The way that designers work when designing is very different from how designs and specs need to be handed off to dev. As a designer, my files contain concepts that aren’t fully baked, multiple explorations and variations on the same concept, future states that I know we won’t get to for a while but that we need to consider, etc. The designs are also in flux. Even while dev is implementing a specific screen, we may be changing the design of that screen for a future state.
When I handoff to dev, I want to give them only the designs that are applicable for what we’ve agreed to implement now. Sometimes I might share a single screen of future direction for context, but I never want to share the entire design file.
Dev mode is nice in that it can help mark which frames are ready for dev, but that still doesn’t solve the issue of not wanting dev to see the rest of the mess. Some things that would help Dev Mode solve other challenges during handoff:
- Allow the designer to limit visibility to only ‘ready for dev’ sections in dev mode (devs don’t see the rest of the mess)
- Allow the designer to reorder ‘ready for dev’ sections in dev mode (dev mode specific layout)
- Allow the designer to select a version of the design for ‘ready for dev’ and fix that version until the designer intentionally chooses to select another version. (designers can continue iterating without impacting what dev is currently working on)
- Create a scope for comments that is only applicable to dev mode (dev comments are separate from comments between PM/Design/Execs during ideation)