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

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There are definitely some advantages to Figma. It's mostly better than sharing MS paint drawings. But it has a long way to go for it to become a good tool for developer/design interaction. Again, IME.

This should be a blog post or even one of those mini pay-what-you-like eBooks sold on Gumroad. Let me try a quick and short starter for you.

It is easier to teach designs to developers than vice-versa. "Design" is not what most people think -- artistic. To me, design is more about knowing the key aspects of arranging objects based on symmetry, sequences, and patterns. Once you understand these nuances of spacing objects to form a cohesive and meaningful flow of information, tackle the idea of how typography works. If you grasp these two essential items well, then others will keep flowing on their own, or you will be exploring automatically.

Now, since you can dabble in the front-end, play around and apply your understanding of "design" and experiment. Learn the basics and do not start from "frameworks" such as Bootstrap, which most impatient developers start with. It is indeed OK to be using the likes of Bootstrap but know that someone else wrote that, and you too can write one.

Once you are comfortable with the two worlds, it is then up to you to go deeper and specialize in being the Product UX Engineer or stay a generalist and work/lead other aspiring designers and developers.

I have a friend far better than me in both design and development. He is an engineer with an additional degree in design from one of India's prestigious design institute. When we discuss things, we tend to complete one another, and can dovetail fast enough while I never fail to be amazed by his insights every time we talk. Unlike me who have moved much further to the dark-side of the Business world, he remained a deep specialist in that beautiful realm.

1. https://brajeshwar.com/2011/desingineer-the-mythical-person-...

> do you also find that there's a lot of tension between developers and designers?

To be honest, no, not really. Only ever at one job have I experienced a problem with developers and designers working together. One designer (out of two or three) was very ego-driven and was focused on producing a piece of art to hang on a wall, while one developer (contract, out of five) just flat out didn't respect anyone else (developers, designers, or PMs) and it was "his way or the highway". There are ways to work around this (mostly around setting clear guidelines for process and expectations), but ultimately the problem is with those people. Let them go.

Good designers are those who recognise that you don't ship PSDs (or Figma designs, as it is now) and are aware of the iterative approach to developing software. Good developers are those that actually respect the design process and set aside time for it.

If you structure your project/team/company where developers and designers are separated, and designs are "chucked over the wall" you will forever be running into problems. The best teams will be cross functional and have design's included in every step of the process.

Design Systems can be a huge help here - when everyone (designers and developers) have a common vocabulary of how a product looks and acts. Get this mature enough and you can just design your product with wireframes.

It obviously varies by individual and by team, but in general the solution is more communication, earlier in the process, and frequently throughout it.

The thing designers often don't understand is how their design needs to work within the larger system, which has many complex interactions, tradeoffs, and constraints. Changing one thing entails changing many other, non-obvious things, and did you think about that when you drew a picture of it working perfectly in Figma? No?

The thing developers often don't understand is that designers work without the benefit of certainty. They may get a set of requirements from a PM, but often they don't, or they don't get a very good one. Do all the user interviews you want, you're still just guessing about a hundred times a day. And there is no automated testing or static analysis. There isn't even syntax highlighting. You just make something you hope is right, then show it to people, and have them point out all your mistakes. Of course they get defensive and protective of their jobs.

So developers and designers need to be in communication with each other frequently, to spot problems early and fix them. And it needs to be so common and lightweight an interaction that it doesn't feel like a committee meeting, but like a collaboration between partners with the same goal.

1. This user flow does not match backend reality, let me explain why.

2. How does this screen design handle XYZ usage?

3. I cannot export this asset from figma, please share.

4. Would you mind verifying that the fonts/colors/spacing look okay?

5. Are you sure about not reusing an existing icon from our library?

6. How should we handle error and loading states?

7. How important is this design feature? It'll take me a while to build it.

8. Did you expect this desktop layout to be full width or 1600px?

9. Can you give me an overview of what changed since the last design version?

10. This is how I implemented the design. Is that correct?