npm is a package manager for JavaScript that helps developers install, share, and manage libraries or pieces of code that are commonly used in applications. These packages can range from small utility functions to full-fledged UI components like buttons, form elements, or even complex layouts.

npm is also a key enabler of the design-development collaboration that UXPin Merge facilitates. By packaging React components through npm, developers can hand off real, functioning UI components to designers, who can then integrate them into their designs effortlessly. This results in a more consistent and efficient workflow, ensuring that your design system and the final product are perfectly aligned.. Discover UXPin Merge.

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Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

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What is NPM (Node Package Manager)?

npm or Node Package Manager is an open-source repository of tools engineers use to develop applications and websites.

npm is two things:

1. A repository for publishing open-source projects.
   Simplified version: a digital storage and retrieval facility.
2. A command-line interface (CLI) for interacting with the repository.
   Simplified version: a tool to communicate with the storage facility.

What is a Package Manager?

Before we can explain what npm package is, it’s essential to understand the idea of a package manager. Think of a package manager as a toolkit for developers.

Let’s say you’re building an application that uses Stripe for payments. A package manager installs all the code your product will need to communicate with Stripe and process payments.

Instead of writing all that code or copy/pasting it from Stripe’s docs, engineers simply enter a command, and the package manager installs the code dependencies they need from Stripe.

There are millions of these packages for everything you can think of to develop an application–like different types of search functionality, APIs, payments, authentication tools, maps, icons, hosting, and more.

You get public open-source repositories (like npm) where anyone can upload and install packages, as well as private package repositories with restricted access.

What is a Command Line Interface?

A command-line interface (CLI) is a text interface developers use to interact with computer programs. This CLI allows you to execute commands to run background operations necessary for software development.

In the case of npm, the CLI allows you to interact with the package registry. For example, engineers can use commands like npm install followed by the package name to install a specific package.

The npm Registry

The npm website is where engineers can search and learn about packages. This website is just a registry and doesn’t host the packages. Instead, engineers use platforms like GitHub, Packagecloud, AWS CodeArtifact, and others to host and distribute packages.

For example, if we look at the UXPin Merge CLI on NPM, it has displays GitHub as the repository and relevant link. Above that is the command to install the UXPin Merge CLI and its dependencies: npm i @uxpin/merge-cli. The “i” after npm is an abbreviation for “install.” So, typing npm install @uxpin/merge-cli would render the same result.

What are Dependencies?

Packages consist of other packages that engineers call dependencies–we know, confusing, right! These dependencies are packages of code that perform different tasks within the project.

For example, the UXPin Merge CLI uses Typescript and therefore requires the typescript package as a dependency. Typescript is just one of the 41 dependencies UXPin Merge CLI requires. 

What are Devdependencies?

Looking at the UXPin Merge CLI’s dependencies, you’ll notice 41 Dependencies and 41 Dev Dependencies (also referred to as devDependencies–one word).

• Dependencies: The packages required to run a piece of software
• Dev Dependencies: The packages needed during the development phase only

Dependencies and devDependencies reside in a separate folder called node_modules, so your packages.json file and project code know where to find them.

What is the package.json File?

There’s a package.json file that provides its metadata and dependencies. When installing the project on your computer, npm will reference the package.json file to install the dependencies and devDependencies.

Instead of installing each dependency individually, you simply type npm install in the command line.

Hosting providers also use the package.json file to install the dependencies (excluding devDependencies) needed to run the project on its servers.

What is package-lock.json?

The package-lock.json specifies the exact version of the package used to build the project. This file locks the dependencies so that when the project is installed, it references the versions used during development rather than the latest release.

Engineers update packages regularly, often changing the way the package works. So, locking your dependencies ensures the project operates as intended.

How to use npm

Here are some common npm commands and what they do:

• npm init: Creates a package.json file for your project. If you’re building an application from scratch, npm init will be one of the first commands you use to include key project information. NPM will automatically update your package.json file whenever you install or remove packages.
• npm install: Installs all of the project dependencies in a package.json file.
• npm install <package-name>: Installs a specific package from the NPM registry and saves it to your node_modules folder. For example, npm install @uxpin/merge-cli will install the Merge CLI.
• npm install <package-name> –save: Installs an NPM package and adds it to the dependencies in your package.json file.
• npm install <package-name> –save-dev: installs an NPM package and adds it to the devDependencies 
• npm uninstall <package-name>: Uninstalls a specific package from your project.
• npm doctor: Runs diagnostics on your npm installation to check if it has everything it needs to manage your packages.
• npm update <package-name>: Updates a specific package to the latest version.

These are just a few of the most common npm commands. You can find the complete list in the npm documentation.

Understanding npm as a Designer

npm is simply a toolkit comparable to plugins or app extensions for design tools. You don’t need to know the ins-and-outs of how packages are created, but it may be useful to know a thing or two about it.

First of all, some of code component libraries are shared as npm packages, such as MUI, Ant Design, etc.

How to find component libraries that are distributed as npm packages? Let’s say you search through Adele, UXPin’s library of publicly available Design Systems, for a component library that you can bring in to UXPin. You pick Shopify’s Polaris and notice that it is distributed via npm.

So, you go to the NPM site, look for Shopify’s Polaris, and find it.

UXPin with Merge technology allows you to import UI elements from component libraries via NPM packages. Then, you can use those elements to put together fully-functional prototypes.

UXPin Merge is usually being set up by a developer. But if you lack the development support, you can use our new tool – Merge Component Manager and manage UI components by yourself.

However, if you want to enhance your programming knowledge to collaborate with devs better, then learning about basic code principles (HTML, CSS, Javascript) and component libraries is far more valuable for designers.

What Can You Do with npm Integration?

Even though npm is typically a tool developers use, it plays a crucial role in enabling powerful design workflows—like bringing React components into UXPin for seamless drag-and-drop UI building.

Here’s why npm is important for technical designers working with tools like UXPin Merge:

1. Access to React Components: If your design system is built using React, npm allows you to package these components and make them accessible for use in other applications or tools—like UXPin Merge. React components that are available as npm packages can be directly imported into UXPin, giving designers the ability to drag and drop real code components into their designs without writing code.
2. Easily Manage Updates: npm simplifies version control. When a developer updates a package (such as a new version of a button component), npm can automatically manage this update in UXPin Merge, ensuring that designers always work with the latest components from the development team. This ensures consistency between design and development without the need for manual updates.
3. Collaborate Seamlessly with Developers: npm helps technical designers and developers work from the same source of truth. Developers use npm to publish the components they create, while designers can easily import those components into UXPin using Merge. This ensures that the components designers use for prototyping are exactly the same as the ones developers will implement in the final product.

Improve Collaboration With UXPin Merge

Merge enhances collaboration between design and development because designers and engineers work with the same component library. 

Instead of having a UI kit for designers and code for devs, Merge syncs a repository to UXPin’s editor so design teams can build fully functioning prototypes using code components.

You can sync your company’s design system or a component library like MUI so that you only have to drag and drop UI elements to build interfaces. Request access to Merge.

The post What is npm? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Design system naming conventions are the standardized rules and guidelines used to name elements within a design system. This includes naming design tokens, components, patterns, styles, and any other elements that are part of the design system. A well-defined naming convention is crucial for maintaining clarity, consistency, and ease of use across both design and development teams.

If you’re looking to elevate your design system and create a more consistent, efficient workflow, UXPin Merge is the solution for you. By integrating design and development into a unified process, Merge helps you build a robust design system that scales with your organization and meets the highest standards of quality and consistency. Request access to UXPin Merge.

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What is the Naming Convention for Design Systems?

Design system naming conventions are a set of rules for naming the different parts of a design system, like colors, fonts, buttons, and other components. These rules help keep names clear and consistent, making it easy for everyone on the team to understand and use the design system.

Design system naming conventions are typically set by the team responsible for creating and maintaining the design system. It can be governed by a dedicated group of designers and developers who focus on building and managing the design system or design leaders at a company. They establish naming conventions to ensure consistency and ease of use across the system.

Why Are Naming Conventions Important in a Design System?

By following these naming conventions, teams can work together more smoothly and keep the design system organized and easy to update. Design system naming systems help in:

1. Clarity and Readability: A good naming convention helps team members easily understand what each element is and how it should be used. This is especially important as the design system grows and more people across different teams start using it.
2. Consistency: Consistent naming reduces confusion and helps ensure that everyone on the team uses the design system in the same way. This is essential for maintaining a cohesive and unified user experience across all products and platforms.
3. Scalability: As your design system expands to include more components and tokens, a well-structured naming convention makes it easier to organize and manage these elements. It provides a scalable framework that can accommodate new additions without causing confusion or requiring significant restructuring.
4. Collaboration: Clear and consistent naming conventions improve collaboration between designers and developers by reducing miscommunication. When both teams use the same language and terms, it’s easier to maintain alignment throughout the development process.

9 Key Elements of Design System Naming Conventions

Design Tokens

Design tokens are the core variables that define a design system’s visual properties, such as colors, typography, spacing, and shadows. Naming conventions for tokens should reflect their purpose and usage rather than specific values, ensuring flexibility and scalability. Examples include color-primary, font-size-heading, or spacing-small.

Components

Components are the building blocks of a design system, representing reusable UI elements like buttons, forms, cards, and navigation bars. Consistent naming for components ensures they are easily identifiable and logically grouped, enhancing usability and collaboration. Examples include ButtonPrimary, FormInputText, or CardWithImage.

Patterns

Patterns are reusable combinations of components that address specific design problems or create common UI layouts. Naming conventions for patterns should describe their function clearly, such as LoginForm, NavbarSticky, or ErrorMessageModal.

Modifiers

Modifiers represent variations or states of a base component or token, such as different sizes, colors, or behaviors. Consistent naming for modifiers typically indicates the relationship between the base element and the variation, using a pattern like BaseComponent–Modifier. Examples include ButtonPrimary–Large, ColorPrimary–Dark, or Card–WithShadow.

Utilities

Utility classes or styles are often used for quick, specific adjustments that apply common design tokens, such as margin or padding. Naming conventions for utilities are typically short and descriptive, indicating the property they affect. Examples include u-margin-small, u-padding-large, or u-text-center.

States

States define different conditions of a component, such as active, disabled, focused, or error states. Clear naming for states helps communicate these conditions within the design system. Examples include Button–Disabled, Input–Error, or Link–Active.

Responsive Variants

These are variations of components or styles that adjust based on screen size or device type. Naming conventions for responsive variants typically follow a pattern that indicates the screen size they target. Examples include Button–SmallScreen, Grid–Desktop, or Image–Responsive.

Accessibility Features

Elements or tokens that enhance accessibility might have specific naming conventions to denote their purpose. For example, Button–AriaLabel or Text–HighContrast indicate elements tailored for accessibility.

Brand-Specific Elements

In some design systems, elements may be specific to different brands or themes. Naming conventions for these elements should clearly indicate their association. Examples include Button–BrandA, Navbar–BrandB, or Typography–Corporate.

Top 10 Best Practices for Naming Conventions in Design Systems

A well-organized design system is the backbone of consistent and scalable design work. Naming conventions play a crucial role in this organization by making your design system intuitive and easy to use. Here are ten essential best practices to help you establish effective naming conventions for your design system:

1. Be Descriptive but Concise

Why It Matters: Clear and concise names help everyone on your team quickly understand what each element is for. Long or vague names can lead to confusion and mistakes, slowing down the design and development process.

How to Implement: Choose names that clearly describe the element’s purpose or function without being overly detailed. For example, instead of naming a primary action button btnSubmitActionPrimary, use ButtonPrimary. This name is direct, easy to remember, and effectively communicates the button’s role.

2. Use Consistent Patterns Across the System

Why It Matters: Consistency in naming makes your design system predictable and easy to navigate. When team members know what to expect from the naming structure, they can find and use elements more efficiently.

How to Implement: Establish a naming pattern like [Category]-[Modifier] for design tokens (color-primary, spacing-small) and ComponentName–Modifier for components (Button–Large, Card–WithShadow). Stick to these patterns throughout your design system to maintain consistency.

3. Avoid Specific Values in Names

Why It Matters: Naming tokens with specific values like 16px or #FFFFFF limits flexibility. If the values change, you would need to rename tokens throughout the system, which is time-consuming and error-prone.

How to Implement: Focus on naming tokens based on their function rather than specific values. For instance, use font-size-base instead of font-size-16px. This approach allows you to adjust the value without changing the name, making your system more adaptable.

4. Reflect the Design Intent, Not Just Implementation

Why It Matters: Names should convey how and when an element should be used, rather than just describing what it is. This helps designers and developers understand the intent behind each element, promoting consistent usage across different contexts.

How to Implement: Use names that indicate the purpose of the element. For example, instead of a generic name like color-red, use color-error to specify that the color is intended for error messages. This provides clarity and reduces the risk of misapplication.

5. Document Your Naming Conventions Clearly

Why It Matters: Clear documentation ensures that everyone on your team understands and follows the naming conventions. This is particularly important as new team members join or as the design system evolves.

How to Implement: Create a comprehensive section in your design system documentation dedicated to naming conventions. Include the reasoning behind each rule, along with examples of correct and incorrect naming. Update this documentation regularly to reflect any changes or additions.

6. Use Readable Naming Formats like Camel Case or Kebab Case

Why It Matters: Readable formats such as camel case (ButtonPrimary) or kebab case (button-primary) make it easy to distinguish different parts of a name at a glance, improving clarity and reducing errors.

How to Implement: Decide on a naming format that aligns with your team’s coding standards or design practices. For instance, use camel case for component names (ButtonPrimary, CardWithImage) and kebab case for CSS class names (button-primary, card-with-image). Apply this format consistently.

7. Include Context in Names When Necessary

Why It Matters: Elements that could be used in multiple contexts should have names that specify their intended use. This prevents confusion and ensures elements are applied correctly across different parts of the design.

How to Implement: When naming tokens or components that serve specific functions, include contextual information in the name. For example, use spacing-card-small instead of just spacing-small to indicate that the spacing value is intended for card components.

8. Plan for Scalability from the Start

Why It Matters: A scalable naming convention allows your design system to grow without needing significant changes to existing names. This is crucial as your system evolves to include more components, tokens, and patterns.

How to Implement: Anticipate future needs by choosing flexible naming conventions. For example, if you might add different button types, start with names like ButtonPrimary, ButtonSecondary, and ButtonTertiary. This approach leaves room for expansion without causing confusion.

9. Minimize the Use of Abbreviations

Why It Matters: Abbreviations can make names shorter, but they also risk making them unclear, especially for new team members or collaborators. Only use abbreviations that are universally understood within your team.

How to Implement: Stick to full words unless an abbreviation is commonly accepted and widely recognized. For instance, btn for button is standard, but using fs for font-size might not be immediately clear to everyone.

10. Regularly Review and Update Naming Conventions

Why It Matters: As your design system grows and changes, your naming conventions might need to evolve. Regular reviews help ensure your system remains intuitive and efficient for all users.

How to Implement: Set up periodic reviews of your naming conventions with key stakeholders. Gather feedback from designers and developers to identify any issues or areas for improvement. Be open to making changes that enhance clarity, consistency, or scalability.

Build Prototypes that Are in Line with Your Design System

Establishing effective naming conventions is crucial for any design system’s success. By being descriptive but concise, maintaining consistent patterns, and regularly reviewing your conventions, you can ensure that your design system remains organized, scalable, and easy to use.

Consistency is key to any successful design system. It ensures that your UI components are cohesive, scalable, and easy to maintain across different teams and projects. But achieving this level of consistency can be challenging, especially when it comes to bridging the gap between design and development. That’s where UXPin Merge comes in.

UXPin Merge is a powerful design technology that allows you to integrate real, production-ready code components from your React-based design system directly into your design tool. This integration creates a unified source of truth for both designers and developers, ensuring that everyone is working with the exact same components and styles. Request access to UXPin Merge.

The post Design System Naming Conventions – How to Set Them appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Some team members despise design system governance. They see it as a roadblock to rapid growth, creativity, and flexibility. However, design system governance can foster scalability and creativity if properly implemented while maintaining design and usability consistency.

Good design system governance prioritizes users before growth and profits. Company culture also plays a significant role in how a company implements a governance process that team members follow and embrace.

The tools UX and engineering teams also have an impact on design system governance. UX teams must update design tools to match changes to the final product, exposing the process to human error!

With UXPin Merge, teams don’t need to worry about updating two different design systems. UXPin Merge syncs our editor tool with code components from your Git repo or Storybook integration (allowing you to connect with React, Revue, Angular, Ember, and many more), eliminating the need for separate design systems and mitigating human error.

See how UXPin can enhance your design system governance!

What is Design System Governance?

Design system governance is the process and protocols for maintaining and updating a product’s design system.

Even minor changes, like changing an app’s close icon from an X to a — must go through a multi-step approval and implementation process.

Design system governance fulfills several purposes:

• Maintain’s design and brand consistency
• Prevents poor design decisions—leading to usability issues
• Encourages team members to think creatively and try to solve problems with the tools on hand before attempting to make changes
• Ensures updates consider accessibility
• Keeps the entire organization informed of changes
• Updates digital product and design documentation

Without effective design system governance, editing and updating new components is a free-for-all that could create usability issues, inconsistencies and ruin the product’s reputation.

The Challenges of Maintaining a Design System

There are many challenges to maintaining a design system. Every organization must have a dedicated individual or team to manage its design system. 

Here are six common challenges to maintaining a design system and why an effective governance model is essential!

Company Political Forces

Sadly, even successful design systems aren’t safe from power struggles within an organization. Team members might call on executive power to either push or block design changes, overriding the initial decision of a design system team.

Conversely, governance keeps executives and other stakeholders well informed on design changes and the reasoning, making it easier to get buy-in and approval.

Managing Input From Multiple Teams and Departments

A design system is not only for UX and engineering teams. Product teams and other stakeholders share ownership of the organization’s design system. 

Managing all of this input can be challenging without a proper system of governance.

Design Systems are Often an Afterthought or Side Project

In many organizations, especially fledgling startups, the product’s design system isn’t a priority. It’s a side project a UX designer maintains in their spare time or over the weekend—feebly trying to maintain consistency with the demand for growth!

In this environment, a design system is prone to abuse and poor design decisions. Often UX teams have to undo changes to fix usability issues due to poor governance.

Poor Communication

Without proper communication between departments, teams, and individuals, a design system falls apart. For example, two teams might unknowingly work on the same task separately, or worse, crucial usability changes go forgotten because everyone thought “someone else was working on it.”

Design system governance fosters organization-wide communication, so everyone is updated and informed!

Reluctance from Team Members

When teams are reluctant to adopt the product’s design system, they choose the parts they like and develop a “better way” to design the rest. New team members or those not involved in creating the design system believe they can do better—thus undermining the hard work of others.

This reluctance can not only affect the product’s usability and consistency but create unnecessary conflict.

A governance model with multiple checks and balances prevents team members from hijacking a design system.

