If you are a non-tech building tech who is starting a project soon, you’re going to need developers, web designers, and graphic designers.
If you’re just building a basic website, you might go to a web development agency that can design and build your website. But if you’re building an app, you will need designers and developers to come together to make your product.
What you need to keep in mind is that you need to bring the designers and developers together early in the project so that they can communicate effectively.
What can happen if you don’t bring them in early stages is that your designers will design some awesome looking UI (User Interface). They will have some idea of the animations and transitions in their heads that they haven’t drawn up because it’s a static thing that they are providing you. The developers will then get those and implement them as best as they can to make pixel perfect designs.
Then suddenly the designers will be like:
Where’s that hover button?!!!
Where’s the animation?
Where’s the thing that drops down from here to here?
Why isn’t it fading in and out? and all that stuff.
If it wasn’t made in form of a prototype or a video to show you then it’s not clear in design. Some of the stuff that the designers can mock-up as a UX (User Experience) thing to make it easier for users to use your app. Once it gets to a designer, it could introduce another month of work to make the thing happen.
It is best practice to get them together early in the process so that the designers can explain to developers about what they’re thinking, what they want to do or what they want to try and do it as it could be something new. Then the developer can understand what needs to be done, and then try and figure out how to make it happen.
Just because a designer can think it doesn’t mean it can get done.
Therefore, it’s important to get them in early to make communication clear and get everyone on the same page. This prevents extra work for your project overall. There might be a simple way to do something on an existing package, something similar or something the designer is happy with rather than having to rebuild from scratch.
The tip is to get your designers and developers early and make them work together. Don’t treat them as separate entities when working because they are working on the same product. One is about how it looks and how it feels while the other one is about how it all works and gels together.
