Design documentation 

With the current way of working, once the design solution is finalized, most of the details are written directly into the development tickets on JIRA. Developers will rely on this to start the implementation work. Once the feature is developed, the ticket is moved to Done and goes into archive and the design specification would be lost.

With the design specification template, design rationale would be written down in detail and stored in the company intranet, where anyone including business owners can get access to and take it as a reference for future development. It would also serve as the source of knowledge for future designers who join the team to understand what and why things have been implemented the way they are.

Handout template in Figma

While having the design spec documentation helps people to have a common understanding of the project background, front-end developers often need more specific explanations of how components should be implemented. Using a dev template in Figma helped us to ensure that the design is communicated clearly to developers.

Design-dev sync meetings

Even with all the documentation work involved, it was still important to have the live discussions with developers to make sure all questions would be answered. I established a general design-dev sync practice where in each project there would be at least 3 touch-points:

• A kick-off sync: to explain about the overall idea behind the design solution.
• Weekly syncs during the implementation: to get up-to-date with any design changes and development status. Any new issue that arises will also be addressed here.
• Design review meeting: when developers and designers will go through the implementation work together to make sure that things work as intended.

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The results of these practice include:

• Bridging the gaps of knowledge between development team members.
• Developers save time going back and forth between ticket requirements and the design files.
• Designers and developers working more closely, ensuring that design would be implemented correctly and within schedule.
• The practice was quickly adopted by the team and proved to significantly increased collaboration efficiency within the development team as well as other stakeholders.

Working with a consumer app means there is a high chance that the people within the company are also using that product in their daily life. In this case, I noticed that there is a big group of EV drivers at Virta who are willing to give feedback with design concepts. A Slack group was then created for those who are interested and give access to all designers. Here, designers can post their concepts, try A/B testing, use voting methods, and ask for further explanation. Slack is the main communication tool at our company and thus makes it the most accessible tool to get instant feedbacks.

Noted that not all ideas would be validated in this way. The group has become a valuable source for us to get things tested quickly and early on. More importantly, it is a great way to introduce design thinking and user-centric mindset to the organization.

When I started working with the app, I noticed that we did not have the overall understanding of other competitive apps in the market. The knowledge exists, but often in the mind of the business or customer success teams, whereas designers have a very vague understanding of how the landscape is looking. Using UX heuristics and certain criteria for selecting samples, I conducted a competitor benchmarking report to help designers as well as our development team to have a better idea of where we are in the competition. 

It is expected that this report will be conducted on an annual basis to ensure that we are up-to-date with the current trends and competition.