Reluctance to Change

Sometimes the opposite is true. Design system managers believe the system is fine the way it is, blocking any changes. A design system is never complete. It’s a work in progress that must evolve for the organization to grow.

The Single Source of Truth Dilemma

Many companies struggle with the single source of truth dilemma—working with a single dataset between all departments, primarily UX design, product, and engineering.

The UX team works with design tools, engineers with code, and the product team (often with limited technical know-how) uses all sorts of tools, including powerpoints, PDFs, and paper, to name a few. 

With this scattered workflow, maintaining a single source of truth is challenging. Often requiring additional staff and resources to ensure everyone is up-to-date. Even with good systems of governance, the single source of truth dilemma is a constant challenge.

Global payment giant PayPal solved its single source of truth dilemma with UXPin Merge. PayPal uses UXPin Merge to build and maintain its design system for internal user interfaces with code components from a Git repository.

When developers implement new changes, UXPin’s design editor’s components update simultaneously, so designers and engineers always work with the same design system. 

Establishing Design System Governance Standards

There are four primary scenarios where a design system requires changes or updates. These scenarios require a submission process where teams must ask a series of questions and tests before prototyping or requesting amendments.

• Introducing new elements – Establishing a workflow for adding new elements ensures design system integrity while providing every team member with an equal opportunity to make additions. 
• Promoting patterns – Patterns fall into two categories: one-off or best new practice. Teams must test these new patterns against what’s currently available before promoting them.
• Reviewing and adapting patterns – Every design system must have a team (at least two members) to review patterns before release. This review process ensures new elements meet the standards and practices of the current design system.
• Releasing design system updates – Rather than releasing new updates when they’re ready, teams must establish a release schedule for updates. A strict release schedule ensures teams follow quality assurance and documentation processes correctly.

An effective way to manage this submission process is through a simple decision tree that maps every step a change must follow.

This excellent example from Inayaili de León shows how Canonical’s team adds new patterns to their design system following a simple decision tree—from concept to release.

Inayaili admits that, like their design system, the decision tree is a work-in-progress that they update and refine as the product evolves.

5 Different Design System Governance Models

Design system governance models refer to the frameworks and practices that organizations use to manage, maintain, and evolve their design systems. Effective governance is crucial to ensure consistency, scalability, and collaboration across teams, especially as design systems grow and evolve over time. Here are some common design system governance models:

1. Centralized Governance Model

In a centralized governance model, a single, dedicated team (often called the design system team or design system core team) is responsible for the development, maintenance, and updates of the design system. This team typically includes designers, developers, and product managers who collaborate closely to ensure the design system is aligned with the organization’s brand and user experience goals.

Key Characteristics:

• Unified Control: The design system team has full control over the design system’s direction, updates, and maintenance.
• Consistency: Centralized control helps maintain a high level of consistency across all components and design tokens.
• Streamlined Decision-Making: With a single team making decisions, changes and updates can be implemented quickly and efficiently.

Pros:

• Clear ownership and accountability.
• High consistency and quality control.
• Efficient decision-making and streamlined processes.

Cons:

• Can become a bottleneck if the team is small or overburdened.
• May lack input from various product teams, potentially leading to a less flexible or adaptable system.

2. Federated Governance Model

A federated governance model, also known as a decentralized or hybrid model, involves multiple teams contributing to the design system under a set of shared guidelines and standards. In this model, the design system team still exists, but other product or feature teams also have the ability to contribute components, patterns, or updates.

Key Characteristics:

• Shared Responsibility: Different teams contribute to the design system, fostering a sense of ownership and collaboration.
• Guidelines and Standards: The design system team provides overarching guidelines, but individual teams have flexibility within those guidelines.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Encourages collaboration across teams, promoting innovation and diverse perspectives.

Pros:

• Increased flexibility and adaptability.
• Encourages innovation and input from various teams.
• Reduces bottlenecks by distributing the workload.

Cons:

• Potential for inconsistencies if guidelines are not strictly followed.
• Requires strong communication and coordination among teams.

3. Community-Driven Governance Model

In a community-driven governance model, the design system is managed in a more open, collaborative manner, often with contributions coming from across the organization, including designers, developers, product managers, and other stakeholders. This model relies heavily on community involvement and collective decision-making.

Key Characteristics:

• Open Contribution: Anyone in the organization can propose changes, updates, or new components.
• Community Moderation: A committee or group of maintainers oversees contributions, ensuring they meet quality and consistency standards.
• Collaborative Decision-Making: Decisions are often made collectively through discussions, voting, or consensus.

Pros:

• Highly inclusive and democratic.
• Promotes widespread adoption and engagement.
• Encourages diverse perspectives and innovation.

Cons:

• Can be challenging to maintain consistency and quality.
• Decision-making can be slower and more complex.
• Requires a strong governance framework to manage contributions effectively.

4. Mixed Governance Model

The mixed governance model combines elements of the centralized, federated, and community-driven models, depending on the needs of the organization and the maturity of the design system. This model provides a flexible approach to governance, allowing teams to adapt based on specific circumstances, project requirements, or organizational culture.

Key Characteristics:

• Flexible Approach: Different governance styles are applied to different parts of the design system, based on complexity, importance, or other factors.
• Balanced Control: Centralized control is maintained for core components, while more flexibility is allowed for less critical elements.
• Adaptive Governance: The governance model can evolve over time as the design system and organization grow.

Pros:

• Balances consistency and flexibility.
• Can adapt to changing needs and contexts.
• Allows for experimentation and innovation.

Cons:

• Can be complex to manage and communicate.
• Requires clear guidelines to prevent confusion and maintain coherence.

5. Open Source Governance Model

The open source governance model is similar to the community-driven model but typically involves an external community beyond the organization. In this model, the design system is open to contributions from anyone, and the community helps drive its development and evolution.

Key Characteristics:

• External Contributions: Contributions come from a wide range of external developers, designers, and other community members.
• Open Development: The design system’s development process is transparent and open to public scrutiny.
• Community-Driven Decision-Making: The community plays a significant role in shaping the direction of the design system.

Pros:

• Leverages a broad pool of talent and ideas.
• Encourages rapid innovation and evolution.
• Promotes transparency and inclusivity.

Cons:

• More challenging to maintain quality and consistency.
• Requires robust community management and governance structures.
• Risk of diverging goals and priorities among contributors.

Choosing the Right Governance Model

Selecting the right governance model for your design system depends on several factors, including the size and structure of your organization, the maturity of your design system, and the level of collaboration and flexibility you want to promote. Some organizations may start with a centralized model and evolve to a federated or community-driven approach as their design system matures and adoption grows.

Ultimately, effective design system governance should align with your organization’s goals and culture, fostering collaboration, maintaining consistency, and ensuring scalability as your design system evolves.

A Step-by-Step Governance Model Example

There are many ways to approach design system governance, but here is a 10-step process inspired by design system guru Brad Frost:

1. Use what’s available – Product teams must exhaust every effort to find a solution using the current component library. This means a design system must be well documented and accessible to everyone. If the current design system does not fulfill the new requirement, teams can proceed to step two.
2. Contact design system (DS) team – Product teams contact the DS team to discuss the problem and the proposed changes. Again, the DS team and product team will work together to find an existing solution. With intimate knowledge of the design system, the DS team might uncover something the product team missed. If there is still no solution, teams proceed to step three.
3. Determine if the change is one-off or part of the design system – The product team and DS team decide whether the amendment is a one-off (snowflake) or part of the design system. One-off changes usually fall on the product team, while the DS team handles design system changes. Either way, teams must prioritize and schedule the changes.
4. Initial Prototyping – Teams prototype and test product changes.
5. Initial Review Process – The DS team and product team review the results from prototyping and testing. If both teams are satisfied, they proceed to the next step. If they determine the changes are lacking, teams return to prototyping and testing.
6. UX & Dev Testing – Once designs pass the initial review, they go to UX and development teams for further testing to ensure the changes meet user experience and technical requirements.
7. Final review – The product team and DS team meet again to review the results of UX and dev testing. If both teams are satisfied, they proceed to the next step. If not, they iterate.
8. Documentation and schedule release – Teams document the new changes, update the changelog (e.g., Github), and schedule the release.
9. Changes released – Changes are released, product version bump according to versioning guidelines, all teams notified (Slack, Asana, Trello, Github, etc.).
10. Quality assurance – Product teams review the final changes for quality assurance.

You can see how this 10-step process will mitigate all of the six common design system challenges we outlined earlier. With multiple checks and balances, a design system maintains its integrity while communicating changes to the entire organization.

While this process solves many design system challenges, checks and balances don’t eliminate human error. Teams need a tool to provide a single source of truth!

Improving Design System Governance with UXPin

UXPin Merge bridges the gap between design and code, creating a single source of truth, so designers and engineers always work with the same tools.

Popular vector-based design tools don’t solve the problem. Designers and engineers must update and sync identical systems separately—an ineffective workflow prone to error.

UXPin is a code-based design editor syncing code components via Git or Storybook to allow product teams, UX designers, and developers to work with the same components—no need to update systems separately!

Lastly, because prototypes are code-based, product updates and design system changes are significantly quicker to engineer.

Ready to switch to the only design tool that fosters good design system governance? Discover UXPin Merge to get the most of your design system and keep all the design and code components up to date.

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If the product requirements document is the heart of your product, then the functional specs make up your product’s brain — it explains how everything works together in greater detail.

Since all companies follow different processes (Lean, Agile, Kanban, etc.), we’ll look at just the most relevant parts of a functional requirements document.

Maintaining accurate and up-to-date functional documentation can be a daunting task for design and development teams. Often, documentation falls behind due to rapid iterations, leaving teams to rely on outdated or incomplete specs. UXPin Merge is a design tool that helps you design with real functional components, thus making the maintenance of documentation and artifacts easier. Check it out. Request access to UXPin Merge.

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What is a Functional Specifications Document?

In the world of software development, a functional specifications document is a set of guidelines that detail how a particular component of a software should function. It is different from a product requirements document (PRD) in that a PRD lists the features of a software.

For example, a product requirements document might list “user registration” as a feature of a social app. The functional requirements document will give a high-level detail of the user registration process, such as the necessary form fields and any age restrictions. It will also list any error messages or success messages the end-user should see, depending on different use cases.

A functional specifications document is meant for all the stakeholders involved in product development. This includes designers, developers, testers, and the client. A well-written FSD is useful for formalising expected user experience from a software product. This, in turn, allows better understanding between the development team and the client, which can make the entire design process a lot faster.

What Should be Included in a Functional Specifications Document

In an Agile environment, the FSD is kept as concise as possible due to the fast pace of sprints. Regardless of length, the FSD should convey detail regarding any externally visible behavior of the product such as:

• Text of error messages
• Supported web browsers, operating systems, screen sizes
• Pixel sizes of buttons and color shades
• Size and allowable contents of data input fields

In Agile companies, a brief FSD can also be accompanied by using JIRA (or any other development/bug tracking program) to manage development against the specs of the FSD. As you can see below, dashboards included in most development tracking software makes it easy to see who is doing what technical task.

Source: Atlassian JIRA

Unlike the product requirements document, which is completed by the product manager, the functional specifications document can also be completed by business analysts or technical leads. Regardless of who completes the document, it’s still important to understand its implications. As discussed in the free Guide to UX Design Process & Documentation, the functional specifications document picks up where the PRD left off by architecting the systems and specifications to achieve the features.

As you’ll see below, the FSD is all about exploring the feasibility of a product. UX designers are mostly concerned with desirability, while product managers look to maximize viability. All three elements are required for a well-design product.

Source: Desirability Feasibility Viability Venn Diagram

For simplicity’s sake, design philosophies should be kept out of the functional specification document so that the document stays true to its technical audience. While smaller companies may combine the FSD and PRD into one document, the two should be treated separately.

Former head of product development for the Coldfusion project at Adobe, Jason Delmore provides a fleshed-out functional specification document template including information on what does and doesn’t belong in an FSD. You can also check out former Microsoft Excel product manager Joel Spolsky’s complete FSD for his startup Fog Creek Software.

Since a technical lead will usually take ownership of the functional specs, we’ll only look at what’s relevant from a product management point of view. In a nutshell, the FSD is what’s given to developers so they know what to build, what’s given to testers so they know what to test, and what’s given to stakeholders so they know exactly what’s being created.

While your PRD might say something like “The app should include a product listing”, the FSD would say “The system will register a product using the following fields: Name (30 characters), Details (200 characters), Price (currency), Category (pick list).”

The technical direction of an FSD can also be embodied in a project Wiki.

Functional Specification Document Examples

Project Fedora, an open-source operating system created by Linux maker Redhat,provides an excellent example of collaboration on functionality requirements. Although a Wiki is ideal for editing and version control (no need to tell people to delete outdated specifications documents), it can just as easily turn into a mess of tangled links. Either the technical lead or the product manager should help moderate the Wiki.

Source: Core vs. External Functionality in Fedora

Once you’ve chosen a method to outline the technical requirements, you can use any variety of spreadsheet program (MS Project is great if you’re getting detailed) to outline timing.

Unlike the PRD which included rough timing, you now have a much better idea of sprint lengths and delivery dates since the technical work is clearer. The ranking of features done in the PRD can also be included to keep scope in check.

Source: Creating an Agile Project Schedule in MS Project

Whether you choose lightweight or page-heavy methods, documenting your product development improves transparency and can help prevent last-minute stakeholder changes.

An FSD Doesn’t Have to Be Boring

While it sounds fairly dry, the functional specifications document doesn’t need to be on paper. We’ve already looked at project Wikis as a way of introducing more collaboration, but there’s a few other alternatives that might work better (especially if you’re going Lean or Agile)

• Use cases, scenarios, and technical specs described in a spreadsheet combined with an accompanying prototype
• Job stories (popularized by Intercom) and acceptance criteria written down on Post-Its and tacked on a wall
• A graphical format using a tool like Keynote or UXPin (we’ll start wireframing or prototyping and include use cases and any technical specs in a separate page within the project)

To get more practical tips on product and UX design process and documentation, check out the free e-book. Expert advice is featured from Aarron Walter, Laura Klein, Ian McAllister, and dozens others. Visual examples are also shown from companies like Vurb, MailChimp, Apple, Google, and many more.

Functional documentation often serves as a communication bridge between designers, developers, and other stakeholders. UXPin Merge enhances this communication by providing a common language and platform where design decisions are transparent and directly tied to the actual components being used in the product. This clarity helps teams collaborate more effectively, reducing back-and-forth discussions and ensuring everyone is on the same page. Request access to UXPin Merge.

The post A Practical Approach to Functional Specifications Documents appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

In the constantly evolving, technology-driven world we live in, it’s vital to stay on top of the most updated programs and applications out there. In order to have your site, app, game, etc. on the forefront, you have to stay updated with the best coding for your needs.

There are tons of new coding languages that are taking the benefits of old languages and leaving the disadvantages behind. Developers are improving productivity and performance while reducing bug issues. Of course, newer doesn’t always mean better and some older languages still reign.

If you’re hesitant to get involved in coding, see Why it’s Time for Designers to Switch from Image-Based to Code-Based Design and Coding is Designing.

Create code-based interfaces without touching code. Try our UI builder that allows you to drag and drop functional components to arrange the layout that can be easily copied to a dev’s environment. Speed up product design process and ship products way faster. Discover UXPin Merge.

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Coding vs UX Design

Coding and UX design are two distinct disciplines within software development that serve different purposes and require different skill sets.

Coding involves writing instructions (code) that tell computers how to perform specific tasks or functions. It focuses on implementing the logic and functionality of software applications.

UX designing, on the other hand, focuses on creating a positive and seamless experience for users when they interact with a product or system. It involves understanding user needs, behaviors, and preferences to design intuitive and user-friendly interfaces.

Coders use various programming languages (such as JavaScript, Python, Java, etc.), frameworks, libraries, and development tools to write code and build software applications.

UX designers use design tools like UXPin, Figma, or other to create wireframes, prototypes, and visual designs. They also use user research tools, usability testing platforms, and collaboration software to gather feedback and iterate on designs.

Why Coding Matters to Design

If you found it a little odd that there are articles on coding nestled in this design platform, you aren’t alone! It can often be one of the most overlooked elements of design on the surface, yet it is also massively important.

Firstly, it makes sense that there is a notable overlap between coders and designers. After all, both areas are heavily reliant on creativity, problem-solving, and logic. This means that aside from coding’s importance to design, it is also a skill that many designers are actually able to pick up rather quickly.

In terms of necessity, we can look at two significant ways that coding is critical to technology. The first is creating modular code in order to increase efficiency. This is when designers can make use of CSS, one of the most core languages to start with. 

The second is through creating a flexible code that is optimal for scalability. With so many small changes throughout the design process, it’s important to know how to create product suites that won’t need complete code rewrites every time a slight adjustment is made. 

There are of course design tools, like UXPin, which can make the handoff and docummentation painless. Test it for 14 days for free to see! 

Regardless, it’s good to at least keep your ear to the ground. So without further ado, let’s dive into the languages that can really help build upon your coding languages as you apply the skillset to your design!

1. Kotlin

Kotlin is a programming language used for JVM. It was created as an alternative to Java and, similarly to Java, can be used practically anywhere. Android app (also see UXPin’s Material Design libraries) development is the primary usage of Kotlin, but the code also has iOS capabilities. Although Kotlin is not as popular as Java, it is hugely embraced by companies like Netflix, Uber, Pinterest, and many more.

There are a few reasons why developers are using Kotlin over Java. The first reason is simply convenience. Due to the wide range of usage with the code, it’s productivity makes it the clear choice over Java to experienced coders. This efficiency shortens the time required to finish the project as well as reduces the cost of delivering a project.

For app creators specifically, Kotlin’s imbedded programs make life a lot easier. While you’re working, Kotlin searches and prevents bugs in the background. It also includes an algorithm that prevents common coding mistakes from occurring. Finished projects are also much more accessible making apps not only easier to update, but safer to use for consumers.

An additional bonus to being part of the Kotlin community is the communication available to you. There is a Slack channel dedicated to Kotlin developers so questions, support, and even partnerships can have a space to exist. In addition to that, the Kotlin team tries to put out weekly/monthly letters and videos to continuously explain their work.

2. Elm

Elm was designed for creative web-browser based graphic interactions so it’s perfect for those who are more into artistic creating. This is a great program for you to see how Coding is Designing. There is a primary focus on front-hand development with Elm. This means that back-end editing is a bit more difficult, but if you aren’t too concerned with that, then it’s perfect for you.

As a functional language, Elm supports anonymous functions, functions as arguments, and partial application by default, giving you a wide variety. It also has built in controls the predict issues in the program, or the code, and provides hints that are incredibly user friendly.

In fact, Elm is known for being one of the easier codes to work with. It doesn’t require too much background knowledge, and thanks to all the help you get while coding, it’s a breeze to use. This is best for someone who doesn’t have much coding experience! Elm is so user friendly that even kids are coding with it. Tynker is a site listed in the Top Coding Websites For Kids and it utilizes the Elm language. Some find it shocking that young kids are using this kind of technological language.

