The Design/UX team is our primary connection to the end users of our products. Through their research and partnership with Discovery, they help us understand and empathize with our customer's problems. Our teams speak a similar language that is rooted equally in design and frontend development. We rely on them to design interfaces and workflows that solve our customer's problems, but they also rely on us to collaborate and provide feedback on usability and the feasibility of their solutions. Our teams strive for a shared understanding of what we do and how we do it — on both sides of the partnership.
Benefits of Partnership with Design/UX
- Context from the Design Team allows us to make quick and effective implementation decisions.
- Robust designs explain functionality beyond listed requirements.
- Coordination between teams is easier through understanding how projects fit into their ecosystems.
- We provide value to the Design Team by catching edge cases, explaining the interactivity of elements, and determining the technical cost of implementation.
How we strengthen our Partnership with Design/UX
- Actively communicate with the Design Team, starting early in the project's lifecycle.
- Use a shared design language and shared tools to allow more direct communication.
- Push back during Design Reviews until both teams come to a mutual understanding of the project.
- Consider projects to be "collaborations" instead of "handoffs".
- Provide frequent feedback to the Design Team and be open to receiving feedback during the duration of the effort.