Picture◎sun face

◎Xie Zifan picture◎Sunny face

Make an appointment with friends at a coffee shop, do their own things, and occasionally chat. My friend is an engineer, and a tree diagram of programs grows on the laptop screen amidst the clicking of the keyboard. The structure appears to be an upside-down tree. The roots are on top and the leaves are on the bottom. After careful inquiry, I learned that in the world of programs, many term names are based on the life properties and family structure of trees. For example, “The so-called root node is a node without a parent node.” “Nodes whose parent nodes are at the same level are cousin nodes.”

And several of the actions he often performs, in my eyes, as a person who has nothing to do with programs, also echo real life.

Please read on…

The engineer said, “I’m going to insert another tree into the tree.”

I said, isn’t this concept a commonly used “grafting” technique in gardening? Make a cut on a strong rootstock and attach the scion you want to propagate. With the plant’s self-healing ability, it will grow into the same plant in the future, enjoying the advantages of both.

The engineer said, “I want to start from the root node and visit the entire tree.”

I asked, is this a “root lifting” method to leave beautiful roots and add twists and turns to them?

The engineer said, “I now want to calculate the depth of the tree.”

I asked, is this deciding whether this tree should be made into a large, medium, small or bean pot?

The engineer said, “I want to delete the subtree now.”

I said, isn’t this the work of pruning trees?

It turns out that the truth in the world is connected all the way, and the world is unified. Friends are joking.

Due to the hierarchical structure of branches, trees naturally become a perfect illustration for showing various hierarchical relationships. Family genealogy is one common application. Plants take root, grow, sprout branches, flowers bloom and fade, fruits ripen and fall, and regenerate in sequence, which is closely consistent with the image of family reproduction. Before Darwin published “The Origin of Species” in 1859, he also spent many years thinking about how to use a tree diagram to represent the evolutionary relationship between species with a common ancestor, and finally published it in “The Origin of Species” in the form of a “tree of life” .

The application of tree diagrams covers almost every aspect of human knowledge, “from blood relationships to basic virtues, from legal systems to academic fields, from biological correlations to database systems, etc.”, Manuel. Lima states in his book The Book of Trees: A Tree-like Visual History of the Development of Knowledge. I hesitated whether to put this book on the bookshelf of design books, or whether to add it to the ranks of those about natural trees and gardening potted plants.

In the past, I often used a method to clarify problems to write strategies (Planning). This method is called Issue Tree, which is translated as “logic tree diagram” in Chinese, or simply “logic tree”. Its function is to help us peel back the layers of the problem and find the real crux. The method is – keep asking: “Why? Why?”

All problems are a rope with many knots. Every time you ask why and get an answer, you can untie a small knot. The final reason unearthed, the deepest and most obscure knot, is often far removed from the original brief we received.

After finding the underlying cause, you still need to deduce the solution. At this time, you must always ask “How? How to do it?” First, we try our best to give the answer to this reason, and then continue to ask how to do it for each answer, until we finally come up with an action that can be executed immediately.

These deductions are transformed into branches on the logical tree diagram. Every time you find the next branch, you are one step closer to “solving the problem”. This process makes me excited.

However, this process of inquiry requires a lot of trust, persuasion, and – time. But in the advertising industry, time is a scarce resource. Most of the cases were executed in a very urgent state, with great turmoil and madness. Due to the circumstances, everyone is in a hurry to get along with each other. The ideal tree diagram is often “decapitated and pruned” in reality, and there is no possibility of survival.

When I couldn’t get an answer, I dug deeper and asked, “Why?”

Why don’t you let me ask?

Why did he say that?

Why did he do this?

Why not find out the real problem?

Will this do him any good?

why why why? These three words echoed in my mind like a huge roar.

The “why” of Renqingshiguli is very mysterious. The growth direction of the logic tree has exploded with countless hypotheses in reality. My guesses are often wildly wrong. Coupled with the facial paralysis he was born with, even though the thin-skinned personality in his heart was about to scream for help, his expression was still bland and could not release any information that could be interpreted by others. Or maybe I wanted to maintain a neutral stance before getting the answer, so I subconsciously restrained my expression. At which point should we stop asking questions so that everyone can be “not satisfied but can accept it”? Which branch should you choose to achieve sweet results? Some people have accurate intuition and can go straight to the top of the tree without any deduction. I always look at their illogical skills under the tree and am so surprised that my soul is out of my body.

Maybe I should imitate Frank from the movie “Frank”. He wears a huge hood at all times. In order to let the new members of the band understand what he means, he will describe his expression at the moment after speaking. Then I can do this: “Why does the customer insist on going in this direction? Is there any special reason?” At the same time, I point to my face and add an explanation: “A curious and friendly smile.”

Of course, there are no hoods to use in life, so I often get angry when talking, wishing I could put the emoticons or cute stickers I used when typing on my face.

Later, I had a little exposure to the field of “user research”. I learned that researchers have several rules when interviewing users, one of which is – try not to use “why” as the beginning of a question. If you have to use it, don’t ask more than three times in a row.

These three words are very oppressive to human beings. If a trusting relationship has not been established, usually when people hear this question, they will immediately become defensive and defend themselves, which will make the subsequent work more difficult. The homework on paper and the application in daily life cannot be directly appropriated. Love may not need translation, but work does – this is the realization that is brought about by sadness.

“Diva” by singer Annie Lennox is one of my favorite albums. The first song is called “Why”, and the first sentence is also “Why?”. After she sang this word, it slowly lasted for two eight beats, and she kept repeating it in the song. Her usually sonorous voice turned into a soft anesthetic, blending with the smoky synthesizer sound, slowly overflowing from the car stereo… If every why in the world could be so sweet. , will people be more willing to be scolded? ●

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