David Dodge, CEO of Codakid says,

“With technology being as predominant as it is in our world today, there’s no reason kids shouldn’t be learning how to code.”

3. Crystal

Crystal was developed as a new and improved Ruby. For those not familiar with the programming language, Ruby is used to write most web apps. Although it is a very simple code, it isn’t very easy to learn and can be very time consuming due to slow processing.

By maintaining the simple code used, Crystal was able to bring the convenience of Ruby with more productivity and quicker processing. In fact, when tested, Crystal has 20x more performance and was 30x faster than Ruby. This makes the language a clear choice when focusing on web applications.

Crystal also doesn’t require a specific language to be used. The language is type-checked, but specific variables or method arguments don’t have to be specified. There’s also a great feature called crystal play. This allows you to experiment and then quickly get feedback on your work.

4. Swift

Swift is a new language used to develop iOS and MacOS applications. It acts as an alternative to Objective-C. Swift, however, is much faster and maintains a higher performance ability.

Although the language doesn’t cover the Android domain, it is still incredibly useful if you look at the grand scheme of things. Apple’s market is already widespread, and is still growing. It’s also beneficial to focus on this type of production if you think of the variety of products available through Apple. iPhones and MacBooks are not the only items that can support apps nowadays, AppleTVs, Apple Watches, and so many more have the possibility for creation.

Apple’s large consumer base isn’t the only benefit of choosing this language, however. Swift has a clean syntax that makes it easier to both read and write. This saves coders tons of time and frustration in the development process. Perhaps the biggest benefit in choosing Swift over Objective-C is it’s independence. Objective-C can’t evolve if C doesn’t involve, but Swift doesn’t face this problem.

5. Java

The phrase, “oldie but goodie” couldn’t be more correct in this case. Java has been around for ages, but still remains at the top of the list for functional language. Everyone knows about it and almost everyone has used it.

The biggest benefit of choosing Java is that it has infinite usage. It can be used to develop mobile apps, server-side apps, video games, and so much more. Even more important than that though, is that it can run on anything. Java maintains a pretty tight hold on language domain because of its flexibility and easy usage.

Every main web browser supports Java, without having to use a plugin. This allows for much less upkeep with previously created apps. Not to mention, while working it provides multimedia support and is, for the most part, user-friendly. To top it off, Java is free to access and easy to use. It was even listed as a top coding language for kids.

Try Design with Code

Whether coding is something you’ve been doing for years or are just picking up, there are tons of languages out there and there has to be one that fits your needs perfectly. Some are more advanced than others and require some background knowledge, but there are plenty of resources available to you.

Build code-based interfaces in a familiar design environment. Use UXPin Merge and create consistent and user-friendly interfaces with reusable components from best UI libraries out there. Discover UXPin Merge.

The post Coding Languages to Know in 2024 appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

With hundreds of programming languages, it can be overwhelming for UX and product designers to comprehend or decide which one is worth learning. While learning code isn’t essential for a UX designer’s job, it can help them understand technical constraints and improve collaboration with development teams.

This article explores six programming languages for UI/UX designers and why coders use one over the other. We also explain the difference between programming languages, front-end frameworks, and component libraries and how they influence design projects.

Our proprietary Merge technology will take your design projects to the next level with component-driven prototyping in UXPin. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to access this revolutionary UX technology.

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What are Programming Languages?

Programming languages are the code developers use to write websites, algorithms, and digital products. Each programming language has its own markup, rules, structure, package manager, etc.

There are hundreds of programming languages, most of which product teams will never encounter. We’ve narrowed down a list of essential coding languages, so you know where to start if you wish to research these further.

How do Programming Languages Impact the Product Development Process?

A programming language dictates the product’s technical constraints, significantly impacting product development, including the user experience design process.

Design teams must understand these limitations or risk wasting time designing solutions and features that programmers can’t build.

The programming language also influences other product development decisions which ultimately impact UX, for example:

• Time-to-market
• Back-end technical infrastructure (impacts budgets and performance)
• Engineering talent (human resource availability and cost)
• Functionality/scalability through APIs and integrations

Programming Languages vs. Front-End Frameworks

It’s important to distinguish a programming language from a front-end framework. For example, Javascript is a programming language, while React, Angular, and Vue are all Javascript frameworks.

Frameworks are built using programming languages, offering software engineers automation, tools, libraries, functionality, templates, session management, etc., to develop websites and applications more efficiently than coding from scratch.

What is a Component Library?

Component libraries add another layer of confusion for people with a limited code skill set.

Component libraries are code components of a design system featuring ready-made UI elements engineers use to build user interfaces. A popular example is MUI, a React component library built on Google’s Material Design UI.

The designer’s equivalent of a component library is a UI kit that features vector-based graphic elements used in design tools. If you’re still confused, this article explains the difference between design systems, pattern libraries, style guides, and component libraries.

Which Programming Languages Will UX Designers Encounter?

This is a tricky question to answer because designers are more likely to encounter front-end frameworks (usually Javascript-based) and component libraries rather than the individual programming languages behind them–which, as we have learned, are entirely different things.

For this reason, we’ve created two categories:

• Programming languages
• Front-end frameworks

Programming Languages

Here are six programming languages UX designers will most likely encounter during their careers.

1. HTML

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is the markup used in web browsers. It’s the foundational language every engineer must learn to build websites and web apps. Whether you use a front-end framework or not, a web browser will always render HTML, along with some CSS and Javascript for styling and interactivity.

Learning basic HTML as a UX designer is never a bad idea, as this will give you a foundational understanding of front-end coding.

2. CSS

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a style sheet language used to style content with color, layouts, fonts, etc. Without CSS, every website would look identical, featuring the basic styling properties rendered by HTML.

CSS is another essential language for user interface designers because it’s relatively simple to comprehend and significantly impacts UI design.

3. Javascript

Javascript is another core internet language for websites and web applications. Its primary role in web development is providing interactivity and functionality alongside HTML and CSS.

Javascript is also widely used for many front-end frameworks, including React, Vue, Ember, and Angular, to name a few. Companies use these frameworks to build many of the web and mobile apps we use every day.

4. Java

Not to be confused with Javascript, Java is a programming language maintained by software giant Oracle, primarily used to build enterprise applications. Java also powers many hardware devices like smartwatches, fridges, SmartTVs, and wearables, to name a few.

5. PHP

PHP is most well known as the programming language behind the popular content management system, WordPress. It was also the original language behind early Facebook before the social media giant developed React, which now powers most of Meta.

6. Python

Python is another popular front-end programming language used by Meta for Instagram. The language is also popular for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications due to its lean code and pre-built algorithm libraries.

What are the best language for web design?

Here’s a straightforward stack that will come in handy for web design.

1. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): HTML will provide the structure of your website, including sections for displaying information about your company, products/services, and a sign-up form.
2. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): CSS will be used to style your HTML elements, making your website visually appealing and cohesive.
3. JavaScript: Use JavaScript for client-side validation of the sign-up form to ensure that users enter valid email addresses and any other required information. You can also use JavaScript to enhance user experience with features like smooth scrolling, interactive animations, or displaying notifications.
4. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) or Node.js: For the backend functionality of collecting and storing sign-up information, you can use either PHP or Node.js. PHP is straightforward and commonly used for handling form submissions, interacting with databases, and sending emails. Node.js, on the other hand, can provide a more modern and scalable backend solution.
5. SQL (Structured Query Language): Use SQL to interact with a database where you’ll store the collected sign-up information.

With this stack, you can create a simple and functional company website that collects emails and sign-ups effectively. You can start by designing the layout and styling using HTML and CSS, then implement client-side validation and interactivity with JavaScript, and finally, set up the backend functionality for collecting and storing sign-up data using PHP or Node.js and a database with SQL.

What are Front-End Frameworks?

For this article, we’ll focus on four Javascript frameworks commonly used for web and mobile applications.

These frameworks are also compatible with UXPin Merge–a technology that enables designers to use ready-made UI components from a design system to build fully functioning prototypes. Check out our Merge page for more details.

1. React

React is a popular Javascript framework for developing web and mobile applications (iOS and Android)–although organizations typically use React Native for the latter. The component-based markup and flexibility to create cross-platform applications make React a popular choice for product development worldwide.

2. Ember

Ember is a Javascript framework for building web applications. Many popular apps use Ember, including Netflix, Square, LinkedIn, and Twitch, to name a few.

3. Angular

Developed and maintained by Google, Angular is a popular framework for building cross-platform applications. PayPal, GMail, Upwork, and the Forbes website are just a few platforms that use the front-end framework. Angular’s out-of-the-box interactivity and functionality make this framework popular for complex applications.

4. Vue

Vue is a Javascript framework for building single-page web applications. Vue allows you to encompass HTML, making it an easy framework to learn for people with HTML, CSS, and Javascript coding skills. The framework also offers excellent performance and a comprehensive ecosystem to scale applications.

What are the Benefits of Using Programming Languages?

Using programming languages during the design and prototyping process is not uncommon. Designers can create live-data prototypes with code, accurately replicating the final product user experience. 

These code prototypes allow designers to test features with the same fidelity and functionality as the final product, thus delivering better quality results and feedback. 

The problem with using code for prototyping and testing is it adds time to the design process and requires the skills of a front-end developer or UX engineer–valuable resources that increase the project’s costs.

For this reason, organizations reserve code prototyping for solving complex usability issues and typically build a single screen or user flow to save resources.

UXPin Merge – A Design Tool That Renders Code

With a code-based design tool like UXPin Merge, designers can achieve the same results without writing a single line of code. Merge allows design teams to sync a design system from a repository to UXPin’s editor, so designers and engineers use the same UI elements during the design and development process.

Merge works with many popular front-end frameworks, including React, Vue, Ember, Angular, and more. Designers use these components in any other design tool, but they come ready-made with states, animations, and properties defined by the design system.

Faster Prototyping, Better Collaboration

Component-driven prototyping is significantly faster than image-based design because designers only focus on building UIs rather than designing UI elements from scratch.

This single source of truth improves designer/developer collaboration because everyone speaks the same language and works within the same constraints. Design handoffs in Merge are seamless, almost non-existent because engineers have the same component library–it’s just a matter of matching the designs from UXPin.

Scalable

Merge makes it easy to scale and mature a component library with Patterns. Designers can combine multiple elements to build new UI components and patterns. If their design system doesn’t have what they need, designers can use UXPin’s npm integration to import components from open-source libraries to build new patterns.

Enhanced Testing

Merge allows design teams to create immersive, dynamic prototypes that accurately replicate the final product experience, resulting in meaningful feedback from user testing and stakeholders.

Design teams can send stakeholders a link to the prototype and receive actionable feedback via UXPin’s Comments feature. Stakeholders can even assign comments to specific team members.

“Our stakeholders are able to provide feedback pretty quickly using UXPin. We can send them a link to play with the prototype in their own time, and UXPin allows them to provide comments directly on the prototypes.” Erica Rider, Senior Manager for UX – Developer tools and platform experience at PayPal.

With UXPin Merge, design teams don’t need to learn a programming language or collaborate with engineers during prototyping to achieve the benefits of code. Visit the UXPin Merge page to learn more about this revolutionary technology and how it can improve your end-to-end product development process.

The post Which Programming Languages and Frameworks Will You Hear About as a UX Designer? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Product thinking is where UX design and product management intersect to deliver outcomes that create value for the organization and its users. There are several frameworks for product thinking, but the underlying concept is always the same–finding a problem-solution fit with clear goals and measurable KPIs for a successful product.

Whether you’re a startup or a multinational organization, developing a product-thinking mindset is crucial for modern product development and its highly competitive landscape. Some variation of what you plan to build already exists. It’s about identifying problems and opportunities competitors haven’t seen or aren’t fulfilling.

Experimentation is core to product thinking and finding the right solution. These experiments require MVPs or prototypes to test ideas and hypotheses. UXPin Merge is a powerful design tool empowering product teams to build high-fidelity, fully functioning prototypes with little or no design tool experience. Visit our Merge page for more details.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

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What is Product Thinking?

Product thinking is a problem-solving methodology for developing valuable solutions for user problems. It looks at how users, technology, and business goals intersect to deliver products that benefit customers while generating a positive return on investment.

One of the fundamental aims of product thinking is to ship value rather than features. Instead of, “this is nice; customers will love it,” product thinking forces teams to ask, “Does this solve a problem? Will customers use it? Is it valuable for customers and the organization?”

Product thinking is crucial for extending a product’s lifecycle as product teams explore new problems, users, and markets. 

Product thinking vs. design thinking

Product thinking is a holistic method for understanding users, the market, competitors, business goals, and other influencing factors. When an organization designs a new product, the product management team uses product thinking to understand the problem and decide how to solve it using technology.

Design thinking is more user-centered and focuses on solving a specific user problem. Where product thinking defines what to build, design thinking considers the user experience and solving specific usability issues within a product.

The biggest overlap between these methodologies is that they place users and user problems front and center. The primary differentiator is that product thinking is a broad mindset encompassing multiple factors and complexities, while design thinking focuses on user experience.

The Product Thinking Process

In a webinar with Mind the Product, Merissa Silk outlines a three-part product thinking framework. The framework has many hallmarks of the design thinking process but with a broader scope and a greater emphasis on business goals, the market, and competitors.

Problem

Product managers start by identifying the problem. This first stage looks similar to the empathize and define steps of the design thinking process but looks beyond users to understand the market and competitors. Product teams identify a user problem and analyze it from multiple perspectives to determine the value of solving this issue. 

There are two key research tools product teams use to define the problem:

• User personas: understanding users, their motivations, habits, environment, and problems
• JTBD (jobs to be done): a technique for visualizing markets, customers, needs, competitors, and customer segments from multiple perspectives to identify innovative solutions

There are two templates product teams can use to define problems for stakeholders.

Basic template:

• Description of the problem or pain point
• How will the organization solve the problem?
• What are the KPIs for success?

Advanced template (5W1H):

• What is the problem?
• Who does it impact?
• Why is this problem important?
• Where does the problem occur?
• When does the problem occur?
• How could we solve this problem?

Opportunity

Next, product teams assess how they might solve the problem and what that will mean for the organization and its users, including the size of the opportunity and the return on investment. They also look at the market opportunity and how solving this problem might increase the organization’s market share or attract new customers.

While assessing the opportunity, product teams may build prototypes to test ideas and hypotheses.

Solution

Finally, product managers must analyze the results and decide which solutions solve the problem best. They must consider multiple factors, including:

• Possible ROI
• Constraints–including financial, human resources, and technical limitations
• How does solving this problem align with the current product roadmap
• Does this new product align with organizational goals?

How to Use Product Thinking for Building Products

Ex-Google PM Prashant Nair outlines a Practical Template for Product Thinking. Prashant makes the case that product thinking isn’t linear like many product frameworks. Instead, product teams use “continuous recalibration” as they move through the process and identify opportunities.

Prashant’s product thinking template has eight “boxes,” each with a set of questions to dig deep and stress test ideas.

1. Users
2. Market
3. Solution
4. Build
5. Team
6. Measure
7. Research
8. Iterate

PMs start by going through each box systematically and can jump to any box when an idea or opportunity arises.

Users

The first box is identifying your users and understanding their needs. You might ask:

• Who are the direct users?
• Who are the impacted users?
• What are the users trying to achieve?

These are examples; you might have specific questions about your product or market. This step aims to understand your users deeply, their motivations, problems, goals, needs, wants, etc. Using this data, you can create personas to guide the product thinking process.

Market

The second box looks at the market:

• How are the use cases being met today?
• Do you see any gaps/opportunities?
• Are those gaps big enough worth solving?
• Why are market players not solving this problem?

The primary aim of box two is identifying marketing opportunities and assessing whether there is value in solving them. When you identify a problem, it’s crucial to dig deeper and understand why competitors aren’t addressing this issue.

Solution

The first two boxes are designed to find problems and opportunities. The following two boxes focus on solutions and delivery, which brings us to the third box, Solution:

• Does our solution address the gaps providing value to the users?
• Can we sufficiently monetize the value so that our solution is sustainable?
• Have we uncovered any 10X innovation?

Build

The fourth box looks at building an MVP while identifying any challenges:

• How can we test our solution quickly and cheaply?
• How can we anticipate issues and unblock the team?
• How can we ensure a smooth landing?

The build box aims to test solutions. PMs need a cost-effective way to test hypotheses–i.e., prototyping. During the prototyping phase, product teams might identify a new opportunity, returning them to an earlier box to research further. From there, they might jump back to the build box to iterate on a new idea and so on.

At the same time, PMs must anticipate any issues related to the solution; some examples include:

• Regulations or legal implications
• Organizational limitations and capacity
• Cost and resource challenges
• Technical constraints

Lastly, PMs must look at how they might enter the market with this solution and what that process might look like.

Team

The fifth box looks at the organization’s current resources:

• Do we have the right skills and motivations?
• Are incentives aligned?
• Do we have funding/sponsorship to see this through?

The team box is crucial because if you don’t have the skills or resources, the solution is redundant, and you must return to the drawing board. 

PMs must also assess whether the solution aligns with the organization’s values, goals, and roadmap. You may have an excellent solution, but if it pulls the organization in a new direction, that could have adverse implications.

Measure

The sixth box looks at key performance indicators (KPIs) for success and failure:

• What metrics will tell us if we are heading in the right direction?
• Have we built the instrumentation to track continuously?
• When things fail, do we have enough granularity to know what is failing?

PMs will identify business and product metrics and measure these across multiple demographics like location, age, language, gender, etc.

The most important thing when designing these metrics is granularity–do you have the ability to pinpoint issues? 

Research

Continuous research helps keep product teams in touch with market and competitor changes. Some questions the team might ask include:

• Are we tracking external factors?
• Are we able to generate insights?
• Are the insights making it to the correct forums?

It’s crucial to keep track of external factors like market and competitors because it could render your product redundant. For example, if you’re developing a new crypto product in the United States and the government passes legislation requiring new licenses and oversight, this could increase your time and cost to market. Your company might not have the resources to meet these new requirements.

Any external changes will force PMs to return to earlier boxes to address the new problem and adapt the current solution. Without these research systems in place, PMs risk delivering a product that no longer fits the market or serves users.

Iterate

The final box is Iterate, which is something that applies to all boxes:

• Have we fostered a culture of experimentation?
• Are we making data-driven decisions?
• How fast can we adapt?

Google is one of the world’s leading tech innovations. One way they achieve this is by encouraging experimentation and framing failures as learning experiences, eliminating negative connotations. Innovation and great products come from many iterations. When team members are afraid of failure, they don’t try new things, resulting in mediocre outcomes.

Product teams must measure each iteration using KPIs defined in the Measure box. Those KPIs are crucial for telling team members when something isn’t working and why. They can use this data to make changes and iterate. Data-driven decision-making also informs teams when to abandon an idea altogether.

