AI时代Perplexity高标准UX设计的启发

Perplexity’s high bar for UX in the age of AI
AI时代Perplexity高标准UX设计的启发

2023 ushered in a new age of computing. The focus of generative AI has so far been largely on the underlying tech. Meanwhile, most AI products tack closely to the chat interfaces launched by the foundational model providers. Like in the early days of PCs, these command line interfaces ask a great deal from the user.
2023 年迎来了计算的新时代。迄今为止，生成式人工智能的焦点主要集中在底层技术上。与此同时，大多数人工智能产品都与基础模型提供商推出的聊天界面紧密结合。与早期的 PC 一样，这些命令行界面对用户的要求很高。

But now it’s 2024. One company has emerged as pushing the frontier of a UX powered by AI: Perplexity. They’re reimagining how we search the web using AI. The buzz on Twitter and a Bezos-funded Series B, shows they’re onto something.
但现在已经是 2024 年了。一家公司已经崛起，正在推动人工智能驱动的用户体验的前沿：Perplexity。他们正在重新构想我们如何使用人工智能搜索网络。 Twitter 上的热议和贝索斯资助的 B 轮融资表明他们正在做一些事情。

Part of their success is keeping one foot in the past. Since human behavior is slow to change, there are first principles we can tap into. In 1994, Jakob Nielson wrote the 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Here’s how Perplexity applies them to great success.
他们成功的部分原因在于始终不忘过去。由于人类行为改变缓慢，因此我们可以利用一些首要原则。 1994 年，Jakob Nielson 撰写了用户界面设计的 10 个可用性启发法。以下是 Perplexity 如何运用它们取得巨大成功。

Heuristic 1: Visibility of system status

启发 1：系统状态的可见性

The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.
设计应始终通过在合理的时间内提供适当的反馈，让用户了解正在发生的事情。

In any product, whenever there’s a perceived performance delay, showing the user the system is still working is critical. Ideally you can cut the time down by improving system performance. Since that’s not always possible, a progress indicator is a baseline expectation. Perplexity does it even better by showing the user exactly what their model is doing as it’s crawling for the information you’ve asked for. By seeing text like “Considering 8 sources,” or “Researched and summarized,” the user gets to see not just that the system’s working, but what it’s doing and how this new thing works. The result is more trust in the technology itself. The user understands the technology better. It’s more familiar. It’s more likely to be used again.
在任何产品中，只要出现明显的性能延迟，向用户显示系统仍在运行就至关重要。理想情况下，您可以通过提高系统性能来缩短时间。由于这并不总是可行，因此进度指标是基线期望。 Perplexity 做得更好，它可以准确地向用户展示他们的模型在抓取您所要求的信息时正在做什么。通过看到“考虑 8 个来源”或“研究和总结”等文本，用户不仅可以看到系统正在工作，还可以看到它正在做什么以及这个新事物是如何工作的。结果是对技术本身更加信任。用户更好地理解技术。就比较熟悉了。再次使用的可能性更大。

Heuristic 2: The design should speak the users’ language

启发 2：设计应该讲用户的语言

Use words, phrases, and concepts familiar to the user, rather than internal jargon. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
使用用户熟悉的单词、短语和概念，而不是内部术语。遵循现实世界的惯例，使信息以自然且符合逻辑的顺序出现。

Perplexity’s choice of words is easy to understand since they use the mental model of a human conversation. A piece of text like “Ask a follow-up…” is conversational. It’s a prompt to take a step that shows the value of Perplexity: being able to quickly refine your web search results using the context of your first question. This all seems simple, but it’s hard to get these wording choices correct. The result is a more approachable, less intimidating product. It feels natural in a way no one else has previously matched.
Perplexity 的用词选择很容易理解，因为它们使用了人类对话的心理模型。像“询问后续行动……”这样的文字是对话式的。这是一个显示 Perplexity 价值的步骤的提示：能够使用第一个问题的上下文快速优化您的网络搜索结果。这一切看似简单，但要正确选择这些措辞却很难。其结果是产品更加平易近人、不那么令人生畏。这是一种前所未有的自然感觉。

