Step 5

Build

Goal:

Work with Engineers to finalize design, resolve edge cases, polish, QA and ship a solution.

Output:

Your design implemented in high quality and shipped.

Activities you should do
  1. Design the unhappy path: Empty, error and loading states, edge cases.
  2. Polish the visuals, make it look beautiful and feel enjoyable.
  3. Make sure the copy is concise & easy to understand.
  4. QA the built UI early and often. Ensure it's high quality, align with your design.
  5. Ensure it is fast and low latency. Ensure it’s perceived performance is high.
  6. Take ownership of what we will ship and fight for quality. Push for the best possible experience. Look to cut scope, but not quality. Be okay with this resulting in some healthy tension.
Activities you could do
  1. Design meaningful micro-interactions and transitions
  2. Sit next to engineers and work around tech challenges together
  3. Tweak your designs in the browser in response to technical challenges
  4. Write HTML/CSS/JS yourself
  5. Create Jira/Github issues and ensure they are closed out before shipping
  6. Work with the engineering team to ensure our patterns and components are being used correctly or that you're feeding changes back into the design system
  7. Work with marketing and stakeholders to finalize content
  8. Create a detailed QA and user testing plan with the team
About

The methods documented in this step-by-step process are a collection of practical, flexible workflows a designer may use to help create a design process for themselves or for their organization. This process is based off of the formal design process used by the awesome folks at Intercom.