Product teams must go through each box systematically to create a baseline. Then, when they make a change to one box, they have to recalibrate the other seven to get a holistic view of the product idea.

What is a product mindset?

A product mindset is a way of thinking and approaching problems with a focus on creating value for users or customers. It’s a mindset commonly found in product management, design, and development disciplines, but it can be applicable to various fields and industries.

Product vs project mindset

A project mindset and a product mindset represent two distinct approaches to managing initiatives within an organization, often seen in the realms of project management and product management, respectively.

A product mindset is about adopting a holistic approach to creating and managing products, with a relentless focus on delivering value to users while adapting to changing market dynamics and customer needs.

The primary focus of a project mindset is on delivering specific outputs or deliverables within the constraints of time, budget, and scope. Success is often measured by how well the project adheres to these constraints.

While both mindsets involve planning, execution, and management of initiatives, they differ in their focus, approach, and lifecycle. A project mindset is suited for managing temporary endeavors with well-defined objectives, while a product mindset is more suitable for building and evolving products to meet the ongoing needs of users and the market.

UXPin Merge – The Ultimate Product Design Tool

UXPin Merge enables UX designers and product teams to build fully functioning prototypes using interactive components. Product teams can iterate on new ideas and test hypotheses faster than traditional design tools or code.

“With UXPin Merge, some of our product managers can build similar one-page prototypes in eight to ten minutes—the same time it takes our experienced designers in UXPin! Before, with our limited resources and designers, a one-page product would take two or three months just to design mockups. Now product teams can design and deliver a product within the same time frame.” Erica Rider, UX Lead EPX at PayPal

Revolutionize your product thinking and build better MVPs with the world’s most advanced design tool. Visit our Merge page for more details.

The post What is Product Thinking and Why it Matters? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

UX design framework is a valuable tool that helps us create user-centered, consistent, and efficient digital experiences. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution but rather a flexible guideline that can be adapted to different projects.

Many organizations and startups adopt one or more UX design frameworks to deliver successful projects. Design teams use these frameworks to guide decision-making and solve problems.

Key takeaways:

• A UX design framework is a structured approach that designers follow to create consistent and user-friendly digital products, websites, or applications.
• It helps designers make informed design decisions while ensuring a cohesive and enjoyable user experience.
• Design frameworks can help with project delivery, like Lean UX or Double Diamond, or achieve outcomes for a specific feature by applying the Fogg Behavior Model or Hooked Model.

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What is a Design Framework?

A design framework is a set of tools, workflows, protocols, and processes for design projects. Design frameworks provide teams with a systematic approach to solving problems and delivering projects.

Design frameworks help with onboarding new hires or handing over responsibilities. By following a familiar, structured process, new team members know where they are in the design process and how to carry the project to completion.

In large organizations, with multiple cross-functional teams working on the same product, a design framework ensures teams communicate and collaborate to maintain the highest quality and consistency in workflow and delivery.

Design frameworks guide teams rather than force everyone into a specific way of thinking and working. Instead of telling team members what to do, the framework provides a systematic path to finding a solution.

Why do we need design frameworks?

 Some of the core benefits of using a design framework include:

• Consistency: Ensures a uniform and recognizable design across different parts of a project.
• Efficiency: Saves time by providing established patterns of work.
• User-Centricity: Prioritizes the needs and expectations of users, leading to better products.
• Collaboration: Facilitates communication among design teams, developers, and stakeholders.
• Productivity: Teams deliver projects methodically and consistently.

9 Examples of UX Design Frameworks

UX design frameworks provide structure to the design process and product development. There are several frameworks design teams use, depending on the outcome they want to achieve.

User-Centered Design (UCD)

User-Centered Design (UCD for short) is a UX desig frameworksn that places the needs, preferences, and behaviors of the end-users at the forefront of the design process. The central premise of UCD is to create products, services, or systems that are intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable for the people who will use them.

Some key principles and aspects of User-Centered Design include:

1. Empathy for Users: The design process begins with a deep understanding of the user. Designers conduct user research to gain insights into users’ needs, goals, pain points, and behaviors.
2. Focus on Usability: Usability is a critical aspect of UCD. Designers aim to make products easy to learn and use, minimizing user errors and frustration. This involves creating clear navigation, logical
3. Prototyping and Testing: Designers create prototypes early in the design process. These prototypes are tested with real users to identify issues before design handoff.
4. Continuous Improvement: Even after the product is launched, this approach encourages ongoing monitoring and refinement based on user feedback and changing needs.

In essence, User-Centered Design is a holistic approach that aims to create products that not only meet business goals but, more importantly, meet the needs and expectations of the people who use them, resulting in a better user experience.

Design Thinking Process

The design thinking process is the basis for most UX frameworks and workflows. It’s the framework every UX designer learns when studying UX design worldwide.

The design thinking process is an iterative user-centered framework with five stages:

1. Empathize: Discover what your users need
2. Define: Determine the problem you want to solve
3. Ideate: Develop possible solutions to users’ problems
4. Prototype: Create prototypes
5. Test: Test your prototypes with users & stakeholders

Read more about those five stages of the design thinking process.

Double Diamond

The double diamond is an outcomes-based design framework favored for design innovation. The framework encourages collaboration and creative thinking where team members develop and iterate on ideas.

There are two stages (diamonds) and four steps to the double diamond framework:

Stage One – Preparation:

• Discover: UX teams conduct UX research to understand user needs and problems. Researchers must engage with end-users through interviews and usability studies to empathize and find issues.
• Define: Teams use insights from discovery to define and prioritize the problems their project must solve.

Stage Two – Prototyping & Testing:

• Develop: UX teams use various ideation and prototyping methods to develop ideas and solutions to users’ problems.
• Deliver: Teams must test their solutions with end-users and stakeholders. They reject solutions that don’t work and iterate to improve those that do.

Hook Model

Nir Eyal developed the Hook Model as a UX design framework to “build habit-forming products.” The framework encourages designers to approach these projects ethically while delivering value to customers.

The Hook Model is a four-stage process, including:

1. Trigger: Understand what external or internal triggers users to take a specific actions
2. Action: Define the action you want users to take
3. Variable reward: An unexpected, positive reward users get for completing an action
4. Investment: Provide users with an incentive to invest more time in the product, thus repeating the cycle

 Further reading: 

• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
• UX Design Psychology Tricks for Design Excellence

Lean UX

Lean UX is a collaborative UX design framework that prioritizes outcomes over deliverables. Designers must use data rather than assumptions to drive decisions. This methodology delivers leaner, problem-solving products because it eliminates features where there is no need.

There are three stages to the Lean UX framework:

• Think: Outcomes, assumptions, user research, ideate, mental models, sketches, storyboards
• Make: Wireframes, UI design, mockups, prototypes (minimum viable products), value propositions, hypotheses
• Check: Analyze data & analytics, usability testing, stakeholder and user feedback

Further reading: 

• Lean UX: Expert Tips to Maximize Efficiency in UX
• Lean UX vs. Agile UX – is there a difference?

Agile UX

Agile UX is a design framework created to align with agile software development. Like agile software development, agile UX has 12 guiding principles.

1. Customer experience (CX)
2. Harnessing technological and social change
3. Development timelines that make good use of resources
4. Adaptive collaboration
5. Building projects around motivated individuals
6. Effective communication across team channels
7. Working applications and high-quality UX as success benchmarks
8. Sustainable development
9. Technical excellence is relative
10. Simplicity
11. Cross-functional teams
12. Adaptable, flexible teams

Further reading:

• How Agile Environments Revolutionize a Design Team’s Workflow?
• The 12 Realistic Principles of Agile UX
• Agile vs. Scrum vs. Kanban: Which Project Management Methodology is Right For Your Team?

BASIC Framework

BASIC UX is “a framework for usable products.” The relatively new design framework provides interaction design guidelines for modern product development.

The BASIC acronym follows five principles:

• B = Beauty
• A = Accessibility
• S = Simplicity
• I = Intuitiveness
• C = Consistency

Within each principle are a series of questions designers must ask themselves to achieve a successful outcome. 

Beauty:

• Is the visual design aesthetically pleasing?
• Does it follow the style guide?
• Are high-quality visuals used?
• Is it properly aligned?

Accessibility:

• Can ‘everyone’ use it?
• Does it comply with standards?
• Is it cross-platform compatible?

Simplicity:

• Does it reduce the user’s workload?
• Is it free of clutter and repetitive text?
• Is its functionality necessary?

Intuitiveness:

• Is the functionality clear?
• Can the user achieve their goal with little or no initial instructions?
• Can the user easily repeat the task without further instruction?
• Can the user predict the outcome/output?

Consistency:

• Does the product reuse existing UI patterns?
• Are the design language, images, and branding consistent with the design system?
• Does it appear in the right place at the right time?
• Does the product perform consistently every time?

Organizations can adapt these questions or add their own to ensure they’re relevant to the product and its users.

Further reading: BASIC UX – A Framework for Usable Products.

The UX Honeycomb

Peter Morville’s UX Honeycomb is a holistic UX design framework listing seven principles. These seven principles guide each design decision to deliver high-quality products and user experiences.

The UX Honeycomb’s seven principles include:

1. Useful: Products must serve users and solve their problems
2. Usable: Designs must be intuitive and easy to use
3. Desirable: The user interface design must be aesthetically pleasing and deliver a positive user experience
4. Findable: Search, and navigation must be clear and obvious
5. Accessible: Designs must be accessible to all users, including those with disabilities
6. Credible: Users must be able to trust the product and its content
7. Valuable: The final product must deliver value to users and the business

The Fogg Behavior Model

The Fogg Behavior Model, developed by B J Fogg from Standford University, suggests behavior or action is the result of three elements converging:

• Motivation
• Ability
• Trigger

Like the Hooked Model, the Fogg Behavior Model helps designers build products that increase usage and engagement over time. Fogg emphasizes that “baby steps” are the best way to develop long-term behaviors.

A fantastic example many of us have experienced is any digital game. The first level is easy, giving players a sense of accomplishment, thus triggering further engagement. The game gets incrementally more challenging as players spend more time engaging with the product.

Further reading: 

• Fogg Behavior Model
• Tiny Habits by B J Fogg

End-to-End Product Design With UXPin

UXPin is an end-to-end design solution with the tools and features to deliver high-quality products. UX designers can leverage UXPin’s code-based design tool to create high-fidelity prototypes that look and function like the final product.

Prototyping and testing are crucial components of any design framework. UXPin’s built-in design libraries enable design teams to build high-fidelity prototypes to test ideas throughout the design process.

Meaningful Testing Feedback

Code-based prototypes look and function like the final product, producing meaningful, actionable results from usability testing and stakeholders. UX designers can make quick changes and iterate on ideas to find a solution that meets both user needs and business goals.

Streamlined Design Handoffs

With higher fidelity and functionality, UXPin’s code-based prototypes play a crucial role in streamlining the design handoff process so that engineers can deliver the final product with greater accuracy and efficiency.

Enhance your end-to-end design process with UXPin’s code-based design tool. Sign up for a free trial to explore all of UXPin’s advanced features and start creating better user experiences for your customers.

The post UX Design Frameworks – What Are The Most Useful Ones? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Design handoff tools facilitate smoother transitions from design to development. These tools provide engineers with practical documentation, high-fidelity prototypes, and features to communicate and collaborate effectively.

Without an effective design handoff process, designers and engineers spend hours, days, or even weeks of back and forth trying to bridge the gap between design and development.

Streamline your design handoffs by designing with the same components that your developers use to build the end-product. UXPin Merge allows you to bring components from npm, Storybook, or Git repo and drag and drop them in the editor to assemble advanced prototypes. Learn more about UXPin Merge.

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UXPin Merge

With UXPin Merge, you can design and hand over code-based high-fidelity prototypes built with React or Storybook components. This single source of truth enables designers and engineers to work with the same UI elements which speeds up time to market.

Once prototypes are ready, designers share them with engineers who using the Spec mode can see the documentation, style guide, comments, as well as copy the JSX code of components that’s fully usable in development.

Since UXPin Merge makes you design with components that are fully coded, you can be certain that you get quality code and no miscommunication.

Check out Design Handoff: What it Looks Like with UXPin Merge for a detailed look at how Merge can optimize your design process and handoffs.

Zeplin

Zeplin is a popular design handoff tool making it easy for designers, engineers, and other team members to communicate and collaborate effectively. It integrates with collaboration tools like Jira, Slack, Trello, and Microsoft Teams.

With Zeplin, designers can create user flows with annotations to provide engineers with context. A style guide allows designers to save colors, text styles, spacing/layouts, design tokens, and components.

The tool also includes code snippets and other styling so engineers can use to kickstart development.

Marvel

Marvel is a popular design tool with similar design handoff features to Zeplin. You can use Marvel-generated mockups to build prototypes or import from other popular design tools.

Marvel generates starter code and CSS from mockups to save time and bridge the gap between design and development. Engineers can inspect each component and download assets from Marvel, avoiding miscommunication and switching between tools.

Sympli

Sympli is a purpose-built version control and design handoff tool. You could say that Sympli is the designer equivalent of the component directory Storybook.

It integrates with popular prototyping tools to sync UI elements and design systems. Teams can review and collaborate on different elements to provide explanation and context.

Engineers can also view a style guide, spec mode, and specs and assets to start the development process. One of Sympli’s biggest benefits is its ability to sync with IDEs through plugins for Xcode and Android Studio for mobile app development.

Avocode

Avocode creates a design handoff file for the development team. Its “one-click” integrations save designers time by generating downloadable assets, spec mode, and snippets for ten code languages.

Another great feature is Avocode’s design review, allowing designers to invite other teams and stakeholders to critique designs and provide feedback. Designers can iterate on feedback and resync the changes creating a new version so that everyone is aware of the updates.

Design teams can use Avocode’s review feature to discuss inconsistencies and fixes.

InVision

InVision offered their clients Inspect – a design handoff tool that automatically generated design specs and code snippets. Nevertheless, you can’t use InVision for design handoff in 2024. The tool was shut down in January 2024.

If you’re looking for a replacement for InVision, try UXPin Merge – it has a similar suite of integrations and solves major design handoff isssues.

Framer

Framer is a leayout design tool with a code editor to sync and edit React components–a fantastic feature for developers but doesn’t help designers with limited code knowledge and experience.

Designers can’t edit the component’s props in the properties panel as they would in UXPin. Instead, they have to make changes in Framer’s code editor–again, not ideal for those with limited code knowledge.

Designers can, however, use these React components for prototyping and testing, giving designers better fidelity and functionality than other popular image-based tools.

Framer’s high fidelity and functionality make design handoffs smooth and efficient. Engineers can copy code from React components to build new products and UIs.

While Framer’s code-based design technology is excellent for React products, it lacks features for other popular front-end frameworks that UXPin’s Storybook integration provides.

Spectrr

Spectrr is a design specification tool with automated annotations for engineers to inspect components and layouts, including colors, fonts, spacing, and more.

Designers can include notes for each component and instructions for creating responsive layouts. Spectrr also generates a complete CSS file for the project, giving engineers an excellent starter template to begin development.

Adobe XD

Adobe XD got discontinued. It was a widely used UX design and prototyping tool. Designers can hand off to engineers via Adobe XD’s Share feature, including specifications and CSS starter code.

Designers and engineers could collaborate using comments and Adobe XD integrated with popular project management software like Jira, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others. 

Adobe XD’s Share feature was limited by comparison to other design handoff tools, but you could sync designs to Zeplin for more features and better collaboration.

Figma

Figma is arguably one of the most popular design tools. The original release was similar to Sketch but has since evolved to offer prototyping and testing functionality.

In Figma’s Share Mode, engineers can inspect elements and generate code snippets for web, iOS, and Android. You can also install third-party plugins to generate code for frameworks like React, Flutter, Vue, Ember, Angular, etc.

Figma allows you to add “developer seats” to your design projects, so you don’t have to pay to invite and collaborate with engineers. They have complete access to the project and provide feedback through Figma’s comments feature.

UXPin is a code-based tool that renders HTML, CSS, and Javascript rather than vector files like traditional image-based design tools. The benefit for designers and developers is less drift and realistic designs and expectations.

Why are Design Handoffs so Challenging?

One of the biggest design handoff challenges is prototype fidelity and functionality. Designers must use various tools and methods to replicate code-based features–for example, GIFs and videos to display transitions and animations.

Unrealistic Expectations

The problem with these methods is that they don’t have technical constraints, creating unrealistic expectations for designers and product teams. They’re also not part of the actual prototype, so engineers have to go from a prototype to an external file to watch the video animation and see how it all fits together.

Poor Image-Based Tools for Rendering Code

Another issue is converting a design to code. Most image-based design tools offer plugins or applications that generate an HTML template with accompanying CSS. Designers think this is sufficient, but engineers can’t replicate the designs with this code–the two teams are speaking different languages with insufficient interpretation.

Technical Constraints

Another cause of design drift is the rendering engine of the browser or device displaying your product. The most common example is the drift between colors and gradients from mockups to final code.

Too Many Design Handoff Tools

And lastly, design handoffs often include multiple tools for design files, prototypes, documentation, assets, and collaboration. With everything spread across different locations and platforms, handoffs are prone to mistakes and errors.

These are just a few common design handoff challenges that cause friction between design and development. Many of these issues will be familiar if you’re experienced with the handoff process. Luckily, there are design handoff tools to help expedite and streamline the process.

Better Design Handoffs with UXPin Merge

Why use multiple design handoff tools when you can do everything with UXPin Merge? Streamline design workflows, build fully functioning prototypes, enhance collaboration, and improve your product’s user experience with a single tool. Try UXPin Merge to see how easy product development gets when everything is connected. Request access now.

The post Top 10 Design Handoff Tools to Try in 2024 appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

A UX Architect is a person responsible for the structure of the product and user flow. She or he works on the verge of UX design and engineering. This role has emerged as the UX space is continually growing and evolving, with new UX roles and departments popping up from time to time.

We’ll explore what a UX architect does, and the roles and responsibilities for UX designers and UX architects differ and overlap. At the end of this article, we provide a brief overview of how UXPin can help UX teams collaborate effectively.

Key takeaways:

• UX architect is a hybrid role that sits in between design and engineering.
• UX architects build information architecture, create wireframes, and take care of technical feasibility of the project.
• They differ from UX designer in that they have engineering skills and they prioritize clear information architecture.

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Who is a UX Architect?

A user experience architect is essentially a UX specialist with a high-level view of a product or design. UX architects are concerned with the structure and flow based on in-depth user and market research.

To achieve this, UX architects will often work closely with research teams or even conduct research themselves. This research guides UX architects to make informed decisions about how a user will use the product and organize the information architecture accordingly.

What Does a UX Architect Do?

Here’s a brief outline of a UX architect’s responsibilities:

• Ensure the product fulfills the user’s needs
• Makes sure information is organized and easily accessible
• Fixes usability and accessibility problems

Organizing Content

Rather than creating content and assets, a UX architect organizes and arranges content to best serve the user. This organization falls into three categories:

• Content inventory—a list of all the product’s digital content.
• Content grouping—a logical structure for organizing the product’s content, defining the relationships between different pieces of information and how they all connect.
• Content audit—a regular review of the product’s content to determine what needs updating and if new content is required.

