Product roles have become multifaceted, and thanks to the development of collaborative UI tools, designers and developers can now share a number of responsibilities.

Historically, the UI tool landscape has resulted in a separation of responsibilities into two distinct roles — designer and developer. However, as the practical side of creating UIs becomes more collaborative, we’re starting to see developers become knowledgeable about UX and vice-versa. Designers and developers no longer need to feel defensive and territorial about their craft; instead, they can make decisions together in a constructive way.

Let’s take a closer look at 4 UI principles that…

Step into the shoes of a hiring manager for a moment. You need to dismiss an employee in a few days. You’re using an employee management app to do that in the system.

The flow seems to go smoothly until you reach the last screen where you enter the termination date, the effective date, and fill out the list of recipients who need to be notified about the dismissal. You scroll down to the bottom of the screen to complete the process, and then you see a button that says, “Save.” “Save for what?” you think, “What will happen if…

Handoff is when designers hand off their finished UI to developers for implementation. As simple as it sounds, the process requires a great deal of collaboration which often leads to friction. Let’s investigate some of the most common pain points of the process and how to mitigate them.

Bad Designer-Developer Communication

A smooth design-to-developer handoff largely depends on excellent communication. Without it, different interpretations of the same task can hamper your team’s efforts.

“As a developer, understanding what the problem is we’re trying to solve, helps answer some of the questions about why I’m building the thing I’m building, which is very motivating…

With the rise of more and more design and prototyping tools on the market, more often than not, we see design teams migrating from one tool to another. There are several reasons why designers decide to migrate between tools — collaboration, or even performance. Let’s compare two of the most common tools on the market, Adobe XD and Figma, from the view of enterprise teams.

Comparing Figma and Adobe XD

Let’s first look at the two main reasons enterprise design teams that work in Adobe XD decide to move to Figma.

Work in the Cloud

When you work in Adobe XD, you have to sync your local files to…

Design systems have quickly become a necessity in product design.

And the reason for that is simple — they improve efficiency. This is because a well-structured design system bridges the much-loathed gap between design and development. It also ensures reusable design components are readily available to use, thereby speeding up production, among many other reasons.

Do You Really Need a Design System?

One of the very first questions you need to ask yourself when considering whether or not to build a design system is if you really need one. To determine this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you find yourself doing repetitive work? A design system can save you time (and your designers a lot of…

Design systems provide businesses with tremendous value. Just ask any skilled product designer: They are time-savers; they enhance the end-user experience and, ultimately, the company’s revenue stream. However, explaining this to C-level executives and stakeholders can sometimes be a bit challenging especially if large amounts of money are involved. Of course, getting executive buy-in for a design system can help you grow your team and invest in new tools. You’ll be able to focus on more meaningful problems than, for example, designing the same primary button for the eighth time.

With this in mind, let’s go over the ways in…

For years, one of the biggest weaknesses of many brands has been unifying the way a product “feels” from inception to conception. And that’s usually the result of team members living out the “Blind Men and the Elephant” story — with each department seeing things differently.

From brewing a pot of coffee to navigating through your favorite app, information architecture is pervasive. You may not even notice it, but our lives are subtly — and sometimes overtly — guided by the information architecture around us.

And that’s exactly why you need to understand what information architecture is — especially as a designer.

What is Information Architecture?

In its simplest form, information architecture (IA) is the discipline of organizing information clearly and logically. Its purpose is to make sure said information helps users easily navigate and use a product, app, or website.

In essence, IA is like a map. It allows…