vol.33: 15 Mindful Product Principles from Allen Zhang, Father of WeChat

WeChat follows the “Grand Design” approach to innovation vs. “Design Thinking” Popularized by the design firm IDEO in the 1990s, design-thinking is defined as a non-linear process which seeks to iteratively understand users, challenge assumptions, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. In other words, it is an incredibly user-focuse... See more

Despite all the advertising revenue potential with an app that has over one billion daily active users, WeChat limits ads in its social feed to just 2 per day. In contrast, westerners tend to see 10,000 ads/day.

“Everyone only has 24 hours in a day. The mission of developers shouldn’t be to make users spend all their time on their phones aside from when they eat and sleep. We are more concerned with when our users communicate, post a picture, read an article, make a payment, or find a Mini Program, that they can do it as quickly and efficiently as possible... See more