UX architects must organize the content on each page and determine where to add titles, subheadings, links, and navigation to help users find what they’re looking for.

Hierarchy, Sitemaps, and Navigation

Information architecture arranges a product or website’s hierarchy, sitemaps, and navigation. These crucial elements determine how easy and accessible an app or website is to use.

• Sitemap – all of the app or website pages.
• Hierarchy – how to arrange a page’s content in order of importance.
• Navigation – how a user moves through an app or website.

Internal Wireframing & Low-Fidelity Prototyping

UX architects create wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes for internal UX teams to use as an architectural reference for designing a product or website. 

UX teams will only use these mockups for design purposes and usually won’t use them for usability studies or sharing amongst stakeholders.

Who is a UX Designer?

A UX designer is a broad term encompassing design and research roles. But in the context of a UX designer vs. a UX architect, the designer is responsible for designing user interfaces. Ultimately, a UX designer makes a product usable.

A UX designer will take a UX architect’s wireframes, prototypes, and architectural instructions and turn them into a high-fidelity prototype that resembles the end-product the most out of every design deliverable. UX designers also work with UX researchers as well as content designers to determine which fonts, colors, buttons, and other design elements to use.

Persona Development

UX designers are responsible for early research and creating user personas. Larger organizations might have a dedicated UX researcher or team, but they still fulfill a UX design role.

User personas tell UX designers about the user’s demographic information, motivations, desires, potential responses, and more to design user interfaces that accommodate these user needs.

Wireframes, Mockups, and Prototypes

UX designers create wireframes and mockups for the product’s pages and flows with initial user research and the UX architect’s information architecture.

UX designers also look at the UX architect’s sitemap to link the pages and navigation to make working low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes.

Research teams will use these high-fidelity prototypes for usability studies to learn how users interact with the final product.

User Testing

Where companies don’t have a dedicated research team, UX designers conduct the necessary usability studies. This crucial part of UX design provides UX designers with valuable feedback on how users will interact with the final product.

With the results from usability studies, UX designers tweak their designs to improve the user experience.

The Main Differences of UX Architect and UX Designer

The most significant difference between a UX architect and a UX designer is that the UX architect looks at the bigger picture while the UX designer focuses on the details.

The UX architect focuses on navigation and user flows while the UX designer creates the user interfaces and interactions for each screen or page.

While both UX architects and UX designers review research, the UX architect considers what features and content the user needs. In contrast, the UX designer wants to know how the user will interact with these elements.

We can summarize the roles of a UX architect vs. a UX designer as follows:

• UX architect – who are the users, and what do they need?
• UX designer – who are the users, and how do we meet their needs?

How UX Architects & UX Designers Work Together

It’s important to note that a UX designer performs the UX architect’s responsibilities in many companies, especially small businesses. 

Where these roles are split, the UX designer is often referred to as a UI designer (user interface designer) because they focus on the interfaces and interactions. 

A UX architect is a UX specialist in information architecture rather than focusing on design.

UX architects and UX designers work closely on content. The UX designer focuses on the content’s details while the UX architect decides how to structure the content. To get this right, designers and architects must work closely together.

A Typical UX Architect & UX Designer Workflow

The following workflow is a broad overview to show the separation of responsibilities between a UX architect and a UX designer. 

1. A project will start with a UX architect analyzing market and user research to determine what the project needs and how to structure the content—similar to an architect designing a physical structure.
2. The UX architect puts together a blueprint (wireframes & prototypes) for the UX designer to start the build process.
3. The UX designer analyzes user research and the UX architect’s blueprints to start designing each user interface.
4. The UX designer will create wireframes, mockups, and high-fidelity prototypes for stakeholders and usability studies.
5. During usability tests – the UX architect wants to know how the user accesses content and navigates through the product. The UX designer wants to see how the user interacts with the elements and content on each screen.
6. Once a product is live – the UX architect’s job is to ensure accurate and up-to-date content. They will also look at accessibility issues and recommend updates accordingly. The UX designer will take the UX architect’s recommendations and analyze interaction data to optimize each screen to best serve the user.

Does Your Company Need a UX Architect & a UX Designer?

With each team focusing on different design aspects, separating the UX/UI designer and UX architect roles can improve the quality and efficiency of a product or website.

There might not be enough work for a dedicated UX architect for smaller projects and cash-strapped startups. It’s important to note that UX designers are capable of fulfilling a UX architect’s role.

As projects scale, information architecture becomes complex and time-consuming to manage. In situations like this, a UX architect is critical to a project’s success.

While agencies generally work in small teams, they often work on multiple apps and websites for clients. Having a UX architect can help to streamline productivity by handing UX designers all the information they need to start building immediately—effectively creating a tech production line.

Businesses should ask a series of questions to determine if they need a UX architect:

• How much time do UX designers spend on building layouts and information architecture?
• Do these tasks create production delays?
• Do users often struggle with navigation issues in usability studies?
• What is the cost of a dedicated UX architect in relation to the benefits from an increase in quality and efficiency?
• Does your product frequently struggle with usability and accessibility issues?
• Is someone monitoring your product’s content? Do you regularly find out-of-date content or unused product features?

UXPin Increases Productivity for UX Teams

UXPin is a powerful design tool for UX teams to build better products collaboratively. UX architects can use UXPin to create layouts, wireframes, and lo-fi prototypes, with comments for guidance and context.

UX designers can use this information to design beautiful screens and interfaces with mockups to present to stakeholders and use for usability studies.

Get a free UXPin trial and see how this design tool can help your UX teams collaborate effectively to build better products for your customers. Try UXPin today.

The post UX Architect vs. UX Designer – What’s the Difference? appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

One of the questions organizations ask themselves at the start of a new project is, “do we adopt a component library or start from scratch?” There are pros and cons to weigh, and it depends on the project’s scope and priorities. 

One of the most popular component libraries is MUI – a comprehensive React UI library modelled at first on Google’s Material Design UI. 

We’re going to take a look at MUI, why you’d want to use it, what makes it different from other component libraries, and how you can get started designing your next project.

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What is MUI?

MUI is a massive library of UI components designers and developers can use to build React applications. The open-source project follows Google’s guidelines for creating components, giving you a customizable library of foundational and advanced UI elements.

MUI also sells a collection of React templates and tools, giving you ready-made user interfaces to tweak for your project. 

Why Would You Use a Component Library Like MUI?

Designers often use UI kits to build new products or feature add-ons for existing projects. These libraries allow designers to drag and drop the components they need to design interfaces quickly. 

Let’s explore 7 reasons why you would want to use the MUI component library.

1. Faster Time-to-Market

In today’s highly competitive tech landscape, time-to-market is a metric that organizations always seek to optimize. A component library gives designers and developers a massive headstart with thoroughly tested UI elements ready to go.

Designers can drag and drop elements to build user interfaces and customize components to meet product and branding requirements. Design teams can spend more time designing great customer experiences rather than getting bogged down building and testing UI components from scratch–a process that increases time-to-market significantly!

Usability testing is much faster because designers can prototype, test, and iterate quickly. If a user interface isn’t working during testing, they can make changes on the fly, drawing from a massive library, to get instant feedback from participants and stakeholders.

When it comes to the design handoff, engineers can install the component library and copy/paste changes from prototypes and style guides to develop the product without starting from scratch.

2. A Single Source of Truth

One of the biggest design system governance challenges is maintaining a single source of truth. It’s not uncommon for product teams, UX designers, and developers to have out-of-sync design systems–resulting in errors, rework, and massive headaches and challenges for DesignOps.

Using MUI’s component library can significantly reduce these challenges while creating a single source of truth between design and development. Designers and engineers will still have separate design systems (image-based for designers and code for engineers), but MUI gives them the same starting blocks.

When using Merge with UXPin’s code-based editor, designers and engineers use the same design system components synced via a single repository. Any updates to the repo sync back to UXPin, notifying designers of the changes. You can connect Merge using Git for React component libraries or Storybook for other popular technologies.

3. Design Consistency

Consistency is vital for user experience, building trust, and brand loyalty. Using the same UI components allows designers to increase consistency while minimizing errors and rework.

4. Scalability

Scalability is another vital product design factor. If you’re building a design system from scratch, designers must design, prototype, and test new components before scaling the product.

With MUI’s comprehensive UI library, designers can search for the components they need to prototype and scale right away. Engineers can copy/paste the identical React components from MUI and customize them to the designer’s specifications.

MUI X includes a library of advanced React components teams can use to scale complex products even faster, including data grids, date pickers, charts, pagination, filtering, and more.

5. Easy Maintenance

A component library like MUI comes with detailed documentation for installing, using, updating, and customizing components. Designers and engineers can use this framework to maintain the organization’s design system, making it easier to establish governance systems and protocols.

MUI also provides how-to guides for migrating from one version to the next. So, organizations can take advantage of the latest UI styles, technologies, and trends whenever MUI releases an update.

6. Accessibility

Those experienced with setting up a design system will know the time and money it takes to ensure every component passes accessibility standards. MUI’s designers have taken great care in designing components to meet WCAD 2.0 accessibility guidelines – reducing the work for researchers and designers.

It’s important to note that even when you design interfaces using accessible components, you must still test navigation and user flows to ensure the product as a whole meets accessibility standards.

7. Skills Empowerment

MUI’s open-source component UI library empowers startups and young entrepreneurs to build new products–especially in developing nations where they don’t have the same access to education, mentoring, and skills transfer.

The library is also incredibly beneficial for charities, non-profits, NGOs, and similar organizations who want to develop products and tools but don’t have the budget to invest in a design system. 

Anyone can leverage the skills of MUI’s talented designers and developers using the same component library used by Fortune 500 companies to develop sophisticated digital products and compete in a global market.

What Makes MUI Stand Apart From Other Component Libraries?

Google’s Material Design UI is arguably one of the best and most comprehensive design libraries in the world. By building on top of Material Design, MUI delivers a React component library to match.

The ability to easily customize MUI using its Theming feature and the libraries’ excellent documentation make it accessible to build products for multinational corporations or a single developer with a product idea.

Because MUI is so widely used, there is a massive global community of designers, researchers, and developers to reach out to for guidance and support. Added to the fact that React is one of the most popular front-end frameworks, makes MUI an attractive component library.

MUI – Interesting Facts and Figures

Here are some interesting MUI facts and figures:

Note: MUI’s stats continue to climb. These facts were accurate as of Jan 2022.

• MUI started in 2014 as Material UI but decided to change its name to differentiate itself from Google. Many people assumed Material UI was a Google product.
• MUI has over 2,200 open-source contributors.
• There are over 2,3 million NPM downloads of MUI per week.
• Over 73,700 stars on GitHub.
• Of the 1,488 respondents to MUI’s 2020 survey, 35% of developers worked in an organization with less than five people.
• In the survey, 27% of developers use MUI for enterprise applications, while 20% use the library for admin dashboards.

UXPin’s MUI 5 Kit

Using UXPin Merge’s MUI integration, you can leverage the power of prototyping with UI React components.

MUI helps you create designs with fully functioning code components. With a single source of truth, designers, developers, product teams, and others can collaborate more effectively with fewer errors and friction.

Higher fidelity means better usability testing with meaningful feedback from participants and stakeholders. The result? A better overall user experience and increased business value.

Find out more about UXPin’s MUI kit and how you can sign up to request access to this revolutionary code-based design technology: MUI library in UXPin: Design Faster.

Syncing a Component Library With UXPin Merge

With UXPin Merge, you can build fully functioning high-fidelity prototypes with an open-source component library. With complex UI components like menus, forms, tabs, data tables, date pickers, accordions, and more, you can build beautiful and functional layouts in minutes. Check out Merge.

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Breaking down silos makes it easier for everyone involved in a project to work together towards a common goal. Unfortunately, traditional working environments make cross-team collaboration different.

Newer tools with a code approach can give you an easier way to eliminate organizational silos. Explore one of them – UXPin Merge. UXPin powered with Merge technology help to break the silos between design, development, and product teams at your organization. It allows you to build prototypes with a single source of truth – coded components. Discover UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

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Why Do You Need to Break the Silo Mentality?

Silos create inefficiencies that can adversely affect your teams. You might not even know that silos exist within your organization. Once you learn to notice their effects, though, you will likely spot departmental silos everywhere and see how they interfere with your company achieving a common goal.

Here are 5 common problems created by silos:

• A narrow focus on individual tasks that do not contribute to the bigger picture.
• Continued functionality issues that no one within the design team knows how to solve.
• Longer product development, testing, and release timelines.
• Lack of insight into how the company could improve its product development process.
• Inefficiencies that add to project expenses and disappoint stakeholders.

6 Practical Tips to Break Down Silos

With these issues in mind, consider how the following steps could break down silos and build a better company culture.

Tip #1: Form a leadership team that includes a representative from every department

You can build trust and improve communication by creating a leadership team that includes at least one representative from every department. The leadership team can keep the big picture in mind while steering the project toward its final goal.

Tip #2: Establish a unified vision before breaking the common goal into individual tasks

Communication doesn’t always trickle down to every member of a team. You can eliminate this problem by creating a unified vision and breaking the common goal into individual tasks. The tasks can get assigned to teams.

If you start with small tasks and hope that they come together in the end, you will likely find disappointment.

Tip #3: Invite team members from different departments to meetings

The pandemic forced companies to adopt remote working environments. Luckily, videoconferencing apps stepped up to help colleagues and freelancers from all over the world engage with each other in virtual environments.

Since you might need to invite marketers, developers, designers, and other colleagues, you should choose a videoconferencing service that can accommodate several people. You can even get marketing teams engaged to learn from their insights and help them plan for how they will sell the finished product.

Some of the top options include:

• Zoom, 
• BlueJeans,
• Google Meet

If you expect fewer or more participants, you can usually choose plans that match your unique needs. Choosing the right plan helps ensure that you get input from different teams without spending more money than necessary.

Many teleconferencing apps will also let you track metrics and record your meetings so you can focus on interacting with colleagues instead of taking notes. You should notice improved employee engagement when people can talk to each other without writing down their thoughts. You have to put a premium on engagement when working with remote teams.

Tip #4: Choose collaboration tools that appeal to all departments

Until recently, designers and developers often found themselves at odds when creating digital products. Even when they share long-term goals, their specializations encourage them to think about creating products in different ways.

That’s why there’s drift when it comes to the handoff process. It’s best to use a tool that will allow both devs and designers to collaborate without getting in each other’s ways. A solution with code-powered technology can help with that. 

When designers use already-coded components that can be easily reused, there’s no room for a disconnect between what is designed and what can be coded. Not to mention the time efficiency that tools like that offer – both with designing and coding the final product based on the prototype. 

Create a design system that contains all approved assets

Every team working on a product should have access to a design system that contains all approved assets and components. A design system ensures that diverse teams work toward a shared aesthetic and function even when they do not spend much time talking to each other.

When you go for a code-to-design approach in design on top of that, you don’t have to worry about syncing the changes in the code with the design components as that can be done automatically. Thanks to that you have all the approved assets up to date. 

Share information between teams as you make progress

Regular updates can incentivize developers, designers, and team members of other departments to stay focused on their projects.

Working in a vacuum often feels like a thankless—or even pointless—task. Someone designing icons might lose inspiration because they do not see what role the icons will play in the product. Similarly, a developer tweaking interactive forms might not see the point of their work until they witness it in action.

When you reach a milestone, celebrate by showing how everyone’s cumulative efforts have taken you closer to your ultimate goal. If possible, you might enjoy lunch or a drink together. If you work remotely, you can still enjoy a fun meeting that focuses more on building excitement and trust than working on the project.

Eliminate organizational silos with UXPin Merge

UXPin has always been a code-based tool for digital design. UXPin Merge takes the technology a step further by letting designers design with production-ready components That means developers get the opportunity to review designs from the perspective of fully functional code and quickly implement it

UXPin Merge also works in conjunction with several systems, including Material UI, CA Technologies Mineral UI, and IBM Carbon. This approach makes it even easier for engineers to participate in prototype development and making sure designers use components that have already been coded.

Discover more effective, collaborative ways to solve DesignOps challenges. UXPin Merge can help break down silos, reduce design inefficiency, and improve customer experience to meet your company’s goals better than ever.

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Developing digital products from scratch requires a lot of resources. Multi-brand design systems enable organizations to build once, duplicate, and customize–saving thousands of design and development hours.

This centralized approach to design systems means organizations can share costs across different brands while providing a framework to enter markets with new products much faster.

Sync your component library with UXPin’s design editor using our revolutionary Merge technology to create a single source of truth across design and development. Visit our Merge page to learn more and request access.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

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What is a Multi-Brand Design System?

A multi-brand design system is a set of guidelines, assets, and rules that allows for the efficient and consistent user interfaces across multiple brands or sub-brands within a larger organization. Multi-brand DS ensures harmony and efficiency in the design process while allowing each brand to shine with its unique personality within the broader context.

How Does it Differ from a Standard Design System?

GroupUI used internal Volkswagen research to compare multi-brand vs. regular design systems, discovering that “multi-brand design systems share costs and enable real collaborative development.”

The results across four key metrics were staggering when comparing multi-brand vs. regular design systems:

• 25% cheaper and faster UI design work
• 30% increased development efficiency & efficacy
• 30% reduction in future managed costs
• 3-4 times faster to market

But for us, there’s one word that sets them apart–flexibility. Multi-brand design systems are optimized for flexibility, enabling product teams to leverage an existing component library to develop products for another brand.

Conversely, companies build mono-brand design systems around principles and constraints that limit flexibility. These limitations ensure designers deliver projects to high standards of quality and consistency.

Facilitating change through design tokens

Most multi-brand design systems use design tokens to facilitate global styling changes, for example, adapting colors, typography, corner radius, spacing, etc., to meet brand requirements simply by modifying the token’s property.

In this way, multi-brand design systems share a lot of parallels with themeable open-source component libraries–built to facilitate change. A multi-brand design system is essentially a template or toolkit with an adaptable codebase, design language, and brand guidelines.

Multi-Brand Design System Examples

1. Forge from Harry’s

Using design tokens is one aspect of a multi-brand design system. Organizations must also make the component library customizable. Personal care brand Harry’s used Brad Frost’s Atomic Design (or layering as they call it) approach to build its multi-brand component library, Forge.

Forge uses two layers:

• Base layer (or sub-components): “flexible base components that cannot be deconstructed further.” Product teams only change styling properties for these base components–possibly through design tokens.
• Complex layer (“second layer “): “multiple base components arranged in specific and opinionated ways.”

By structuring components in “layers,” Harry’s built a multi-brand component library that enabled product teams to keep brand-agnostic layers and swap brand-specific ones to customize user interfaces.

Forge’s layered-component structure also facilitates flexibility because individual brands can use sub-components like Lego blocks to build a design system for a new product.

