain can easily remember (the magical number seven)
• Learning is also a long-term endeavor
• The rewards of learning are substantial, but the reward cycle is too long
• People tend to prefer activities with short-term rewards
• As a result, learning is hard to sustain. Most learning behaviors require strong external motivation
• Tools are needed to make feedback in the learning process more immediate and to motivate users to keep going
• We want to become better through learning, but learning is difficult and its reward cycle is long, so it is hard to persist. This creates a tension
• Knowledge construction is an attempt to solve this problem: using hard drives so we no longer forget, documents to help us record and think, directories to help us categorize, hyperlinks to help us build connections, and visualizations such as directories and knowledge networks to give every new information point immediate positive feedback: “Look, my knowledge base is getting stronger!”
• Knowledge construction has its own challenges
• Professional concepts can feel obscure to ordinary users
• People do not naturally love studying; how can we help them persist?
• …
• A good knowledge construction tool should help users overcome these challenges

What Is Knowledge Sharing and Interaction, Why Do We Share and Interact, and What Problems Do They Have?

Knowledge sharing and interaction allow knowledge to spread within small circles and enable low-pressure communication. For authors, they bring companionship, recognition, and learning through teaching. For readers, they satisfy curiosity and create growth.

• People need recognition, fear loneliness, and are curious

Target Users

Earlier, we described our target users as “people who want to grow through recording knowledge.” This is too abstract and too broad. If we focus on the present and only look at groups we can more easily reach and understand, we can narrow the target users to programmers and students. For these groups, knowledge construction and sharing can be concretely represented as taking notes and writing blogs.

Core Scenario: The “Flow” of Knowledge Construction and Sharing

In the process of knowledge construction and sharing, we can summarize several recurring actions from user behavior. Together, they form a flow.

Explanation of “Flow”

• A “flow” is composed of user behaviors
• At first, users are inspired and feel the urge to record, so they write something into a quick note or a document
• The purpose of recording is to make later review easier
• Recording -> Reviewing is the most basic “loop” and the largest functional scope most ordinary users will touch
• As the number of quick notes and documents increases, review becomes harder. Users then develop the urge to organize, recognize the value of note tags, directories, and knowledge bases, and begin to try them
• Recording -> Organizing -> Reviewing is the advanced “loop” and the largest functional scope proficient Yuque users will touch
• As recorders keep recording, the act of recording undergoes a qualitative change
• At first, users randomly clip and collect content, but read it later = read it never
• Then they begin to annotate, trim, and integrate their own understanding and examples into the content they collect
• They move from passive input to active exploration
• They gather many viewpoints, pieces of content, and notes around a theme, then search for structure
• This completes the transformation from ordinary users to expert users
• Recorders who have undergone this qualitative change continuously refine content around themes, adjust structures, and regularly expand into new topics, forming a habit of accumulation
• Recording -> Organizing -> Accumulating -> Reviewing is the professional “loop” and the usage habit of expert Yuque users. Yuque’s current product capabilities may not even fully satisfy these habits
• Content created at every stage of the flow may be shared and interacted with

Some Thoughts on the Above Behaviors and Scenarios

• Recording
  • Recording is the starting point of everything
  • Recording is temporary and scattered
  • Recording happens anytime, anywhere
  • Recording should be fast
• Organizing
  • People don’t like organizing
  • Organizing exists to make review easier
• Reviewing
  • Review recent content frequently and old content occasionally
  • Users often only remember that they recorded something, while forgetting all other details
• Accumulation
  • A sense of ritual matters
• Sharing & Interaction
  • Sharing is for recognition, whether self-recognition or recognition from others
  • Users are eager to record valuable information they find in other people’s sharing

Each stage in the “flow” has different problems. In the recording stage, for example, inspiration can appear anytime and anywhere, so how can we help users capture these unexpected ideas? In the review stage, as content grows, finding a specific piece of information becomes harder, so how can we make search easier? To solve these problems, we need to provide a set of features that serve users across different device scenarios. This becomes the functional positioning of the consumer product line.