Lost in translation is a normal situation for a designer and developer even if we speak the same language. What might seem so simple and easy for the designer might be opposite for the developer. And all the way around.
Often designers can make up a spaceship in the mind and developers would have to sacrifice the whole life to create one. And the reality is very different from the concept.
It is saying “happy wife - happy life”. Everyone should be happy in the marriage as in the working tandem. Everyone is wife in the team. And I think you all know what does unhappy wife means...
In general If we compare our performance with vacuum cleaning then developer vacuum cleans accurately centimeter after centimeter and never comes back to the place that has been cleaned. As for the designer he does it chaotically drawing a big picture first and then getting busy with details.
Definition of common goals helps us working towards them. We both aim to achieve the best result.
Avoid the principle "everyone has their own sandbox". The designer can pray for their beautiful interfaces from the fairy-tale world, but must return to reality, caring about what will happen at the final and how to help the developer bring the end result to mind.
The developer has the right to be proud of his clever invisible algorithm, but he must take care of the visible part of the product - that user interacts with.
Start with finding a way of effective communication that would be comfortable for both sides - either it’s jira, any messenger or coffee talks.
Speak up your mind, share your ideas, knowledge, and concerns, ask questions. Sit together and collaborate, be opened and flexible. That’s fantastic to get feedback or learn something new.
For ex, If any requirements are missing it’s always good to discuss them to avoid any time wasting. Get involved in the process at early stage. That will save lots of time.
Setup a process that will align the designers into the development cycle.
Feel free to go technical with the designer, talk through your code, show how you’ve done it. It will be a good long term investment when designer understands more about the technical side. Later, the conversations will be smoother.
Developer needs to explain Designer that even a simple UI change might require big efforts.
Let designers know what options are available. E.g. there might be out of the box solution from API already and with little tweaks or customization might suffice what designer wants
Misunderstanding on any side can be a big issue, and may result in major rework. All this can be resolved with effective communication earlier.
It is significant not only speak to each other, but also listen to other’s point of view and try to understand it. Be an active listener and encourage your vis-a-vis to speak up their mind, expand each other’s thoughts.
You can’t communicate if you don’t listen. While listening, try to put yourself in another shoes.
There is no limit for perfection. Sometimes it might be a challenge for a designer to stop hunting for pixel perfect results. Sometimes it bothers us so much that we can’t sleep as it is stuck in our heads.
The best way to be agile. The designer also does not know everything upfront, so must work with the team incrementally, work with development team to balance perfection vs features.
Again about that spaceship... We need to look for a compromise together. For ex, explain the system limitations, try to understand the problems and find the best solutions. In the real world our performance is judged inseparably. This kind of dependency might be frustrating for both sometimes.
UX process consists of many stages and solution is based at the end. Sometimes it’s a challenge not to jump straight to the solutions and go through the whole process instead. That will lead to the right way to tackle the problem.
During this process UX designer tries to get as much info as possible. What’s about developer’s mind in general? It’s focused on the problem-solving. It would be helpful if developer assists designer to go through this process without skipping any steps.
Tsss a big secret if we need a developer to make something quickly then it’s better not to distract him for a while. It’s scientifically proved it takes 15 min to get back to the idea after any distraction.
It is fantastic to have an opportunity to tap developer or designer on their shoulder but it’s better not to overuse it. Just flip a message and you will get a response on their convenience. Asynchronous communication wherever you can avoid sudden interruption of work processes.
Have you ever heard - “There’s nothing to do/ Oh, that’s easy…” Or I’ve done a web development in the past, I know how to build mobile apps! How do you feel about that?
Be expert in your area and let another one be in charge of theirs. This understanding gives a full respect to each other. It is the key of successful collaboration of UX designer and developer.
Respect each other's decision.