“With the Forge, brands are free to combine sub-components to create solutions tailored to their users without requiring any changes to the component library.” – Mae Capozzi, Senior Software Engineer at Harry’s

Forge’s design system governance offers product managers four options for promoting new patterns:

• Existing Option A: Build custom components
• Existing Option B: Try to reuse components from the existing codebase
• New Option C: Assemble “new” components out of Forge base components
• New Option D: Use an out-of-the-box Forge component

2. Volkswagen’s GroupUI

Volkswagen’s GroupUI is a multi-brand design system serving some 15+ brands. At the time of recording a webinar with Into Design Systems in 2022, only several of Volkswagen’s brands had adopted GroupUI, including VW, Skoda, Audi, Porche, Man, Scania, and RIO.

Unlike a tech company, Volkswagen has many design layers, including real-world (tangible) products and digital products. 

“You have to bring two things together-the vertical harmonization of touchpoints within one brand. For example, the harmonization of in-car HMI, web applications, and apps, plus some internal VR/AR applications. And then the horizontal harmonization of technology.” – Thorsten Jankowski, User Experience Lead Group IT, Volkswagen AG.

Volkswagen has multiple touchpoint layers within each brand, including:

• Web technology
• Native applications
• AR & VR driver systems
• Automotive UIs

GroupUI focuses on web technology but must align with each brand’s vertical as much as possible to create a consistent user experience across every touchpoint.

For example, when a customer purchases a vehicle through a brand’s website, the user experience and UI must be consistent from website to email marketing and in-car user interfaces.

GroupUI’s Multi-Brand Design System Principles

To achieve this level of flexibility and customizability while maintaining a consistent brand experience across every vertical and touchpoint, GroupUI developed a set of “overarching principles:”

GroupUI’s over overarching principles help guide the group through three pillars that intersect toward a common goal:

• Flexibility
• Collaboration
• Transparency

Flexibility over rigidity: GroupUI is framework-agnostic, meaning brands can adopt a framework (React, Angular, Vue, etc.) that best serves their purpose and goals. To achieve this, GroupUI’s core component library uses Web Components, is token-based, and facilitates Snowflakes.

Global collaboration over stakeholder focus: GroupUI aims for “continuous evolution as a common goal” by putting the group’s needs ahead of a single brand or stakeholder. This generic strategy increases trust. GroupUI’s team works continuously on evangelism and distribution to promote generic over brand-specific implementation.

Transparency over complex documentation: GroupUI uses a centralized backlog for issues and design solutions. This centralization reduces silos vertically within each brand and horizontally across the entire group while facilitating an ecosystem for brands to learn and evolve together.

3 Tips for Building a Multi-Brand Design System

Tip #1: Use fewer tools to increase adoption

The first step to building a multi-brand design system is minimizing design tools! More tools mean the design system team must maintain multiple platforms.

When News UK built its multi-brand design system for The Times, The Sun, Virgin Radio, and The Sunday Times, to name a few, Nick Dorman, Head of Design Systems, found that using multiple tools resulted in a “disjointed solution.” Implementing simple changes would take days or weeks because the DS team had to update and verify changes across each platform systematically.

News UK chose an image-based design tool which helped unify Design but still meant they had to maintain two design systems:

• One for design – image-based UI kit
• One for development – component library

UXPin Merge is a far better design tool solution for multi-brand design systems. Merge syncs a component library hosted in a repository to UXPin’s design editor, so designers and engineers use the same UI elements. Any updates to the repo automatically sync to UXPin, notifying design teams of the changes–creating a single source of truth across design and development. 

Tip #2: Choose a framework-agnostic design system

As we learned from Volkswagen, a framework-agnostic design system allows brands to use a tech stack that best serves their needs. GroupUI supports Web Components/HTML, Angular, and React–the three frameworks used across Volkswagen’s brands. Brands can preview these components through a centralized Storybook, including guidelines and documentation.

Like Forge, GroupUI’s design system works in layers so teams can build components to meet their needs. A brand theme defines each component and nested component’s properties.

Designers can also benefit from a framework-agnostic design system with UXPin Merge. Merge’s Storybook integration enables design teams to sync any Storybook-compatible framework with UXPin’s design editor–eliminating the need for creating UI kits.

At design handoff, engineers install the framework’s package, apply the appropriate theme and copy component changes rendered by UXPin to complete front-end development.

Tip #3: Adopt atomic design methodology

Adopting an Atomic Design methodology is an excellent strategy to future-proof your multi-brand design system. Volkswagen, Harry’s, and News UK applied Atomic Design principles to build flexible, themeable design systems.

The idea is to create a base layer of core components or building blocks that never change. Engineers nest these core components inside a themed master component to apply brand-specific styling via design tokens.

This example from Volkswagen shows two tab patterns. One for Porsche, the other for Volkswagen. Notice how the tab patterns and nested components are identical; only the theme property changes for each brand.

Building components and patterns using this Atomic methodology make it easy to scale the multi-brand design system while providing each brand with a framework to scale individual design systems.

Build Your Multi-Brand Design System With UXPin Merge

Multi-brand design systems are complex beasts with lots for design system teams to consider. The design system team must find ways to simplify workflows, reduce tools, and minimize time-consuming tasks.

As we saw with News UK, using multiple tools creates a massive burden for design system teams updating and maintaining several platforms. 

UXPin Merge solves this design tool challenge by providing designers with a single design, prototyping, and testing solution. No plugins or extensions–everything design teams need is built-in.

Merge has the added benefit of syncing design and development to create a single source of truth across every brand–impossible to achieve with traditional image-based design tools.

With UXPin Patterns, design teams can combine building blocks from a multi-brand design system to promote new patterns for the component library. UXPin Patterns is also helpful for saving multiple component variants, so designers can save time during prototyping by dragging and dropping elements to find the right solution fast!

Sync design and development while unifying multiple brands through a single component-driven design solution. Discover UXPin Merge.

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According to IDEO, a truly innovative product must have desirability, viability, and feasibility for sustainable long-term growth and success.

The design thinking process involves research, or a design review, to determine what product and features will serve your customers the best. A successful design review identifies a problem your competitors aren’t solving that will benefit both your end-users and the business.

But, where do you start? How do you find this competitive edge? And how do you know if it’s a viable business model that serves users and the organization?

This article explores research during the conceptualization phase of design thinking and how to identify an idea that meets three key criteria:

• Desirability – is a need that the user have to use a product.
• Viability – is a commercial value of releasing a product.
• Feasibility – is practical and technical constraints of creating a product.

Does your design tool provide you with features to take a product from concept to design handoff? UXPin is an advanced end-to-end design tool that makes it easy to create prototypes with live React, Storybook or npm components. Check why this approach to prototyping can help you. Discover UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

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What are Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility in Design?

Desirability, viability, and feasibility is a design thinking methodology to test ideas, concepts, and hypotheses to determine if you have a unique value proposition (aka unique selling point) and whether it’s worth pursuing.

Without checking all three boxes, you increase the risks, costs, and potential for failure. You could say desirability, viability, and feasibility are a risk analysis methodology for ideas – a toolkit to find that innovation sweet spot.

By applying this methodology, you can pinpoint the weak points in your design concepts, do further research or scrap the idea and move on.

Where Does this Methodology Originate?

IDEO, a global design company, conceptualized the desirability, viability, and feasibility design thinking methodology in the early 2000s as a way to test ideas.

IDEO recognized that the best ideas succeed when they fulfill this trifecta. Conversely, “great ideas” often fail when they miss one or more of these three criteria.

Let’s look through these three lenses to understand how this trifecta fits together.

Desirability

The first box designers must check is desirability. If your product idea has no market value and people don’t want or need it, it won’t sell. 

Researching desirability will also tell you whether your product is a want or a need. For example:

• You need to get to work which you can do by walking, taking public transport, driving, carpooling, etc.
• You want a car to get to work because it offers convenience, and maybe more luxury than public transport.

A need is something your customers cannot live without, while a want is often a more desirable option to fulfilling that need. Both check the box for desirability, but a product that fulfills someone’s need is far more valuable than something someone wants or is “nice to have.”

To find a desirable product, you must research your customers and identify pain points (wants and needs) that you can fulfill. 

• Does your product solve someone’s problem?
• Do your competitors offer a solution? 
• Do you have a better idea? 
• What makes your idea unique, and why would someone choose yours over the competition?
• How will your product make end-users feel?
• Is your product so desirable that people will tell their friends?
• Will your product be something that once people try it, they won’t want to live without it?

When researching desirability, the intention is to stress-test your idea to find the gaps that need fixing. The more gaps you fill, the stronger your product and the better it will stand up against rigorous stakeholder questioning and customer satisfaction.

Viability

Viability tells you whether or not your product makes business sense. Even if you have the most desirable product in the world, if it’s too expensive or isn’t profitable, then it’s not a good business model.

A truly viable product idea makes business sense in the short-term and into the future. The quicker and longer it can deliver a positive return on investment, the higher the viability of your design idea.

A fantastic example of viability is how Coca-Cola designed a beverage formula in 1886 that’s still one of the most consumed drinks in the world today! That initial investment created massive wealth for its inventors and still delivers incredible returns for shareholders more than 135 years later.

Viability is also about societal and environmental impact—the ethical aspect of your design. Will your digital product provide a positive gain for society? In 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen released documents showing that the social media giant’s internal research showed that Instagram creates anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among teenage girls.

Instagram might deliver high financial returns in the short term, but is this harm to teenagers sustainable long-term? And what will governments do to regulate Facebook and Instagram?

Facebook is a massive company with the resources to overcome societal controversy, fines, and lawsuits. But, a smaller company or startup will mostly like fold when confronted with similar pressures. 

So, when we look at viability, it must provide value for the business, customers, and society. Some questions you might want to consider include:

• What has to be true for this design to work?
• What will it cost to turn your design into a functioning product?
• Do you have the capital investment to build the new product or feature?
• What is the pricing model? And, can the business make a profit?
• How long will it take to see a positive return on investment?
• Is the product sustainable?
• How does the product impact society?

Like desirability, viability requires you to research, analyze, and stress-test ideas to ensure they’re viable and sustainable.

Feasibility

Feasibility looks at your current resources to determine if you’re capable of developing the product in the foreseeable future. Designers must consider how the product will impact the business.

Some feasibility factors include:

• Technical constraints
• Financial constraints
• Product’s impact on branding, marketing, customer support, and other areas of the business
• Estimated time-to-market
• Operational capabilities

Ideally, you want to design a new product or feature within the company’s current capabilities using available resources. When you have to build infrastructure to support a new product, you increase the risks and costs.

Here are some feasibility questions you might want to consider when designing a new product or feature:

• Does the current design system have the components to develop the new product?
• How long will it take to design and develop the product?
• Do you have enough product designers, UX designers, and engineers to build and scale the new product?
• Can our technical constraints support the new design?
• Will the organization need to hire new talent?
• If you have to extend the organization’s capabilities, how can this benefit future products?
• What impact will the product have on the brand?
• Will the product’s release impact other areas of the organization, like marketing, sales, and customer support? And do these departments have the capacity for more work?

Using Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility in a Design Review

Organizations conduct a design review during the early stages of a product design to evaluate the design against specific criteria. The goal is to identify any problems with the design or prototype before developing it–which carries the costs of infrastructure, marketing, sales, customer support, and more.

Essentially, the organization wants to know the product design’s desirability, viability, and feasibility.

A UX Design Review Template

Applying the desirability, viability, and feasibility design thinking methodology will give you the insights and data to present a comprehensive and objective design review to stakeholders. 

Below is a structure or template you can use to present your design review so that it’s easy for stakeholders to read and digest.

The problem: State the problem succinctly. The design and business teams will build a shared understanding from this foundation.

The system (current state): Show how the current system works (if it’s an existing product) to help put the problem in context. Later, you can show how the system could work with your proposed experience.

The Jobs To Be Done (JBTD): A shared understanding of what motivates your customers is crucial for a design review. As Tony Ulwick defines JBTD: “a lens through which you can observe markets, customers, user needs, competitors, and customer segments differently, and by doing so, make innovation far more predictable and profitable.” This lens helps stakeholders understand how customers decide whether to “hire” or “fire” your solution.

The business objective: State the business value and ROI for solving this customer problem.

The metrics that matter: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. These metrics should enable you to quantify the business and customer value you’ll create through your new product design.

The proposed experience: Summarize the proposal in a sentence. Make it clear and understandable. The people in the room need to understand how this proposal relates to the problem you’ve previously articulated.

The implications of your proposal: How will your proposal impact other parts of the business? Maybe you don’t know. Understanding this early in the product design process is critical to achieving balance in desirability, viability, and feasibility.

Basic experience design: Present your wireframes, mockups, prototypes, or minimum viable product (MVP) so that stakeholders can visualize how a customer might find the product desirable.

Insights informing the design: What led you to choose this design? What were the insights, hypotheses, etc.? Show your depth of thought in a few bullet points.

Hypotheses about the new design: 

• What are your hypotheses about the new design? 
• How did you arrive at this hypothesis? 
• How can you align these hypotheses to the metrics you believe matter?

These should be clear and testable. By conducting tests with clear pass/fail metrics, these hypotheses should also give you a strong foundation for measuring the incremental progress you’re making.

The team’s collaborative focus: Why are you all in the room? What input do you need from stakeholders? This section of the design review template helps set a clear context and focus for the stakeholders responsible for the product’s success.

With UXPin Merge, you can use built-in component libraries to quickly assemble high-fidelity prototypes and MVPs and present these to stakeholders during the design review. This will definitely speed up your time to market, and make you release quality products faster. Discover UXPin Merge.

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As an industry, product design has become more interactive than ever before. Whether you’re creating apps, websites, or software, there’s an endless stream of new tools and workflows to help make your design decisions as comprehensive as possible. However, when there are design team members, project managers, and stakeholders who all want to be involved in the project at the same time, things can get messy pretty quickly.

Managing effective feedback process at all stages of the design workflow has become a bit of pain, to say the least.

Fortunately, there are a ton of design feedback tools that can help you gather, organize, and utilize constructive feedback and help keep everyone on the same page. That’s why we’ve compiled a collection of the best design feedback tools to help you find the right one for your specific needs.

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How to Pick the Best Design Feedback Tool? 

First off, how do you even know whether a design feedback tool is right for you?

Of course, you need an application that makes collaboration easy and doesn’t do more harm than good. The software and feedback features need to actually benefit your creative efforts, so bear these considerations in mind. This also means that – when choosing the right design collaboration tool – you should check whether it lets you comment on the design when making iterations, or leave feedback on actual, published apps and websites.

Here are a few criteria to search for:

1. interactivity
2. satisfying feature set
3. real-time user
4. collaborative

Your tool is interactive

Professional design feedback tools must be as interactive as possible. 

In the past, feedback would have been as simple as drawing lines and writing comments on a screenshot, or supplying a designer with a list of things to change, but this just isn’t good enough today.

It wastes so much time having to shift through messy lists of feedback, find what feature a client is referring to, or identify what the bug in question is. 

An interactive tool removes these issues and instead displays actionable feedback in the right places in an organized manner. Everything is clean, easy to follow, and intuitive.

There’s no point in getting a feedback tool that ends up causing more problems than improving productivity.

Offers increased functionality

Despite being a feedback tool, your chosen solution should always be far more capable than this baseline feature. 

The best tools grant access to other functions, such as being able to generate specs and documentation or even manage the entire design process.

For example, connecting with the prototyping process is essential yet often overlooked. 

If colleagues, project leaders, or UX testers provide great design feedback on a certain aspect of the project, you can incorporate it into your prototype, test again, gather more feedback, and then repeat the cycle.

This is a far more effective way to work and will speed up your design process as a whole. Productive design review should be an iterative process that helps to improve the quality of your designs, rather than something that just bogs you down.

Functions in real time

Nowadays, especially with the rise of remote and hybrid ways of working, your collaboration tools need to operate in real-time. This includes displaying design previews, adding comments and annotations, and even video and audio notes for highly-detailed responses.

Allows effortless communication

Communication is everything at all stages of the design process, including when it comes to organizing feedback.

Your design review tool should enable users to add all kinds of comments in any format (text, video, image, GIFs, etc) as well as @mention-specific team members. In order to avoid any confusion, it’s also important that everyone’s on the same page in terms of which tool you’re using and that everyone understands how to use it.

6 tools for collecting design feedback

Let’s now take a look at the design feedback tools that will make the design review more effective and interactive. 

1. Proofhub

Proofhub markets itself as a project management application orientated to the needs of designers. Clients or project managers can check in and provide feedback throughout the entire design workflow, annotating the project within the app using a clean overlay approach.

This means designers can eliminate previous issues, like having to search and find feedback in a massive email or Slack threads, access the feedback at any time, and work on a project in real-time.

While fast, effective, and easy to get set up and running, the interface can feel a little clunky and lacks customizability. However, if you can overlook this, it does get the job done.

Features

• Review all files in any kind of design project with a click
• Collaborate with all team members, clients, and managers in real-time
• All past file versions remain accessible simultaneously

2. Atarim

Atarim is used by over 5,000+ agencies worldwide, including companies like GoDaddy, Elementor, and WPEngine. If you’re looking for a design feedback tool specifically for website building, then it’s worth considering it.

It’s essentially a WordPress plugin that digital development and design teams can use to track changes across the websites they’re building. Atarim lets you add internal comments, collect feedback from clients, and then use the findings to improve the UX and UI. 

This design review app supports screenshots and comments, and can turn any text into a task that can be assigned to a relevant team member.

Atarim can be integrated into other collaboration tools like Trello and Asana, as well as other Kanban boards. While clearly feature-rich, this software can be a little confusing to newcomers, and the learning curve may take some time to climb.

Features

• Supports internal messages that keep conversations away from clients
• Give feedback on non-WordPress sites with a few clicks
• Turn comments on screenshots into assignable tasks

3. UXPin

UXPin allows you to catch positive and negative feedback before it becomes costly, that is during the prototyping phase. Non-designers as well as fellow designers can give approvals or leave their not-so-positive feedback before the prototype gets passed on to engineers.

It’s costly for any business to create entire apps, websites, and features, only to have them redesigned from the ground up once clients, stakeholders or product managers want changes made.

Instead, you can use UXPin to generate robust prototypes of individual design elements, acquire feedback, and then implement the changes until your design is given the green light. Next, prototypes can be shared with developers who will polish it off into the final app, making it effortless to bring the best of collaboration and teamwork to your design projects.

Features

• Create, run, and tweak prototypes in real-time
• Import Sketch or Figma designs in just a few clicks
• Create and share preview links to ensure your prototypes are accessible to everyone who needs access
• Animate between states to create one of the most advanced user testing experiences possible
• Use ground-breaking variable data storage to create the most life-like prototyping experience
• Hand over your designs to the engineering team with autogenerated specs and ready-made code.

4. BugHerd

Whatever you’re designing, you’re going to come across bugs and problems that need addressing. Keeping track of everything and being organized can be a challenge, to say the least. BugHerd addresses this pain point with its visual-heavy feedback tool.

