Communication

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Dev-designer-communication

Getting Started

PM Roles and Responsibilities

Communication

1-on-1 Guide Conflict Resolution Developer and Designer Communication

Tools and Frameworks

GitHub - Best Practices for Commits and Branches JIRA, Kanban Boards, and Agile Methodologies Managing User Stories

Wrap Up

Project Wrap Up

Overview

Developers and designers on your team should feel comfortable asking one another questions. Communication between the two roles shouldn’t begin mid-way through the term when designs are handed off to developers.

On this page, you’ll find:

  • ✅ A list of team environment essentials (for both roles to keep in mind throughout the term)
  • 🫡 A short guide of how to help start communication between the two roles
  • 🗣 Sample questions that designers can ask developers, and vice versa

Team Environment Essentials

  • Listen, listen, listen!
    • Careful listening and effort to understand the other side of the project will naturally generate questions to ask one another
  • Make the job easier for each other!
    • Designers should label any and all Figma components and pages clearly so that it’s intuitive for any new user to find what they need and understand how screens are intended to work
    • Developers should give frequent updates to designers about the progress of development & send any live demos they have → boosts team motivation to see things working in real time!
  • Don’t work in silos!
    • If someone is confused about something, ask someone who can clear it up!

Initiating Designer/Developer Communication

  1. At every stage of the project, have both roles share initial and ongoing research findings & new discoveries along the way. For example:
    1. Ask designers to summarize their research findings to developers
      • This will help developers have a better understanding of what their focus on the product should be
    2. Ask developers to summarize the overall structure of backend components (e.g. how one part is connected to the other, etc)
      • This will help designers slowly break down the complexity of development and better understand what developers’ work looks like
  2. Encourage both sides to ask each other questions for clarification
    1. Bottling in confusions will lead to miscommunication and misinterpretation

🎨 Questions Designers Can Ask Developers

  • Can you explain what [insert dev jargon] means in simple terms?
  • How long would implementing this feature take?
  • How difficult (easy, medium, hard) is it to implement this feature?
  • Is this feature still planning to be implemented?
  • I noticed that the prototype for this feature looks a bit different from our Figma prototype [show reference images]. Could you adjust [XYZ] to look like our Figma file prototype?
  • Is it possible to customize this [part of feature] when you implement it? If not, ask for what the possible options are.
  • [When all screens are developed] Can you walk me through the live prototype of what’s been implemented?
    • This will help designers double check if all designs correspond with their vision

💻 Questions Developers Can Ask Designers

  • Can you walk me through how this feature/screen is supposed function?
  • Can you explain the user flow of this feature?
  • When the user encounters [this problem], what screen should be the user be redirected to?
  • Can you send me this icon in [png, svg, etc] format?
  • Is this what this screen is supposed to look like and function? [show visuals or live demo]