Published on <a href="http://ift.tt/2t6i6b5">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Avi Zuber 
There have been many articles written on the topic of designers learning to code and developers learning to design. Designers and developers have a relationship that is the professional equivalency of symbiosis. Having knowledge of your partner’s role enhances the experience for both of you and provides your project with a higher chance of success. I would like to offer some examples from my own career where having an understanding of both sides of the isle was useful.
As a Developer who Designs
Working as a developer, I spend my day trying to solve a pretty basic problem.
<blockquote>How do I get software to complete tasks most efficiently, quickly and accurately?</blockquote>
In a series of trials and errors, any developer can solve this problem for any given project. At times there is a desire to change the design specifications to better solve the software issue. This is where things can go south.
As a developer with an understanding of design, the software problem becomes part of the overall user experience design. It becomes the question of
<blockquote>How do I allow the user to complete their tasks most efficiently, quickly and accurately?</blockquote>
The result may be the same, but there is now a greater understanding of the design specifications and a more intelligent conversation to be had if changes need to be made.
I experienced this working as part of a development team where we had about twenty developers and two designers. I was able to question design and understand the responses, build empathy with both our users and my teammates, and ultimately push for the changes I felt needed to be done.
As a Designer who Codes
As a designer, you’ll go through many stages before creating the beautiful user interface your users will so enjoy. First you will do discovery to understand the problem, then you’ll wireframe and prototype, testing along the way. You’ll mock up, test and iterate until finally your product is ready to be coded. (Of course after you ship, you’ll continue to do discovery and iterate further.)
As a designer with an understanding of development, at some point in the process you will be able to conduct a different kind of research. You will be able to learn about the code that will power your design and this will give you an understanding of what is possible.
In a position as a designer, I created an interface that would contain a lot of data and, because discovery had taught me that we would have both desktop and tablet users, be fully responsive. With my understand of front-end development, I understood that this design would require certain elements to appear redundantly in our code, which ideally should be avoided. Researching the development team’s choice of framework (pre-React/Angular 2/Vue, etc.) allowed me to discover a way to accomplish this without compromising our software’s performance. Speaking the same language as the development team was helpful for both parties.
An Extreme Example: Code Review
Caught in a project that would not meet it’s deadline, I stepped out of my boundaries as a designer and offered my development skills to help squash bugs. I discovered years of messy code, which I brought to the attention of key members of the development team. When confronted, they explained that they were never given proper time to clean up tech debt and rough code had piled up. Taking this information to the project managers, we discovered that the PMs were on board with the idea of pausing, or at least slowing down, development to build a better foundation. Together we presented this idea to the stakeholders and were able to develop a road map for cleaning up our mess. Had I not been skilled in both design and development, and been part of a team open to candid feedback, the situation would have worsened.
Why It Wouldn’t Matter
We use technology we don’t understand all the time. Cars, phones, and household plumbing are all examples of things we take for granted. We hire professionals to fix these things when they break, proving that we never really need to understand them. Perhaps designers do not have to understand code and developers do not have to understand design. Let professionals do their job and focus on your own. I think this could work in many organizations, but I do not think it’s optimal.
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<a href="http://ift.tt/2sT7h86">I’m a Designer who Codes/I’m a Developer who Designs</a> was originally published in <a href="http://ift.tt/2cAqCpx">prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m a Designer who Codes/I’m a Developer who Designs

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