What is the design handoff process?
The design handoff is a crucial process that occurs between designers and developers. Typically, after the design phase is complete a designer should hand over their work to a developer to start coding and building out their designs.
If this process isn’t performed properly, parts of the design thinking, view or function could be missed which could cause issues further into the development phase.
How to prepare your design handoff
Provide necessary files
A part of the design handoff is to provide any necessary files for the developer to refer to when they are building out a view. The files can include:
- Meeting Notes
- User Flow Diagrams
- Concept Maps
- Style Guide
- Fonts, Images & Icons
- Wireframes & High Fidelity Mockups
- Clickable Prototype
Structuring & naming your files
Your files should be structured cleanly and naming conventions should be easy to understand and easy to follow. If the file names aren’t correct, it will confuse the developer/s and waste time.
Prototype
A design handoff will run smoother if there is a clickable prototype for the developer to follow. Ensure your flows and links in the prototype are linking correctly. To ensure you don’t miss a link or link to a wrong view, I would to go through the prototype multiple times and test every button, read through the copy, etc.
Also, with prototypes, make sure paddings, colour codes, etc. are accessible and visible. Applications like Adobe XD and Figma, have a sharing feature where a developer can see spacing between elements or colour codes.
Speak the same language
Designers and developers speak different lingo. Another struggle during the design handoff is when both parties don’t explain things clearly. So when explaining a view or function, cut out the jargon and make sure both parties understand each other. It is also important to have discussions throughout the entirety of the development phase. Communication will ensure both designers and developers are on the same page and will produce the correct output.
Missing Views
There will sometimes be the case where a function or view is missed in the design because is an edge case or wasn’t picked up on it during the discovery phase. If this occurs, the designers and developers should discuss how they approach the issue.
Here’s a few ways to avoid this occurring during the design handoff and development:
- Ensure you get every bit of information about the project during the discovery phase.
- Review everything before the design phase and think of every use case possible.
- Maintain a checklist of features and scenarios to keep track when designing
Now it’s time to handoff
This is an integral part of a digital development process. If you perform these activities, your design handoff will run smoothly and you can produce the product that is expected.