10 Questions to ask, when developer has a meeting with designer for a screen design.

Assalm-o-Alaikum!

In order to have a robust and a beautiful product (mobile app), we have two main stakeholders i.e. designers and developers. Designers design the product, take care of the UX, UI of the application and developers develop it by following the guidelines set by designer usually on a designing tool i.e. Figma, Sketch, Zeplin etc.

There are few things and scenarios which are important to discuss when developers wants to have a meeting with the designer related to a screen or feature.

From developer's point of view, it's important to have all sorts of scenarios already in place to develop a particular screen. So, developer needs to ask the designer that he needs to provide the following things in order for this feature or screen to be complete.

1 - Loading State

Whatever the screen is supposed to do, in most cases it needs to have a loading screen.

For example: you want to show a list of products in a screen after fetching from server, so what should we show during that time when API is being called? And if there is loading state, then do we need to show it in shimmer, progress bar, or a custom view?

These are things needs to be asked from the designer.

2 - Error State

Now, you made the API request to server to get the data, but let's say it returned error and that error can be of different types.

For example: data is corrupted, or internet connectivity issue, or some server error. So for all sort of things do we need a generic design or do we need to show a separate design for all important errors? And with that, do we need to show a try again button to user as well?

So all these things needs to be discussed with the designer and designer needs to present it to you upfront when he delivers the screen.

3 - Supporting offline scenario

Ok, so you made the API call but it gave an error or internet connectivity issue. But your application is supporting offline scenario as well, since you are a genius developer!! So you might want to show the old data to user. But that is a stale data, which needs to be renewed and you need to intimate the user about it that this data is old and there is low connectivity or internet issue, for new data connect internet or whatever.

This design is also needed.

4 - No Content Found

Let's say there is no error, but API returned that there is no content or no products to list down in that screen. How will you handle it now?

Do you want to present a separate screen for no content found or you want show the user to know some other way?

5 - Loading Indicator

If that screen has any action buttons, such as Submit, Accept, Buy etc. We should also get that design as well, like when user clicks on them then how should that screen be shown? Do we show a loading indicator, progress bar or any custom view on tap of those buttons?

6 - Confirmation After Action Button

Customer taps on a submit button, then what should be shown? Do we show a dialog box or do we navigate to next screen or do we show a snackbar, toast or what? This needs to be decided and needs to be shown as well.

7 - Colours & Assets Exportable

Assets needs to be defined and exportable, that in which format developer needs that. For android, its good to have images as vector instead of images (jpg, png). Colours should also have their values in the tool which designer is using and developer should know the value of colours and other assets straight from that tool.

8 - Navigation Animation

Navigation animation should be defined as well, like when user navigates to a different screen, then how should the animation be shown while navigating? Should it follow the native behaviour of the OS or should it follow a custom animation?

9 - Locale

If application is supporting other locales as well, then developer should ask the question to designer that how will it look like in LTR or RTL formats like in Urdu/Arabic and in English languages.

10 - Landscape Mode

If application is supporting the landscape mode, then this question should also be asked that how would this screen be shown in landscape mode? But most of us usually design the application in portrait so this question usually gets missed.

Conclusion:

When all scenarios are discussed and designed, then developer is able to deliver the screen quickly. Since he has no dependency on the designer and can work with full focus.

If scenarios are not discussed and designed upfront, then it takes more time to deliver since there is dependency on the designer.

So it is important to have this discussion with the designer, it will surely take more time in the meeting but eventually be fruitful.

What is your take on it? Feel free to leave a comment.