Goal: Establish a shared understanding of user needs, business goals, and technical constraints.

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Activities

• Conduct workshops to define user personas, user journeys, and feature requirements.

• Designers and developers should observe and participate in user research sessions to gain firsthand insights.

• Early discussions to identify potential technical limitations and explore alternative solutions.

• Maintain a central repository for research findings, user stories, and feature specifications.

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Designer Output

• User personas and user journey maps.

• Initial low-fidelity wireframes and flow diagrams.

• Preliminary style guides and design principles.

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Developer Input

• Technical feasibility assessments.

• Identification of potential technical roadblocks.

• Estimates for development effort.

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Questions for Developers (Designers)

• "What are the technical limitations for implementing this feature?"

• "Are there existing components or libraries that we can leverage?"

• "What are the performance implications of this design?"

• "How does this feature integrate with the existing system architecture?"

• "What data structures will be required?"

Goal: Create detailed designs and interactive prototypes, ensuring technical feasibility and usability.

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Activities

• Designers create detailed UI designs, specifying layout, typography, and visual elements.

• Designers develop interactive prototypes to simulate user interactions and test usability.

• Conduct regular design reviews with developers to gather feedback on feasibility and potential issues.

• Begin to establish a shared component library, ensuring consistency and reusability.

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Designer Output

• High-fidelity UI designs (e.g., Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD files).

• Interactive prototypes (e.g., Figma, InVision, ProtoPie).

• Detailed style guides and design specifications.

• Design system documentation.

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Developer Input

• Feedback on design feasibility and performance implications.

• Identification of potential accessibility issues.

• Suggestions for optimizing design for development efficiency.

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Questions for Developers (Designers):

• "How can we optimize these animations/transitions for performance? If any technical complications in implementing them?"

• "Are there any accessibility considerations we need to address?"

• "Can you provide guidance on implementing these custom UI components?"

• "How can we best organize the design files for easy handoff?"

• "What kind of file formats and export settings do you prefer?"

Goal: Provide developers with clear and comprehensive design specifications, ensuring accurate implementation.

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Activities

• Detailed Design Specifications: Designers provide detailed specifications, including measurements, colors, fonts, and interaction behaviors.

• Asset Delivery: Designers provide all necessary assets in the correct formats and sizes.

• Style Guide Implementation: Developers implement the style guide and component library.

• Regular Communication: Maintain regular communication to address questions and resolve issues.

• Design QA: Designers conduct design QA to ensure the implemented UI matches the specifications.

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Designer Output

• Detailed design specifications (e.g., Zeplin, Abstract, Figma Dev Mode).

• All necessary assets (e.g., PNG, SVG, JSON).

• Interaction specifications and animation details.

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Developer Input

• Implementation of the UI and functionality.

• Feedback on design implementation and potential issues.

• Bug reports.

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Questions for Designers (Developers)

• "Can you clarify the behavior of this interaction?"

• "Can you provide the assets for this specific state?"

• "How should this component behave on different screen sizes?"

• "Can you review the implemented UI and provide feedback?"

• "What are the edge cases for this feature?"

Goal: Ensure the implemented UI meets user needs and business goals and iterate based on feedback.

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Activities

• Conduct usability testing to gather user feedback on the implemented UI.

• Ensure the UI is accessible to users with disabilities.

• Developers address any bugs or issues identified during testing.

• Designers iterate on the UI based on user feedback and testing results.

• Track user behavior and gather data to inform future iterations.

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Designer Output

• Updated designs based on user feedback.

• Recommendations for future iterations.

• Analysis of user data.

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Developer Input

• Implementation of bug fixes and UI updates.

• Feedback on the technical feasibility of proposed iterations.

• Tracking of performance metrics.

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Questions for Developers (Designers)

• "Can we track user interactions with this specific element?"

• "What are the performance implications of these proposed UI changes?"

• "How can we optimize the UI for specific user segments?"

• "What are the most common user errors?"

• "How can we improve the loading times of these pages?"