Heuristic 3: User control and freedom

启发 3：用户控制和自由

Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted action without having to go through an extended process.
用户经常会错误地执行操作。他们需要一个明确标记的“紧急出口”来离开不需要的行动，而不必经历一个漫长的过程。

AI chat products generally encourage users to share the chat outputs, almost as a source of record. As a user, I haven’t found found value in these features, but Perplexity does a good job of making this more valuable by giving the user more control. Users can edit previous prompts to regenerate results. You can delete followup questions and answers. This gives you tools to edit the series of responses into a more curated package that’s more shareable.
人工智能聊天产品通常鼓励用户分享聊天输出，几乎作为记录来源。作为一名用户，我还没有发现这些功能的价值，但 Perplexity 做得很好，通过为用户提供更多控制权，使这些功能变得更有价值。用户可以编辑以前的提示来重新生成结果。您可以删除后续问题和答案。这为您提供了将一系列响应编辑为更可共享的更精心策划的包的工具。

Heuristic 4: Consistency and standards

启发 4：一致性和标准

Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions.
用户不必怀疑不同的词语、情况或动作是否意味着同一件事。遵循平台和行业惯例。

Perplexity sticks closely to common words used across the web. When there is a new term or UI introduced, they often explain its meaning via a tooltip. Users may not know every detail right away, but the Perplexity team makes it easy to understand anything novel.
困惑与网络上使用的常用词密切相关。当引入新术语或用户界面时，他们通常会通过工具提示解释其含义。用户可能无法立即了解每个细节，但 Perplexity 团队可以让您轻松理解任何新颖的内容。

Heuristic 5: Error prevention

启发 5：错误预防

*Good error messages are important, but the best designs carefully prevent problems from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions, or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
良好的错误消息很重要，但最好的设计首先会仔细防止问题的发生。要么消除容易出错的情况，要么检查它们并在用户承诺操作之前向用户提供确认选项。*

This is one of Perplexity’s breakthrough innovations. When a prompt is expected to provide results that aren’t specific enough, Perplexity asks the user to refine their question. You can assume that Perplexity looks at insufficient results (e.g. too broad, not specific enough) as a failure state. In a search product, that is the case, but incredibly it’s not one that other search providers have built as sophisticated of solutions for.
这是 Perplexity 的突破性创新之一。当提示预期提供的结果不够具体时，Perplexity 会要求用户改进他们的问题。您可以假设 Perplexity 将不充分的结果（例如太宽泛、不够具体）视为失败状态。在搜索产品中，情况就是如此，但令人难以置信的是，其他搜索提供商并没有为其构建如此复杂的解决方案。

Asking for clarification feels natural since that’s what humans do when talking to each other. Again, this helps build trust.
要求澄清是很自然的事情，因为这就是人类在相互交谈时所做的事情。同样，这有助于建立信任。

Heuristic 6: Recognition rather than recall

启发 6：识别而不是回忆

Minimize the user’s memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design (e.g. field labels or menu items) should be visible or easily retrievable when needed.
通过使元素、操作和选项可见来最小化用户的内存负载。用户不必记住从界面的一个部分到另一部分的信息。使用设计所需的信息（例如字段标签或菜单项）应该是可见的或在需要时易于检索。

This is another key innovation for Perplexity. Other generative AI chat products have been heavily reliant on recall over recognition, to the detriment of a broadly appealing UX. Perplexity recognizes that just like very few people ask questions at the end of big keynote presentations, not all users are great at asking followup questions. So, they predict what follow up question you may ask and show them at the end of every answer.
这是 Perplexity 的另一项关键创新。其他生成式人工智能聊天产品严重依赖回忆而不是识别，从而损害了具有广泛吸引力的用户体验。 Perplexity 认识到，就像很少有人在大型主题演讲结束时提出问题一样，并非所有用户都善于提出后续问题。因此，他们会预测您可能会问的后续问题，并在每个答案的末尾向他们展示。

