Great products don’t happen overnight, nor are they developed in a vacuum. Great products are a result of well-orchestrated collaborations between many teams. Continuing on with our series of technical blog posts, we share the design process and how our UI team works closely with Development everyday to bring great designs to life.
The Design Process
Any project — whether large or small — always starts with an understanding of the problem it seeks to address. It is important to understand what you’re trying to solve before you can proceed in designing a solution. First, competitor and trend analysis is carried out, then you follow up by prototyping, testing and ironing out the visual details. The UI (User Interface) team works in collaboration with the web and mobile teams throughout the process of developing a product. Although, this flow isn’t always set in stone — some problems are solved easily and at the very beginning of the process, but most of the work done at BandLab is new, even groundbreaking — inevitably this makes the work more intricate, and complicated. All of our product features are built from scratch and go through many iterations of design and development. The ethos here is to test every idea and filter out those that don’t work, and with every iteration, we strive towards perfection.
Collaboration with Developers
When working closely with mobile and web developers, the UI team take into account the unique elements of each platform being developed. In an open-concept environment, it’s easier for teams to collaborate — developers can give unexpected and useful tips from an angle that a designer might not consider. Close-quarter working with developers also gives designers a better understanding of how their designs are implemented, as well as the limitations and opportunities involved.
Another important cog in the BandLab-machine is the QA team. The QA team is responsible for the testing of each feature and identifying edge cases (situations that occur at extreme parameters) — many of these slip under the radar during the design/development stage.
Through collaboration between design, development and QA, we build better features — and as importantly — a more cohesive team.
Tools of the Trade
Different design software is used for different tasks. Here is some of the software we use at BandLab:
For UI design
Sketch: used for mobile app and website design
Adobe Illustrator: used for drawing icons and graphics used in the interface
Adobe Photoshop: used for image editing
For prototyping
Invision
Flinto
Principle
Better Design
User interface is a lot more than just pure creativity — it’s a science that involves analytics and user behaviour patterns. At BandLab, we like to remind ourselves that everything can be improved — products are always a work in progress. There’s always something new to add, improve or change, so hopefully, we never actually finish this great project!
If you are interested in discussing our work further or finding out more about what we do, you can see our work at www.bandlab.com or you can email us your comments at feedback@bandlab.com
