How the QMD Model Transforms Design Quality at 58.com

Preface

Excellent product experience stems not only from great design ideas but also from an objective measurement system. As business environments become more complex, design teams need a shared evaluation framework to understand product experience quality, spot issues early, and proactively drive improvements that add commercial value.

What Is the QMD Model?

Without a common evaluation standard, designers cannot gauge the quality of their product experience, leading to misaligned optimization suggestions. The QMD model—Quality, Metrics, Driven—addresses this gap. It defines three layers: a clear Quality goal, concrete Metrics to measure that goal, and a Driven mechanism to embed evaluation into the product workflow, making experience quality observable, problems discoverable, and improvements actionable.

Embedding QMD into the Product Development Process

In the first two iterations of the project, the team established the measurement standards and validated the driving mechanism. The second phase linked internal design assessments with external benchmark comparisons, improving evaluation efficiency. By extracting common evaluation dimensions across business lines, the team created a unified scoring system that combines internal structural and content quality with external competitive analysis.

The model was visualized with diagrams (see images) illustrating the three layers and how they integrate into the product development pipeline.

Practical Implementation Steps

Define goals and evaluation rules : Identify core experience problems, set improvement targets, break them into measurable dimensions and indicators, assign weights, and calculate an overall experience score.

Establish evaluation and iteration mechanisms : Build communication channels, clear rules, and lightweight tools (online collaborative assessment and questionnaire scoring) to ensure efficient, objective expert evaluations even remotely.

Run cross‑functional expert assessments : Senior UE and UI experts conduct cross‑evaluations, share guidelines, and use a handbook to standardize scoring.

Report and incentivize : Publish experience scores across the company, recognize top‑performing and most‑improved business lines, and create an expert suggestion pool for continuous refinement.

Summary and Reflection

The QMD model provides a stable, systematic mechanism for measuring and improving design quality, helping designers and other stakeholders quickly understand product experience levels and align improvements with business goals. Future work will link QMD scores with user‑level metrics and introduce tiered quality levels for more granular guidance. The authors thank the project sponsors and all experts who contributed.