Beyond the follow up questions, the team has invested in creating a Discover section, which features new, broadly interesting topics on a daily basis. These human curated prompts are an easy way to engage with the product, even when you don’t have a prompt of your own. Often when I tap into one of these Discover items, I find myself asking follow up questions. It’s a fun, brand new way to interact with the news.
除了后续问题之外，该团队还投资创建了“发现”部分，该部分每天都会提供新的、广泛有趣的主题。即使您没有自己的提示，这些人工策划的提示也是与产品互动的简单方法。通常，当我点击这些“发现”项目之一时，我发现自己会提出后续问题。这是一种有趣的、全新的新闻互动方式。

Just like the evolution from command line interfaces to graphical user interfaces, Perplexity’s choice to always give users a path forward via recognition is a big step forward in making this technology more approachable to the masses.
就像从命令行界面到图形用户界面的演变一样，Perplexity 选择始终通过识别为用户提供一条前进的道路，这是使这项技术更易于大众使用的一大进步。

Heuristic 7: Flexibility and efficiency of use

启发7：使用的灵活性和效率

Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user so that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
对新手用户隐藏的快捷方式可以加快专家用户的交互速度，以便设计可以同时满足缺乏经验和有经验的用户的需求。允许用户定制频繁的操作。

Keyboard shortcuts are sprinkled throughout the interface. Command-K is surely a favorite of us early adopter tech workers. These touches show a product is eager to meet the user wherever they are along their adoption curve.
键盘快捷键遍布整个界面。 Command-K 无疑​​是我们早期采用者技术工作者的最爱。这些接触表明产品渴望满足用户的需求，无论他们处于采用曲线的哪个位置。

Heuristic 8: Aesthetic and minimalist design

启发 8：美观和简约的设计

Interfaces should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in an interface competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
界面不应包含不相关或很少需要的信息。界面中每一个额外的信息单元都会与相关的信息单元竞争，并降低它们的相对可见性。

The interface is simple, friendly, modern. While others look more engineering oriented and technical, Perplexity continues their feeling of being approachable yet from the future.
界面简单、友好、现代。虽然其他公司看起来更注重工程和技术，但 Perplexity 仍然延续着他们平易近人、来自未来的感觉。

Heuristic 9: Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from error

启发 9：帮助用户识别、诊断错误并从错误中恢复

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no error codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
错误消息应该用简单的语言（没有错误代码）表达，准确地指出问题，并建设性地提出解决方案。

The only ‘error’ I’ve experienced is when you exceed the quota for Co-pilot (the more advanced search) usage on the free plan. In this case, the status is clear. A tooltip tells you why the feature is unavailable. It’s clear what action you need to take: upgrade.
我遇到的唯一“错误”是当您超出免费计划中副驾驶（更高级的搜索）使用配额时。在这种情况下，状态就很清楚了。工具提示会告诉您该功能不可用的原因。很明显您需要采取什么行动：升级。

Perplexity does a great job of avoiding errors by gathering more information from the user as needed. The best type of error message is the error message that’s avoided.
Perplexity 通过根据需要从用户那里收集更多信息，在避免错误方面做得很好。最好的错误消息类型是可以避免的错误消息。

Heuristic 10: Help and documentation

启发 10：帮助和文档

It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete their tasks.
最好系统不需要任何额外的解释。但是，可能有必要提供文档来帮助用户了解如何完成其​​任务。

Perplexity checks this box too. As mentioned above, they do a nice job educating the user on this new technology through usage. But if you want to learn more about Perplexity, they have a straightforward Help and FAQ section. It’s simple since they’re clearly pushing to keep the product itself as simple as can be.
困惑也检查了这个框。如上所述，他们在通过使用来教育用户这项新技术方面做得很好。但如果您想了解有关 Perplexity 的更多信息，他们有一个简单的帮助和常见问题解答部分。这很简单，因为他们显然在努力保持产品本身尽可能简单。

It’ll be great to see how Perplexity continues to evolve. If you’re working on an AI-focused product in 2024, follow Perplexity’s lead: always remember there’s something to learn from 1994.
很高兴看到 Perplexity 如何继续发展。如果您在 2024 年开发专注于人工智能的产品，请遵循 Perplexity 的指导：永远记住，从 1994 年有一些东西值得学习。