The app is simple. Using a visual interface to display code, screenshots, websites, or whatever visuals you want, clients, stakeholders, and team members can place sticky-note-like comments to provide any kind of feedback, highlight issues, and more.

Features

• The entire service is hosted in the cloud
• All comments and feedback are easily accessible and searchable
• Mark annotations on images provide concise feedback

5. Nimbus Capture

Sometimes, you’re not going to want a high-end service but rather something simple, quick, and easy, and that’s where Nimbus Capture comes in. It’s a great tool for startups that provides a range of collaboration tools designed for improving feedback and collaboration efforts, the most notable of which is Nimbus Note.

While quick and easy, it’s important to realize that this design review tool can feel a little restrictive when compared to other tools that offer a more integrated service. The UI is a little dated (especially when using the free Chrome extension), and you don’t actually integrate your work into the app.

This means designers are going to be constantly switching back and forth between windows to make changes and review feedback, rather than just working with everything within a self-contained and accessible place.

Features

• A free Chrome browser extension
• Users can annotate screenshots using a variety of methods
• Automatically organize notes using a table of contents

6. Userback

Reviewing feedback takes time, and it’s time wasted if not handled properly. Userback aims to make things easy with its visual feedback tool. Used by companies like Couchbase, Udacity, and more, Userback works within any kind of project, be it web design, app design, and more, and it allows users, clients, and designers to annotate on the fly.

You can specifically mark areas of the screen with interactive comments, mention specific engineers, highlight bugs and potential issues in the code, and even provide client support in real-time.

The app can fully integrate into an extensive range of major services, including Slack, Trello, Asana, WordPress, ZenDesk, GitHub, and so on, and even supports video feedback.

While this is surely a feature-rich solution, Userback is designed for users to provide their feedback once the product has already been launched. It’s not the best choice if you want to do a design critique of wireframes or prototypes. This means that bugs and glitches are possibly already influencing the usability of your product, and the damage could have already been done to the overall user experience.

Features

• You can draw directly on the design
• Use video feedback to gather feedback from customers faster
• A feature request dashboard lets you look at all of the comments and track their status

Use UXPin to Collect Feedback on Prototypes

Great design feedback is an important part of the design process, no matter if it’s a positive feedback or negative, and there are a variety of tools available to help make it as smooth as possible. While some software is more comprehensive than other, each has its own unique set of features that can be tailored to fit your specific needs.

That being said, don’t forget that there’s no stage of feedback more important than prototyping. For this reason, make sure you’re using a tool that allows you to collect feedback early and often, so you can make revisions and create a better design, just like UXPin does. 

It can help make a more quality designs for apps and websites. At the end of the day, your apps will make or break depending on your UX design, and designers have the most important role in creating an experience that users will love.

UXPin is designed at its core with this goal in mind. Try it for free, and you’ll see that design work will never be the same again.

The post Best Design Feedback Tools – A List of 6 Tools appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

UXPin invited Ethnio to talk about how DesignOps and ResearchOps teams can collaborate to be more effective and create more impact. Ethnio outlines a strategy for using research democratization, tools, and automation to keep product, UX, and research teams in sync.

Ethnio demonstrates how organizations can:

• Recruit, schedule, and pay participants for global research studies using Ethnio
• Conduct high-quality usability testing with interactive UXPin prototypes using Merge technology

Streamline cross-functional collaboration and automate many DesignOps challenges with UXPin’s Merge technology. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Discover UXPin Merge

Introducing Ethnio

Ethnio is a UX research CRM designed to streamline research operations. The platform allows UX researchers to automate everything from participant recruitment to scheduling, quotas, and incentive payouts.

Ethnio’s flagship product, Intercepts, allows UX researchers to target and recruit participants from inside product ecosystems–web and native–so researchers can speak to real users who actually use their products.

In this article, Ethnio outlines how Operations teams can use tools and automation paired with an effective democratization practice to create better relationships and operational efficiencies. 

Using UX Research Democratization to Bridge the Gap

DesignOps and ResearchOps teams can leverage research democratization to enhance collaboration between departments. Democratization–paired with the right tools and automation–can help Ops teams create a greater impact for the organization while designing better product experiences.

“Research is a practice of rigorous curiosity, and the role of researchers in an organization is to help the people they work with make better decisions. At scale, this means building intentional, responsible, and sustainable systems of learning with and from the people you want to serve.” Behzod Sirjani, Research Advisor and Program Partner at Reforge.

What is UX research democratization?

UX research democratization is about “making research (collecting, storing, sharing, and accessing) accessible and possible for anyone within an organization, regardless of their role. It aims to break down traditional barriers and hierarchies, allowing cross-functional teams to contribute to and benefit from user insights.”

Improving collaboration and research insights

Democratization helps remove operational friction by allowing each team to see and understand the work of the other. It brings together researchers, designers, and product teams, improving communication, streamlining workflows, and developing high-quality research insights.

The result is a holistic design and research approach leveraging the organization’s collective intelligence. This democratization not only accelerates the design process but also improves the quality of the final product, ultimately delivering a more compelling and satisfying user experience while maximizing DesignOps and ResearchOps’ impact.

“When we talk about impact, we must ensure that we wear our business hats more than our researcher hats. It’s crucial to understand that from the business perspective, research is not just about running studies, but about providing value that the company can use to achieve its goals.” Carol Rossi, Expert Researcher, and Consultant.

So, how does utilizing research democratization, tools, and automation work in practice?

Recruit, Schedule, Test, & Pay Participants using Ethnio & UXPin

Let’s say you are an operations expert in design or research, and you want to support your designer in talking directly with some prospective customers as part of a sprint. 

Here’s the flow for reducing their time and effort to as little as possible and letting Ethnio do all the screening, scheduling, and paying participants for their time. 

On the design end, DesignOps can invite researchers to collaborate in UXPin, sharing feedback and insights on interactive prototypes.

This brief case study will demonstrate how Research Ops and DesignOps teams can collaborate effectively and efficiently using their respective tools.

Step 1: Add designers as facilitators to a study

Ethnio allows researchers to add stakeholders to participate in participant interviews or usability studies as observers, facilitators, or collaborators—even if they don’t have an Ethnio account. Creating these connections enables UXRs to automate communications for key stakeholders and participants.

Step 2: Invite DesignOps to connect the right tools

Keeping team members and stakeholders in sync with research initiatives is crucial for effective collaboration. Ethnio lets researchers connect their team’s meeting and scheduling tool stack, like Teams, Google Calendar, and Zoom, to automate communications and make it easy for team members to attend studies and interviews.

Step 3: Setup and collaborate on research quotas

Research quotas are vital for collecting data from representative user groups within your target audience. The industry standard is to use color-coded spreadsheets, which team members manage and update manually—one of the most time-consuming Research Ops tasks, especially when running multiple complex projects.

“A lot of our customers have struggled to manage multiple spreadsheets, Google Forms, and manually scheduling and paying participants. Ethnio helped automate and streamline this entire process.” Kyle Robertson, Product Specialist at Ethnio.

Ethnio simplifies quotas through automation and an intuitive UI to visualize an entire campaign. Researchers can also invite designers, product managers, and other stakeholders to review and approve, ensuring they recruit the right participants every time.

Connect Ethnio to Slack, and the platform will automatically ping team members and stakeholders to review the participants the instant they meet quota criteria. This simple automation streamlines quota selection in today’s async work environments.

Step 4: Scheduling

Scheduling is a challenge for UX researchers managing multiple simultaneous campaigns. Trying to sync participants with stakeholder availability can be complex and time-consuming. Automation is critical to increasing efficiency while ensuring the right team members and stakeholders are in the loop.

Ethnio can use fast mode to pick the best participants, automatically send calendar invites to participants and observers, and put each session on the facilitator’s calendar with their secure dynamic Zoom meeting.

Step 5: Running a usability study with UXPin

The day arrives to conduct the usability study. It’s time to bring UXRs into the design tool stack to share insights and collaborate.

Designers use UXPin with Merge technology to create an interactive prototype using the same component library engineers use during development.

This advanced prototype allows participants to interact with the user interface like they would the final product, providing accurate, meaningful insights for designers to iterate and improve.

DesignOps can invite UXRs and other stakeholders observing the session to collaborate and share feedback using UXPin’s Comments. Like Ethnio, collaborators don’t need a UXPin account to use Comments. They can annotate UIs and tag team members to discuss features and pain points. UXPin integrates with Slack to automate effective cross-functional collaboration.

“Our stakeholders are able to provide feedback pretty quickly using UXPin. We can send them a link to play with the prototype in their own time, and UXPin allows them to provide comments directly on the prototypes. UXPin’s comments functionality is great because we can follow along and mark comments as resolved once we address them.” Erica Rider, former UX Lead EPX at PayPal.

Step 6: Incorporating feedback

The design team can analyze user feedback to improve prototypes. Making changes is as easy as drag-and-drop with Merge components, meaning designers can iterate and test efficiently.

Once testing is complete, designers can hand off to devs for engineering and release. The development team already has the code, so it’s as easy as copying and pasting the production-ready JSX from UXPin to streamline development.

In the meantime, researchers are finalizing the study in Ethnio.

Step 7: Pay the participants

The study is over, and it’s time to pay participants. Many organizations use third-party applications to deliver payouts in cash or via gift cards. The problem with these apps is that they increase costs and expose participant data to third parties, creating legal complications for organizations.

Ethnio’s native Incentives allow UXRs to pay participants in any currency worldwide in seconds. Pay via bank transfer, electronic rewards (Amazon, PayPal, and gift cards), and dozens of other payment methods. Participants can also choose to donate their incentive to 40+ global charities.

Democratization in Action

The journey from research to final product development demands seamless collaboration and efficiency. Our use case with Ethnio and UXPin Merge demonstrates how democratized research practices can revolutionize this journey for greater operational impact and user experiences.

With Ethnio and UXPin Merge in operations’ tool stacks and an effective democratization practice, teams can optimize traditional UX and research processes to deliver better outcomes.

Enhance User Testing With Interactive Prototypes Using Merge Technology

UXPin’s code-to-design solution enables designers to bring code components from a repository into the design process, enhancing prototype fidelity and functionality–without writing a single line of code.

Merge components are exact replicas engineers use to develop the final product, complete with styling and interactive properties. This single source of truth means designers and engineers speak the same language and work within the same constraints. Design handoffs are smoother with minimal documentation and explanation because design and development teams pull components from the exact same repository.

Ready to see how code-to-design can revolutionize your design process and enhance cross-functional collaboration? Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

The post Shared Insights, Shared Vision – Democratization and its Impact on Operations appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

The design process is a collaborative effort where designers seek input and ideas from other design teams, product teams, engineers, and other stakeholders. Design collaboration tools help bring these people and ideas into a centralized workflow to increase productivity and streamline projects.

UXPin Merge is a design technology that’s able to sync design and development, so designers and engineers share a single source of truth and work more collaboratively. Take your design collaboration to a level that allows you to work at scale ans bridge communication gap between designers and devs. Learn more about how UXPin Merge brings design and engineering closer.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Discover UXPin Merge

What Makes a Good Design Collaboration Tool?

Here are some things to consider when choosing design collaboration tools for your organization:

• Integrations are essential to syncing other platforms and departments. These integrations also automate workflows to reduce operational redundancies so teams can focus on more important tasks.
• Single sign-on (SSO) helps reduce time switching between tools while providing security benefits. Check with your IT department about SSO requirements and which tools they recommend.
• Try to use products within your existing suite wherever possible. For example, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer chat, file storage, whiteboarding, and project management products, to name a few. Keeping everything in one place increases productivity while reducing costs.
• Try to find tools that solve multiple problems. Again, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are great examples, but you can also find comprehensive design tools. For example, UXPin offers features for design collaboration, design systems, wireframing, mockups, interactive prototyping, and testing (native and web).

UXPin Merge

One of the biggest product development challenges is creating a single source of truth between design and development. Even the best design systems have two separate libraries:

• A UI kit for designers to use in an image-based design tool
• A component library with UI components for engineers

UXPin Merge solves this issue by importing a component library hosted in a repository into UXPin, so designers use the same UI elements during the design process as engineers use for front-end development–a true single source of truth!

Once you connect Merge to your repository, UXPin automates everything else. Any changes to the repo automatically sync to UXPin and notify design teams of the update. Merge’s Version Control lets designers switch versions and control when they want to update a project.

Merge is just one element of UXPin’s end-to-end design tool. Designers can use UXPin, like any other design tool, to create wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes. Designers can test web designs in the browser or use UXPin Mirror for mobile apps (iOS and Android).

UXPin’s Comments enable designers, product teams, engineers, and stakeholders to discuss design files and prototypes in real-time–even if they don’t have a UXPin account. Slack and Jira integrations keep everyone connected with design project updates.

There are three ways to use Merge:

• npm integration: import components from open-source libraries from the npm registry
• Git Integration: connect Merge directly to a React repository
• Storybook Integration: use any Storybook component library, including React, Angular, Vue, and other front-end technologies

This leads us to our next design collaboration tool…

Storybook

Storybook is a sandbox of sorts for developing UI elements in isolation. While engineering teams primarily use Storybook, the platform’s UI Review feature enables designers, product teams, and other stakeholders to test components and provide feedback before release.

Storybook is an essential tool for cross-functional design system teams, where designers and engineers work closely to build, update, and maintain components. Storybook’s Merge integration automates releases to design teams, so designers and engineers are always in sync.

Miro

Miro is a cloud-based collaborative ideation tool for whiteboarding and brainstorming ideas. Design teams use Miro for in-person and remote team collaboration, including workshops, design sprints, and collaborative prototyping.

Mural

Mural is an excellent Miro alternative, and both platforms offer comparable features and pricing–it comes down to which user interface you prefer. 

Google Jamboard

Google Jamboard is perfect if you’re looking for a free whiteboarding tool. The downside of Jamboard is that you don’t have access to the templates available with Miro and Mural, so you’ll have to create everything from scratch.

Slack

Slack has become the town hall for many organizations where teams can communicate, collaborate, share files, record videos (Loom alternative), and host calls.

Slack is a fantastic design collaboration tool because its extensive integration options mean teams can connect tools and platforms from other departments.

Google Chat & Spaces

If your organization uses Google Workspace for email and cloud storage, it makes sense (and saves money) to use Google Chat & Spaces instead of paying extra for Slack and other messaging apps.

Google Spaces works similarly to Slack, where you can create different channels or connect directly with team members through Chat. Its seamless integration with the Google Workspace suite means product development teams keep collaborative efforts, including file sharing, calendars, spreadsheets, documents, presentations, etc., in one centralized platform.

Google Chat offers native integrations with many design tools and connects to Zapier to sync with other products and platforms.

Notion

Notion’s minimalist UI, the vast range of templates, and versatility make it an excellent project management tool for product development teams. Teams can use Notion for product roadmaps, meeting notes, task management, wikis, documentation, and more.

Jira

With its issue tracking and DevOps integrations, Jira is one of the most popular project management tools for software development. If your organization uses other Atlassian products, Jira is an obvious choice with many benefits and integrations.

Trello

One of Jira’s native integrations is the popular design project management tool Trello–another Atlassian product. Trello’s many workspace features allow for brainstorming, meetings, task management, CRM (perfect for user testing participants), and calendar syncing at every stage of the design process.

Asana

Asana is a fantastic Trello alternative with similar features and many integrations to keep designers connected to the rest of the organization. Asana’s task automation and project tracking features help streamline design operations.

ProofHub

ProofHub is a comprehensive product management platform with features for every department, including design, engineering, and product teams.

Unlike other project management tools, which charge per user/seat, ProofHub works on a flat-rate model with unlimited users–great for cash-strapped startups and multi-national organizations with thousands of employees.

Improve Cross-Team Collaboration with Merge

Traditional product development workflows create silos because everyone is using different tools. Often these tools don’t sync, resulting in manual updates that cause errors and delays.

UXPin Merge brings UX teams, product teams, and engineers into a single product development workflow where everyone is connected via a single source of truth–a process PayPal’s Erica Rider refers to as DesignOps 2.0.

Merge creates a drag-and-drop design environment that makes prototyping accessible to more team members. For example, PayPal’s product teams (who had no previous design tool experience) build, test, and handoff all of the organization’s internal products. The lean UX team jumps in to assist with complex usability issues and provides user experience mentoring.

Merge’s ready-made components include properties and interactivity defined by the design system, so there’s no need to design from scratch, significantly reducing the design tool and prototyping learning curve.

Prototype quality is another significant Merge benefit. Because Merge prototypes use the same UI components as front-end engineers from the same repo, designers can build replicas indistinguishable from the final product.

These prototypes enhance usability testing but also result in meaningful feedback and collaboration from stakeholders. 

“One of the significant impacts of UXPin Merge is our ability to create higher fidelity prototypes. There’s a lot more confidence from everyone (including designers, C-suite, directors, and developers) about what the final product will look like, the user experience, and interactivity—giving us higher quality feedback from stakeholders.” Erica Rider – UX Lead EPX @ PayPal

Enhance your design workflows and achieve higher-quality design project outcomes with the world’s most advanced collaborative design tool. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

The post 12 Design Collaboration Tools for Fast and Organized Work appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Design thinking exercises are crucial in fostering creative problem-solving, collaboration, and innovation. These exercises engage participants in a structured and iterative problem-solving approach, enabling them to explore, understand, and address complex challenges effectively.

Key takeaways:

• Design thinking exercises are structured activities or methods used to encourage and facilitate collaboration.
• These exercises foster creativity providing structured but open-ended frameworks for problem-solving.
• The list of design thinking exercises is huge; in this article, we elaborate on 22 of them.

Streamline design operations and enhance designer-developer collaboration with UXPin Merge. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Discover UXPin Merge

What is the Purpose of Design Thinking Exercises?

The primary purpose of design thinking exercises is to cultivate empathy and a deep understanding of users’ needs and perspectives. By encouraging participants to step into users’ shoes through empathy mapping and user interviews, design thinking helps uncover valuable insights that inform the design process.

These design thinking workshops create a user-centered environment that encourages collaboration and creativity. These activities empower design teams to challenge assumptions, explore diverse perspectives, and approach problems from multiple angles.

Design Thinking Exercises for Empathy and User Research

These design thinking activities enable teams to gain empathy and a user-centric perspective during the research phase, informing the design process and ensuring solutions align with user needs.

• Empathy mapping: Create visual representations of user perspectives by capturing their thoughts, feelings, actions, and aspirations. This exercise helps teams develop a deeper understanding of users’ experiences.
• Persona development: Create fictional user personas representing different user segments based on research and insights. Personas humanize user data, making it easier for teams to empathize and design for specific user groups.
• Customer journey mapping: Visualize users’ end-to-end experience as they interact with a product or service. This exercise helps identify pain points, opportunities, and moments of delight throughout the user journey.

