{"id":9319,"date":"2016-05-17T09:36:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intercom.com\/blog\/?p=9319"},"modified":"2020-07-30T12:59:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:59:20","slug":"there-is-no-hand-off-product-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/there-is-no-hand-off-product-design\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s no hand off in product design"},"content":{"rendered":"

What makes or breaks a product team?<\/p>\n

Strong design principles are one. A clear, effective roadmap is another. But one of the most important, yet overlooked, aspects of all great product teams, are the relationships between the designers and engineers on your team.<\/p>\n

Yet many designers compartmentalize building a product into two distinct parts \u2013 design and<\/em> development. This distinction is one of the most dangerous traps a product team can fall into. When design is seen as a satellite that orbits engineering, it usually comes crashing back to earth.<\/p>\n

Designers trained in isolation<\/h2>\n

Design education is partly to blame for this. What happened when you handed in your design projects? I\u2019ll bet only the smallest fraction of students ever had a professor bring you to the Computer Science department, sit you down next to another student, and ask you to build what you just handed in.<\/p>\n

The same goes for agencies, many of whom lack their own engineering teams. For most projects, design specs are tossed over the back wall for an external team to build. You\u2019ll be lucky if you ever meet them face to face. Luckier still if the product ends up resembling anything close to what you designed.<\/p>\n

The problem in both scenarios is the same \u2013 they separate design from implementation. In product design, both these things are inextricably linked. A world with terms such as \u201cdesign freeze\u201d or \u201chand off\u201d just won\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n

Start by understanding the constraints early<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Truly great products are often a combination of two things: a technical breakthrough and a never-before-seen design it enabled. So it\u2019s essential designers understand the possibilities and restraints of the technology they\u2019re working with, before they can properly delve into the design.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re designing a native iOS app. Here are some technical questions you might receive from an engineer that can heavily influence your design decisions:<\/p>\n