How designer should work with Developers?

Published in

HUBBA THAILAND

3 min readMay 9, 2017

If you are a designer, bringing your idea or vision to become a real business is not at all difficult if you know exactly how it works things out. The underlying principle of transforming ideas to become real and usable products or services is the collaborative team of designers and developers.

1. Learn basics of how development works

By having basic knowledges of developer’s development process, you will have a better foothold to expand your ideas to dev-related area, and help fasten the communication between you and developers.

2. Make their job as easy as possible

Where is the file I need? Which folder is it in? What fonts and colors am I supposed to use? What happen when I click here? What is the proportion and position of each element on the page?…
These are questions developers have during the development.

If you want to deliver the kickass design of your product, you will need to make developer’s life as easy as you can from providing clean, well-organized design files to using style guides as collaborative tool.

3) Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.

Don’t confine yourself from developers, and always be open to ideas from developers — even during the design phases. Don’t just have conversation only when handing off your designs. It is critical for you and developers to work together from the beginning — and you will create a better product.
First step of solving problem is admitting there is one and able to admit if you need advice. If you are not sure how a feature’s design if it will work, or how interaction or transition will work, consult with your developers. They have a wealth of knowledge and experience that can give you a solution to your problem from an analytical, technical perspective.

4) Know when to stop! Nothing is perfect!

Design can be never ending process. There will always be a better design to fit your approach to tackle the project. You can go on and on designing, editing, coming up with another design, but you will never have a product that people use. The developer cannot get started if there is no design. Your job is to know when to stop designing. The key is to have a well thought-out plan, schedules, and good set-up of product architecture agreed between you and developers. A developer can get started on technical part of the product while you are working on design, but you need to know when to stop designing and not adding more stuffs so he/she can move forward constructing the entire product.
Remember! It’s not about making a perfect product, It’s about get the product out fast, learn, and then rework it.

5) Respect and Trust

Be respectful to the developers’ opinions. Most developers are able to look at a live interface and understand how it works. Developers tend to see things differently than a designer does, so often you may have included an unnecessary element or missing a key feature.