Why Design Build Review Should be a Part of Product Development!

To simplify complications is the first essential of success!

These are the quotes said by George Earle Buckle!  George was a famous English Editor & Biographer. In this article, We are trying to understand the importance of Product’s Design Build Review from a  designer’s perspective. Before we jump to any conclusion, Let’s try to understand the mechanism of UX & Visual designing first.

It’s very important to start with a great User Interface design and Content for a product for survival, Especially for a Mobile / Web application. User interactions, Accessible Navigation, Soothing Color Scheme, Easy Taps/Clicks, Typography, Minimalist Design etc. all add up to a very good user experience. However, we have to take care that, design solution could be different depending upon the various domains.

Let’s take up a quick example of Minimalist Design. ‘Periscope‘ which is a live streaming application, Minimalist might work out beautifully for this app. Also, the target audience is mostly from US & Europe. Another hand for an application providing solution in the field of ‘Classified & Advertising’ like ‘Quikr‘. Minimalist design won’t be a  very good idea for this. It’s mainly because Quikr needs to show a lot of information to its user, and had multiple levels of categories. The target audience is also mainly India as of now. Having said these points, product engineering is dependent on the multiple factors.

Comparison of different design styles!

A good user experience is presented after a lot of efforts put up by UX / Visual Designers working simultaneously. As per the requirements, different skill sets of designers are taken in use accordingly.

Some of the prominent tasks names that can be mentioned specially in UX & VD domain shared in the infographic below:

UX & VD

Moving ahead, Let’s say a great UI design is crafted by designers and developers done his part of Coding, QA did his testing stuff automation/manual etc. However, before going Live with the product, final design must be reviewed by an expert Designer. Much greater if it’s done by the designer involved from the very initial stage of the project. Most of the time this process is skipped or loosely followed, and therefore discrepancies between the conceptualized design and the final product happen. Certain gestures might not work as visualized by the designer. For example “Fonts style not matching, Colors are different, Taps are not looking good, Inconsistencies in spacing between blocks and so on.

Design Build Review! this is the word, and the role of a designer, especially visual designer’s is very very important here. He must provide that much-needed assistance to the developer in design implementation for smooth transitions. This is a collaborative effort and at an organization level, this must be done by designer and developers mutually.

Also, the onus is on the product development teams also to encourage this and make this as important part of the overall development cycle. Like Design, Coding, QA this should be an equally important task at any organization level.

However, Common thoughts that may cross a designer’s mind after reading above paragraphs are like:

• What could be the solution for such a problem?
• It’s not my job, I am done with design stuff? Developers and Testers should take care of the same.
• What’s is QA’s doing then?

Be cool, this is for your own good gentlemen. As a designer you are the one who spent a huge amount of time & efforts in finalizing the design, placing contents, choosing colors, defining gestures, dozens of design iterations etc. This is one of those last moments efforts which can surely cross you over the winning line. Do it happily and share constant feedback for your developer pals in the project and if possible try to sign-off the final release from your side only.

When you will see the perfectly integrated & functional product as you visualized during design. There will a great sense of satisfaction for yourself.

Have a happy Design Build Reviews Gentlemen.