Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

news.ycombinator.com

1–10 of 141 posts

Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#1
For those working in tech/software development teams - do you also find that there's a lot of tension between developers and designers?

They need to work together but it always seems like a challenge. From the tools they prefer (Figma vs. Github) to the pace/workflow to the language and communication.

What are the biggest pain points you've seen?

What are some great tips for bridging the gaps during a typical workflow?

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#4
post #3

What are the friction points? I’m a UX designer (15 years experience). I love working with engineers on solving problems, QA’ing and releasing high quality products. Maybe your designers are more fresh and junior ??

Interesting. How big is your company? Are you in person or remote? I wonder if it depends on the setup and profile of the company...

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#6
post #4
post #3

What are the friction points? I’m a UX designer (15 years experience). I love working with engineers on solving problems, QA’ing and releasing high quality products. Maybe your designers are more fresh and junior ??

Interesting. How big is your company? Are you in person or remote? I wonder if it depends on the setup and profile of the company...

I’m at a FAANG+, in a team working on B2B enterprise products (SAAS). Previously I was in consumer electronics and B2C, but even then there was a healthy relationship between design and eng.

I’ve been remote for about 5 years.

What are specific examples of friction you’re encountering ?

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#7
I’ve been working very closely with one over the past few months and the biggest improvement is clearly defining terms and making sure we always stick to them

We realised we were using the word design for like 4 different things and often two or more interpretations were valid

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#8
technical beauty is rarely visually beautiful

acknowledge that. decide that you serve the customer.

sometimes the customer cares to be dazzled others time they just want the thing to work.

often details of design and technical implementations don’t matter so it’s easy to bikeshed.

as trite as it is the solution is honest and open communication

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#9
I have rarely butted heads with designers. Most of the time it's mutual respect for what the other does, and both sides have at least casual interest in the other side's profession, so collaboration usually goes well.

Now, if you want to talk about systems/devops teams or IT departments..

Re: Ask HN: How to get developers and UI designers to work well together

#10
As a mobile developer, the main pain point with collaborating with a designers over the years has been their complete lack of knowledge when it comes to norms on Android.

All have been exclusively iOS users, with no feel for how the two platforms differ, and I have had to take it up on my self to translate and adjust the designs given to me so that they follow norms and practices on Android.

Post reply on HN