When is your design done? A simple checklist for successful design hand-offs
One of the most important realizations for a designer is to understand that design is only one step of the product development process. It doesn’t matter how pixel-perfect your layouts are. If you can’t empathize and communicate your vision to developers, and QA engineers, the pixels will not come to life like you wanted.
This checklist, our Definition of Done, is created to help everybody in the process of crafting the customer experience. It’s a list to ensure that the design meets our collective seal of approval.
We believe that design is a team sport. Everyone should feel ownership of the entire customer experience, not just their piece. Our aspiration is that this checklist will bring us closer to that notion.
- Are you proud of the design?
Firstly, if you’re not proud of the design, there is something fundamentally wrong. This is because you’re not bought into the idea. You don’t feel ownership of the solution. How can you address this? Get more involved, and challenge the idea and the assumptions. The more you learn about the problem you are solving, the more passionate you will feel about the solution.
2. Is the design adhering to our principles of fast, frictionless and flexible?
We’ve written a set of principles that we use in design. These principles keep us in check, and deter us from steering in the wrong direction. Most importantly, the principles are grounded in customer insight.
Learn more:
3. Have you designed based on the most important Job Stories?
At Nordnet, we use Jobs To Be Done as a framework when interviewing customers and we use Job Stories when writing requirements.
With an understanding of the “job” for which customers find themselves “hiring” a product or service, companies can more accurately develop and market products well-tailored to what customers are already trying to do.
Clayton Christensen Institute
Using this framework is a way for us to focus on the problem we are solving, and the outcome our customers expect when using our products, rather than specific solutions.
Learn more:
4. Have you sense-checked the design based on our personas?
We use two personas in our design work. They are one-pagers that describe our archetype customers. Typically, personas have specific sections that explain motivations, drivers and demographic data. Our personas are story based. They tell a short narrative about the personas’ lives. We find this format engaging and relatable.
In our design work, we can use these personas as a test, ensuring that what we craft is relevant to our customers.
5. Have you tested the design on real customers?
This should be a given. If you don’t test on real customers, how do you know if you’re right? We strive to recruit users every Friday to test our latest prototypes. We recommend making this into a habit.
6. Does the design work properly on mobile? Are UI elements big enough?
This can be an oversight when you are creating responsive designs. When you are designing the mobile scenarios, use the medium and test all the interactions.
“The details are not the details, they make the product.” Charles & Ray Eames
7. Are the most important elements at the top of the page?
Customers hunt for information when they come to a page. If they don’t find what’s most important, they may leave.
Based on the Jobs To Be Done research, write a short list of what’s most important to customers. Use that list when constructing the layout.
8. Have you defined breakpoints for mobile, tablet and desktop?
This can be an afterthought when you design fast. Take the time to define the responsiveness of the layout.
9. Is the design using elements from our UI kit? If you have created new elements, have they been discussed with the team?
We use a UI kit, a Sketch file, that contains major UI elements such as form fields, buttons, tabs etc. It was created for consistency purposes. To prevent “reinventing the wheel”, be vigilant about introducing new elements.
10. Does the design meet our accessibility guidelines?
Have you reviewed the guidelines and answered, for example, the following questions: Are there meaningful page titles? Have you tested the color contrasts? Is there sufficient help content?
11. Have you discussed with a developer or a Requirement Analyst that we can supply all the data that is featured in the design?
An important step in reaching a more detailed design is to continuously meet with developers and Requirement Analysts who will ultimately bring the design to life. They understand all the underlying systems, the data, and the necessary logic.
12. Have you thought about potential corner cases, edge cases, empty states and error states?
This relates to point 11. Have we done our due diligence in understanding all the potential circumstances that can happen in the interface? What are the errors that customers could experience? What happens if a customer signs up for the first time, will there be help content to assist? Are there potential edge cases, where the customer, for instance, interacts with a button too many times?
13. Has the copy been written by, or validated by, a copywriter?
Copy is a vital part of the customer experience. During design sprints, we might not have a copywriter available to help us write interface texts. Commonly, we might write placeholders. To reach a more polished state, a copywriter needs to review the texts, and understand all scenarios where we communicate with a customer.
14. Have you published your designs using Zeplin? Are the images and icons made exportable?
In the Nordnet Design Studio, we use Zeplin to publish our designs in a digestible format for developers. For each element, Zeplin shows the font size, dimensions, spacing and color palette.
That’s it — a 14-point list that will make you a better designer. Not only that, developers and QA engineers, and most importantly your customers will thank you for this attention to detail.
If you have any feedback, please comment in the article.
If you liked it, press the like and share buttons.
Thank you,
The Nordnet Design Studio