Ideation and Brainstorming Exercises

Ideation and brainstorming exercises are essential to the design thinking process, aiming to generate a range of ideas and possible solutions. Designers use these exercises to foster creativity, drive collaboration, and explore new possibilities.

SCAMPER

SCAMPER is an acronym that stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. This technique prompts designers to creatively explore different dimensions of a concept or problem, encouraging alternative perspectives and generating fresh ideas.

Brainstorming sessions

Brainstorming is a group activity that encourages free thinking and the rapid generation of ideas. Participants share their thoughts, build on each other’s suggestions, and explore various possibilities without judgment or criticism.

Crazy 8s

Crazy 8s is a fast-paced exercise that challenges participants to sketch eight ideas in eight minutes. This time-constrained activity encourages rapid ideation and pushes participants to think outside the box, resulting in diverse concepts.

Mind mapping and concept mapping

Mind mapping and concept mapping are visual techniques that help organize thoughts and ideas. By creating diagrams or visual frameworks, designers can explore connections, relationships, and associations between different concepts, stimulating further ideation.

Design studio workshops

Design studio workshops unite cross-functional team members to generate ideas and potential solutions collaboratively. Participants share their perspectives, expertise, and insights through structured exercises and facilitated discussions, resulting in more comprehensive and well-rounded concepts.

Worst possible idea

This exercise challenges participants to devise the worst possible ideas or solutions deliberately. By exploring extreme and unconventional concepts, designers can break free from conventional thinking and uncover unexpected insights or alternative paths.

5 Ws and H

The 5 Ws and H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) is a questioning technique that prompts participants to analyze and explore different aspects of a design challenge. By systematically considering these elements, designers can uncover new perspectives, identify potential gaps, and generate innovative solutions.

Prototyping and Testing Exercises

These prototyping and testing exercises offer valuable opportunities for designers to gather feedback, iterate on ideas, and validate design concepts.

Paper prototyping

Paper prototyping is a low-fidelity technique where designers create rough sketches or wireframe mockups on paper. This exercise lets designers quickly iterate and gather feedback on a design concept’s overall layout, content, and flow.

Designers can use paper prototypes to simulate user interactions and test usability, compiling valuable insights before investing time and resources into digital prototypes.

Role-playing and simulation

Role-playing and simulation exercises involve participants acting out specific scenarios or user personas to understand user needs and behaviors better. By immersing themselves in the end user’s perspective, designers can empathize with their experiences, identify pain points, and uncover opportunities for improvement.

Wizard of Oz testing

Wizard of Oz testing is a technique where designers simulate the functionality of an interactive system while manually controlling it behind the scenes. This methodology allows designers to test user interactions and gather feedback without investing time and resources in developing a fully functional prototype.

By creating the illusion of an automated system, designers can observe user behavior, validate assumptions, and refine the design based on real-time feedback.

Collaborative Exercises for Teamwork and Co-creation

Collaborative prototyping

Collaborative prototyping involves creating prototypes to test and validate design concepts within a day. Team members work in parallel on a single digital whiteboard and then collaborate using a design tool to build a prototype. By the end of the day, the team has a basic prototype to start the iterative process of prototyping and testing.

Co-design sessions

Co-design sessions bring together multidisciplinary team members and stakeholders to actively participate in the design process. These collaborative exercises foster teamwork and co-creation by leveraging the diverse perspectives and expertise of the participants. 

By involving various stakeholders in the design process, co-design sessions facilitate shared understanding, generate innovative ideas, and ensure that the final design reflects the collective input and insights of the team.

Collaborative sketching

Collaborative sketching involves team members collectively sketching ideas and concepts on a shared surface or whiteboard. This exercise encourages open collaboration and rapid idea generation.

By visually expressing their thoughts, team members can communicate ideas more effectively, stimulate creativity, and spark discussions. Collaborative sketching promotes a sense of ownership while fostering teamwork.

Storyboarding and visual storytelling

Storyboarding and visual storytelling exercises help teams convey design ideas and concepts in a narrative format. This technique involves creating illustrations or images that depict user interactions, scenarios, or journeys.

Storyboarding allows teams to visualize the user experience and identify gaps or opportunities in the design. Teams can communicate complex ideas, align design directions, and create engaging user experiences.

Design charrettes

Design charrettes are intensive collaborative workshops where team members solve design challenges within a set timeframe. These super-efficient sessions encourage active participation, foster creativity, and promote collective problem-solving.

Design charrettes often involve brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and iterative design exercises. By engaging in focused and time-constrained collaborative activities, teams can generate ideas, explore design alternatives, and make significant progress in a short period.

Design Thinking Exercises for Reflection and Learning

Rose, Thorn, Bud

The Rose, Thorn, Bud exercise is a reflection activity that encourages participants to share positive aspects (roses), areas for improvement (thorns), and potential opportunities (buds) in a given project or experience.

Rose, Bud, Thorn helps teams identify strengths, address challenges, and explore new possibilities with a structured framework for reflection. The exercise enables team members to learn from past experiences and apply those insights to future iterations or projects.

Post-it voting

Post-it voting is a simple and effective technique to gather insights and prioritize ideas within a group. Participants write their ideas or suggestions on individual sticky notes and then vote on the most valuable or relevant ones. 

This exercise promotes active participation and empowers team members to have a voice in decision-making. Post-it voting helps teams identify popular ideas, build consensus, and focus efforts on the most impactful concepts.

Four Ls

The Four Ls exercise (Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for) provides a structured framework for reflection and feedback gathering. Participants share what they liked, learned, lacked, and longed for in a project or experience. 

The Four Ls encourages constructive feedback, helps identify areas of improvement, and uncovers growth opportunities. The exercise promotes open dialogue and creates a safe space for team members to reflect on their collective experiences and identify ways to enhance future outcomes.

Retrospective exercises

Retrospective exercises are reflective activities conducted at the end of a project or iteration to evaluate the team’s performance and identify areas for improvement. 

These exercises include team discussions, storytelling, timeline mapping, or even gamified approaches like “sailboat retrospective” or “stop, start, continue.” 

Retrospectives foster a culture of continuous improvement by providing a dedicated space for teams to reflect on their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. These exercises enable teams to optimize processes, enhance collaboration, and evolve their practices.

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One of DesignOps’ biggest challenges is Merging design and development. These teams use different tools, speak different languages, and work with different constraints.

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This single source of truth eliminates many design system challenges, requiring fewer resources for product teams to scale and deliver products faster and with minimal errors or rework.

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UX designers must collaborate effectively with various teams, departments, and stakeholders to align design with business goals, streamline processes, and create better products that meet user needs and expectations.

When UX designers become effective communicators and collaborators, they enhance their networking skills and contribute to creating exceptional user experiences–emphasizing the importance of UX within an organization.

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Importance of Cross-Functional Collaboration for UX Designers

As product development becomes increasingly complex, UX designers must work closely with various teams within an organization to ensure a seamless, user-centric experience. Effective collaboration helps align the design with business goals, streamline processes, and create successful products that meet user needs and expectations.

Goals and benefits of effective collaboration within an organization:

• Accelerated product development: Collaborative teams can work more efficiently, reducing time to market and improving responsiveness to user demands.
• Enhanced innovation: Diverse perspectives from cross-functional collaboration foster creativity and lead to innovative solutions.
• Improved decision-making: Informed decisions can be made with input from multiple stakeholders, leading to better outcomes, fewer design problems, and preventing rework.
• Greater adaptability: Collaborative teams can more effectively respond to changes in user needs or market conditions, ensuring the product remains relevant and competitive.
• Higher employee engagement: Collaboration fosters a sense of ownership, camaraderie, and job satisfaction, resulting in increased productivity and reduced turnover.

How Organizational Structures Impact Cross-Functional Collaboration

Here are four typical UX team structures and how they impact cross-functional collaboration for designers:

• Centralized design team structure: Limited exposure to other teams may lead to silos, making it difficult for designers to understand each project or department’s unique requirements and constraints.
• Embedded design team structure: Designers may become too focused on their specific project or department, potentially losing sight of the organization’s larger design goals and consistency.
• Decentralized design team structure: With design teams dispersed throughout the organization, coordinating efforts and maintaining design consistency can be challenging, leading to potential misalignments and inconsistencies.
• Contractual design team structure: Contract designers may not have the same level of access to resources, knowledge, or communication channels within the organization, making it challenging to collaborate with internal teams and stakeholders effectively.

Who Do Designers Collaborate With?

To achieve optimal results and foster innovation, UX designers must collaborate with various organizational stakeholders. Understanding each role’s contribution to the product development process is essential for effective collaboration.

Key collaborators for UX designers include:

• Product Managers: Aligning design goals with product strategy, prioritization, and overall business objectives.
• Developers: Working closely to ensure design implementation is accurate and efficient while considering technical constraints and possibilities.
• Marketing Teams: Collaborating on user research, personas, and user journeys to enrich user data and create targeted, impactful marketing campaigns.
• Sales Teams: Gather valuable feedback and insights on customer needs, preferences, and pain points to inform design decisions.
• Customer Support Teams: Utilizing their direct contact with users to address issues and gather feedback that helps improve the product experience.
• Quality Assurance Teams: Ensuring the design meets usability, accessibility, and performance standards before the product launch.
• Executive Stakeholders: Communicating design goals, progress, and results to gain buy-in and support from organizational decision-makers.

The DesignOps Impact on Cross-Functional Collaboration

DesignOps (Design Operations) is a strategic approach to streamlining organizational design processes and workflows. It optimizes resources, tools, and communication among design teams, stakeholders, and other departments. By implementing DesignOps, organizations can foster a collaborative environment that supports creativity, innovation, and efficiency, ensuring that design teams can deliver high-quality, user-centric products.

How DesignOps fosters communication and teamwork

DesignOps plays a crucial role in promoting communication and teamwork by establishing clear channels for collaboration, setting expectations, and defining roles and responsibilities.

DesignOps aims to standardize processes, provide tools for effective collaboration, and align design goals with business objectives, bridging the gap between designers, developers, and stakeholders. This alignment enables cross-functional teams to work together seamlessly, leading to better decision-making, improved product quality, and increased innovation.

Implementing DesignOps to improve collaboration

To implement DesignOps effectively, organizations must first assess their current design processes, identify inefficiencies, and establish clear goals for collaboration.

Next, develop a plan that outlines the necessary tools, processes, and communication channels to support effective collaboration. This plan may include regular cross-functional meetings, design reviews, or workshops to foster teamwork and alignment.

Organizations should monitor the success of DesignOps implementation by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), such as project timelines, product quality, and employee satisfaction. By continuously refining and adjusting the DesignOps approach, organizations can create a collaborative culture that drives product success.

The Role of Design Systems in Cross-Functional Collaboration

How design systems streamline collaboration

Design systems streamline cross-functional collaboration by providing a centralized, comprehensive, consistent set of guidelines, components, and patterns. A shared design language enables designers, developers, and other team members to work cohesively and efficiently, eliminating miscommunication and reducing the need for repetitive tasks.

Design systems promote a consistent user experience across products and platforms and foster a unified brand identity. By leveraging a design system, teams can focus on brainstorming, innovation, and problem-solving, resulting in better outcomes and user experiences.

Establishing and maintaining a design system within an organization

It’s essential to involve cross-functional teams when building a design system. This collaborative approach ensures that the design system meets the needs of all stakeholders and aligns with business objectives. 

Start by documenting existing design components, patterns, and guidelines, then refine them through an iterative process, seeking input from designers, developers, and other team members. 

Once you implement a design system, it’s crucial to keep it up-to-date and relevant by continually evaluating its effectiveness, incorporating feedback, and adapting to the organization’s evolving needs. By prioritizing maintenance and regular updates, the design system will remain a valuable asset that supports cross-functional collaboration and drives product success.

Collaboration at Different Stages of the Design Process

Research and discovery phase

During the research and discovery phase, UX designers must collaborate closely with stakeholders and subject matter experts to gather critical information about the project.

This collaboration provides valuable insights into user needs, business requirements, and industry trends. Additionally, engaging with users and other teams helps designers identify pain points, opportunities for improvement, and potential solutions. By fostering open communication and actively seeking diverse perspectives, designers can build a solid foundation for informed decision-making throughout the design process.

Design and prototyping phase

Effective collaboration between UX designers, developers, and other design teams is crucial for creating a cohesive and functional product in the design and prototyping phase.

By working together, teams can ensure that design concepts align with business goals and marketing strategies while addressing technical constraints and feasibility. Open communication channels, regular design reviews, and shared tools facilitate smooth collaboration, enabling teams to iterate on design ideas, address potential issues, and refine the overall user experience.

User testing and validation phase

The user testing and validation phase is critical for ensuring the final product meets user needs and expectations. Collaborating with users, testers, and product managers during this stage helps UX designers gather essential feedback and identify areas for improvement. 

By actively engaging with these stakeholders, designers can incorporate feedback into their prototypes, prioritize revisions, and make data-driven design decisions. This collaborative approach ultimately results in a more user-centric and successful product that aligns with user and business goals.

Design Handoffs and Smooth Collaboration

Importance of effective design handoffs

Effective design handoffs are crucial for ensuring a seamless transition from the design phase to the development phase. A well-executed handoff minimizes miscommunication, reduces project delays, and prevents unnecessary rework. By fostering a clear understanding of design specifications, UX designers and developers can work together more efficiently, resulting in a higher-quality product that meets user needs and aligns with business objectives.

Best practices for successful handoffs

To ensure successful design handoffs, designers and developers should adopt best practices that facilitate communication and collaboration. Utilizing tools and technology, such as design collaboration platforms and version control systems, can streamline the handoff process and reduce the likelihood of errors.

Additionally, clear documentation and guidelines for design specifications, including color palettes, typography, and responsive layouts, help developers understand and implement the intended design accurately. By following these best practices, teams can significantly improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the handoff process.

Building a strong designer-developer relationship

Cultivating a solid designer-developer relationship is essential for successful collaboration throughout the product development process. By fostering open communication, mutual respect, and empathy, designers, and developers can better understand each other’s perspectives, constraints, and goals.

Regular meetings, shared decision-making, and collaborative problem-solving help build trust and rapport between team members, leading to a more cohesive and successful product. By investing in these relationships, organizations can create an environment that encourages cross-functional collaboration and ultimately drives better user and business outcomes.

Tips for Effective Cross-functional Collaboration

• Build trust and rapport with team members: Participate in team-building activities and make an effort to understand each team member’s role, strengths, and challenges to foster a supportive environment.
• Encourage open communication and feedback: Establish regular meetings or touchpoints with team members to share updates, discuss challenges, and provide constructive feedback, fostering a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.
• Leverage collaboration tools and software: Utilize project management, communication, and design collaboration tools (e.g., Trello, Slack, UXPin Comments) to streamline workflows, improve communication, and ensure everyone can access relevant UX resources.
• Continuously improve collaboration skills: Attend workshops, webinars, or conferences focused on collaboration, communication, and teamwork to enhance your ability to work effectively with diverse teams and adapt to different working styles.
• Advocate for UX and users: Share user research findings, insights, and success stories with your team and stakeholders to raise awareness about the importance of user-centered design and demonstrate the value of UX in achieving business goals.

UXPin Merge – The Ultimate Collaboration Facilitator

UXPin Merge enhances designer/developer collaboration by bridging the gap between design and front-end development with a single source of truth for your product’s design system.

By bridging this gap, UXPin Merge facilitates better communication and collaboration because everyone “speaks the same language” and works within the same limitations and constraints defined by the design system and the product’s code.

Streamline your product development process and enhance team collaboration with a single source of truth from UXPin Merge. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

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Heuristic evaluation is the review of a user interface based on a set of usability principles.

It helps surface usability problems throughout the design process and can save countless hours of development time by fixing usability issues before they go live.

A formal heuristic evaluation consists of 3–5 usability experts examining an interface to highlight potential issues based on their guidelines.

This article was written by Andrew Coyle from NextUX. NextUX can accommodate your workflow in UXPin by enabling anyone on your team to quickly capture a screenshot and add markup directly on top of it.

Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich pioneered heuristic evaluation in the 90s, and their usability heuristics for user interface design still serve as a guide today. I highly recommend memorizing their 10 heuristics and learning more about how to conduct a heuristic evaluation.

Throughout my experience as a designer, I’ve defined and refined the heuristics I use to review web projects. Although I weigh countless variables and best practices when evaluating a UI, these 5 principles best encompass how I assess designs.

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Users should know where they are

The user should always know where they are in an interface and understand how to navigate where they need to go. Establish straightforward navigation and sign markers throughout your app or website. Also, make your design interactive to thoroughly check what may cause troubles in the final product. 

Example: Add an indication of progress and state in stepped flows and provide a descriptive header to communicate where they are and what’s next.

Rule exception: If the user derives entertainment or value from discovering where they are or what’s next, like in a game.

Make user interfaces consistent and aesthetically pleasing

Elements and flows in a user interface should be consistent with each other.

Example: A design using a sentence case for some buttons and a title case for others is most likely violating this principle unless there is an overriding stylistic reason for the inconsistency.

I believe the value placed on different aesthetic styles is in the beholder’s eye, but the overall aesthetic appeal is not. How a creator uses balance, symmetry, hierarchy, and other visual principles can make universally pleasing designs.

Example: An interface with a lot of visual noise caused by unnecessary borders and drop shadows reduces aesthetic appeal and, in turn, usability.

Reduce the need to read, wait or memorize

“If you make me read, I leave.”

“If you make me wait, I leave.”

“If you make me think, I leave.”The user

Unfortunately, people have extremely low attention spans when it comes to the digital world. Never rely on a user to read, wait, or memorize anything. Always omit unnecessary text and design for scannability.

Automate as much as possible, so the user doesn’t need to rely on their short-term memory. 

Example: If your app has a long load time for specific processes or interactions, consider adding a fun loading animation with an indication of time left to ease the burden of waiting.

Example: If your app has a complicated setup process, don’t assume the user will read instructions or memorize requirements. Instead, break up a long setup process into short steps with concise and contextual information.

Prevent errors and make actions reversible

Reduce the potential for errors by creating safeguards and clear communication in your application.

Example:

1. Make deleting important data a more dexterous interaction to reduce inadvertent deletions.
2. Add extra steps to the deletion process and make sure the user knows the outcome of their action.
3. Add the ability to undo critical actions.

Enable experienced users and accommodate new users 

Don’t overwhelm new users with complexity and choices. Provide a great first-time use experience that gets a user up to speed as fast as possible.

In making a powerful application easy to use, don’t limit the ability of experienced users. Provide optionality and customization for frequent users to achieve their goals and solve their needs as quickly as possible.

Example: Add keyboard shortcuts to actions presented in a user interface. New users don’t need to know the keyboard shortcuts to interact, but experienced users can interact faster with the shortcuts.

Use these usability principles to improve product design

I hope these 5 principles help you evaluate designs. Together we can build a better user experience! If you’re looking for an end-to-end design tool, use UXPin. Design, iterate, and deliver a prototype 10x faster. Try UXPin for free.

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