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This is an interesting opinion. Can you share how would you design a proper structure so the above is not the case?

by doh 6y ago

corytheboyd 6y ago
I have my own "perfect world" solution that I can shed some light on, sure. It's built to address the concerns that I myself have observed, so it might not apply to all. Never just blindly follow the advice of a stranger on the internet :) Stop wasting time with high fidelity mocks. Engineers shouldn't need a picture perfect rendering of what product wants in order to implement it. The end result almost never ends up being an exact replication anyway for "reasons". Start doing both of these in parallel: 1. Free up design to build systems that can be used to solve problems. Have them work closely with engineering to ensure the vision will carry ALL the way through to implementation 2. Lean very heavily on low fidelity mocks to hash out the SHAPE of changes to product (inspired by Basecamp https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.1-chapter-02 https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.1-chapter-02) To use object oriented programming as an example, a design system is used in the concrete implementation of the abstract shape of the product requirement. When something doesn't fit into an existing abstraction, you refactor instead of fork.
- allenu 6y ago
  Amen. I have similar experiences working with designers and PMs and this is my ideal as well. Designers don’t know the software architectural constraints and what is easy to code up and what is not. Engineers do. PMs know what trade offs they want to make in fidelity for the product, but designers and engineers don’t. What you often end up with is designers spending a lot of time creating designs they think solve the problem, but miss out on a lot of edge cases. They and PM discuss the product design and hand it over to engineers as if their work is done. When the engineer goes to implement it, they find all those edge cases that were missed and the designer has to go and redo a bunch of stuff while engineering is blocked on some of those decisions and PM is concerned why it’s so hard to implement as is.

This is an interesting opinion. Can you share how would you design a proper structure so the above is not the case?

by doh 6y ago

This is an interesting opinion. Can you share how would you design a proper structure so the above is not the case?

I have my own "perfect world" solution that I can shed some light on, sure. It's built to address the concerns that I myself have observed, so it might not apply to all. Never just blindly follow the advice of a stranger on the internet :) Stop wasting time with high fidelity mocks. Engineers shouldn't need a picture perfect rendering of what product wants in order to implement it. The end result almost never ends up being an exact replication anyway for "reasons". Start doing both of these in parallel: 1. Free up design to build systems that can be used to solve problems. Have them work closely with engineering to ensure the vision will carry ALL the way through to implementation 2. Lean very heavily on low fidelity mocks to hash out the SHAPE of changes to product (inspired by Basecamp https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.1-chapter-02 https://basecamp.com/shapeup/1.1-chapter-02) To use object oriented programming as an example, a design system is used in the concrete implementation of the abstract shape of the product requirement. When something doesn't fit into an existing abstraction, you refactor instead of fork.

allenu 6y ago
Amen. I have similar experiences working with designers and PMs and this is my ideal as well. Designers don’t know the software architectural constraints and what is easy to code up and what is not. Engineers do. PMs know what trade offs they want to make in fidelity for the product, but designers and engineers don’t. What you often end up with is designers spending a lot of time creating designs they think solve the problem, but miss out on a lot of edge cases. They and PM discuss the product design and hand it over to engineers as if their work is done. When the engineer goes to implement it, they find all those edge cases that were missed and the designer has to go and redo a bunch of stuff while engineering is blocked on some of those decisions and PM is concerned why it’s so hard to implement as is.