Millet "Slot King" Li Ningning

If Xiaomi runs a "black millet contest" internally, several Xiaomi employees who have exchanged views with Lei Fengwang said that Li Ningning has won a lot. As the design director of Xiaomi's ecological chain, his Tucao range covers almost every aspect of Xiaomi.

Of course, Tucao is not an end, but an effective means.

According to Li Ningning, in addition to the One More and Zhimi products developed for Xiaomi, as well as products under the Xiao Ant and Ninebot brands, Xiaomi's eco-chain design team has undertaken 70% of its millet/mike brand product designs.

If you act in moderation, it will inevitably cause greater losses.

Millet Eco Chain Design Director Li Ningning

tuyere

In October 2010, when she received a phone call from her senior brother Liu De, Li Ningning had graduated from ACCD for two years and was based in Shanghai. Do you want to be invited to join Xiaomi? She is hesitant. The doubter is a female friend who is a programmer. The other person said:

"The tide of the Internet is not allowed. You catch up with this wave and catch it. If you don't catch up, you don't know where the next wave is. Once again, after a few years of retreat, you are back to industrial design. This industry is still the same, you There is nothing wrong with it."

Li Ningning deeply believed that “one bite” became the employee of Xiaomi No. 79, and thus witnessed all the meaning of “design” in this company.

On August 11, 2011, Lei Jun released the first Xiaomi mobile phone in Beijing. With regard to industrial design, he had passed it over - the undesigned design was the best design. This sentence is obviously not the original Lei Jun, but the "new interpretation of the old words" will undoubtedly hurt those who hold the official position of design.

"From Xiaomi's business model, including the situation at the time, there is actually no problem with this statement."

Compared with Apple's designers, Li Ning will be more admired by structural engineers and manufacturers. Because she is too clear in a bold design, the implementation of the latter's implementation of how much pressure.

"To do this design, it won't get the components. Do you understand what I mean? To design for 80% of the people, I can't go too. 'Do you understand?'

Li Ningning strongly worded. Today, she still believes: “Everybody is looking for a balance between the market, supply chain, hardware, engineering and design. There is no purely design-driven enterprise.” At the same time, she also believes in Lu You’s phrase “work in poetry”. "Outside" does not give too much justification for criticism.

Of course, in addition to criticizing her "plagiarism".

Bottom line

The day when the "rice appliances, rice cookers, plagiarism, MUJI" was discussed, Li Ningning directly 'fried' because it was completely out of her expectation. " You have to have eyes to see for yourself." She blew out four physical comparison charts and became her most informed answer.

What was even more touched by his colleagues was that, except that he was almost looking for the media to confront him, Li Ningning said with a loud voice: “I said I could be ugly, but I can't say I copied it.” The bottom line of a designer was completely revealed.

In fact, Li Ningning does not like to make arguments on social media. On the one hand, in her view, aesthetics have their own claims and do not have to insist on consensus; on the other hand, the cognitive gap will make the discussion without quality. After all, evaluating design is a very low cost thing for most people.

Li Ningning emphasized that she does not belong to the "artistic stream" designer. The design works collected in life are more rational and partial. Therefore, in the process of finding the optimal solution, each judgment needs logical support. Of course, she will also have indecisive moments:

"There are two plans. It's okay. It's okay. I'm numb. I don't know which one is better."

In this case, it is generally Liu De who comes out to save the field. The reason given cannot be too subjective, because it will make her “ a bit insecure”. After years of design training, Li Ningning has a deep sense in his mind. “Great beauty is objective and has some common principles.”

However, this does not preclude occasional willfulness.

Mi Jia LED smart desk lamp is one of the products that Li Ningning participated in the design. The leaked red line let her harvest the comment that “the designer’s head was kicked by a donkey”. In response, she responded:

"The designer can certainly design the wire to be white or light gray, but adding this to the red light makes this light its character. We feel a little happy."

As for those who are still unacceptable, “ If you don’t turn left, you’ll end up looking for what you like. ”

Games

Li Ningning summed up the product commonality that can stimulate his design desire:

"Is the product I want to use in my life, but others are doing so poorly that I can't buy it."

Of course, this picking not only comes from the appearance, quality is obviously easier to become a product of shortcomings. And if there is exactly such a project inside, Li Ningning at this time will become very "unfriendly":

"The design and trial production samples given by the eco-chain company are bull shit. I will just say, forcing them to change."

There are only two reasons to be able to convince her - mass production can not be, reliability is too poor. Obviously, because the standards vary from person to person, this is where the conflict is most likely to occur. According to Li Ningning's experience, most hardware engineers are conservative and will give themselves a bit of room. Her strategy is to 'kill' first, similar to bargaining:

"You give me 4mm less first"

"4mm really can not be reduced, so be it, I give you a 2mm reduction."

"You know that you can test out the opponent's bottom line." Li Ningning laughed. However, with the increase in the number of rice products, the technical details involved will be more complicated. Besides asking Xiaomi's own engineers, Li Ningning can only ask over and over again: Why do you do this? What is the current situation? What is the material inside it? What kind of process is...

"It's really quite a bit of a jealousy during the project. It's always wringing."

What is gratifying is that as the cooperation deepens, the two sides will gradually establish a tacit agreement. "Even PMs (product managers) and QA (Quality Control) will increasingly endorse ID (design) and clear up some obstacles."

However, Li Ningning knew: When it comes to hardware, many pits are inescapable. When she described this experience, she mentioned "strange" and "spiritual."

method

It is understood that the delay in the release of the Mijia products is a normal state:

"It is because of some small but unacceptable flaws that must be solved. Every time there are problems every time, and it is the same as opening a lot."

The threshold is bound to have, better mold design capabilities, and familiarity with the material can avoid some of the risks:

"Such as unequal wall thicknesses are prone to stress marks or shrinkage. If conditions permit, they can be covered by spraying. When black highlights are made, they are easily scratched when demoulding, so do you think you have to do black highlights or draft? The slope can't be bigger."

There are many known "pits," but if they really face these problems, Li Ningning may still give priority to design:

" Sometimes I just want to do black highlights. To be matt is not ugly, then you know."

The price of "recognition" is repeated trials and even scrapping. However, in Li Ningning's view, this can not be simply summarized as willfulness, because the user experience and life experience related, although consumers do not understand the engineering principles, but they can feel the exquisite details in an instant.

Of course, from the whole point of view, the design style of the Mi family can also be traced:

Pursuit of rationality, product molding based on the most compact hardware stack;

Pursue minimalism and do universal design;

The pursuit of integration, single product is not abrupt, can be integrated into the background;

On the premise of this, Li Ningning will be more patient in designing Mijia products and will not let any of them outwit the other.

end

Prior to the interview, Li Ningning asked Liu De: "Organize whether or not to regulate my tone, or you can't blame me for being ruthless." At the same time, people familiar with her also reminded Lei Fengwang (search for "Lei Feng Net" public attention ) : "The problem is not too sharp, be careful Ningning will be 'fried'."

Obviously, the imaginary embarrassment did not happen.

Li Ningning did not evade any doubts and did not use one question to answer another question. She believes in facts and logic, so when she said "All things have been trimmed, there is strong rational thinking behind us" and "I am an engineer", she is very sure and sincere.