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Why user experience and interface design goes hand in hand with bespoke software development

Joe Bevan
Authored by Joe Bevan
Posted: Tuesday, September 14, 2021 - 15:06

Insight provided by Clever Software Group, bespoke software development specialists based in Ringwood.

It goes without saying that communication is key when it comes to user experience (UX) and interface (UI) design and bespoke software development. One can’t really take place without the other, so both the development and design team need to work in a perfect harmony. Whether you have a full stack developer working on the whole code base, or a frontend dev working on the aesthetics and backend developer working on the functionality of bespoke software project, a UI/UX designer’s wireframes will act as a road map for a software developer, allowing them to fully understand the intended vision behind a custom software solution.

Clear Communication

It’s important that a software development team and design team go backwards and forwards on ideas and designs with each other, crafting small iterations and changes in the process. Working in unison will allow ideas and solutions to be bounced around and create a highly successful software solution. Both teams may not understand why certain decisions have been made regarding backend software development or why a UX/UI designer has implemented specific layouts and assets. Assessing and reviewing wireframes will be the backbone to making a bespoke software project successful and move much smoother.

Efficient and affective delivery of a bespoke software development project is the main desired outcome. Ensuring a client is happy with the software solution is vital, so allowing them to be apart of the software development and design journey is very important. This is one of the main reasons that UX/UI design and bespoke software development go hand in hand.

Working in an agile development environment is a very productive way of crafting bespoke software solutions. This style of development means that custom software developers are constantly developing, testing, reviewing and tweaking bespoke software products, in correlation with client needs and requests. UI/UX designers can mirror this method, allowing ideas and iterations to come to life quickly. This will allow for the creation of a perfect custom software solution, molded entirely to a clients specification.

Not Just a Pretty Picture

However, having a UX/UI designer simply supply and share static designs will not deliver a full vision of a bespoke software project to a developer. Stationary wireframes will be a good representation of what code needs to be devised and built, but will not provide enough information for a software developer to work from. A wireframe is not just designed to be pretty to look at, but is something tangible to work with. Assessing feasibility and functionality of a bespoke software solution outlay, will pave the way for a full understanding of how a bespoke software solution will operate.

Understanding what assets are required and how multiple pages interconnect will also help move the project along more efficiently. This will additionally allow a better insight into how call to actions and menu functionality will also work. UI/UX designers should consider systematically arranging elements and assets that are required and provide them if possible, to reduce time and confusion on the software developers side.

A lot of time spent liaising between the design and software development teams will help iron out creases within the development of a software solution quickly. Having a clear understanding of a full page flow, connectivity and interaction, will make the development process much easier for all of those involved. The software project would then be able to be split into more manageable, workable chunks, that can be undertaken, understood and developed to a very high standard. Both software developers and UI/UX designs working on a software solution should know it inside and out, becoming overly familiar with every element that is required to be featured, as per the client’s request.

Example Assets

As we all know, the devil is in the detail. Animations, gifs and intended video content should be explained very clearly and where possible, supplied by UX/UI designers to software developers. This will reduce human error in terms of development and create a clear direction for the possible bespoke software solution outcome. Building excellent communication structures will allow the hand off process to become much easier and more effective. Theoretically there would be less to deliver and a shared understanding of how the final software product should function, will help each team member working on the project to contribute to solving issues and bugs in advance.

Bespoke software development is an on going process, not a single point of work. This is why both software developers and UX/UI designers dedicated work goes hand in hand. Software solutions are ever evolving, expanding products, transitioning with businesses as they themselves develop. Including software developers in the entirety of a design process will allow solutions to be made from the beginning and enable developers to feel more committed and connected to the designs being produced. This process will also allow UX/UI designers to ask for software development opinions at any point, to understand what is ascertainable and achievable in terms of code body.

Prototypes of wireframes and development iterations will begin to flesh out a software project and in turn, become a living piece of code. What a UI/UX designer provides will allow a software developer to start to understand user workflow for logic possibilities and start to unravel how a custom piece of software development will look and feel. From this, designers will be able to review and test code as it is produced and view mock-up screens to ensure the final product performs as it was desired to function.

To Wrap Up

So there you have it – You can’t have bespoke software development without the support of UI/UX design. Custom software solutions would be built in a much less efficient and slower manner, with potentially vital design elements being missed out. UI/UX design is the cherry on top of bespoke software development, without a doubt.

To find out more about how UX/UI design and bespoke software development go hand in hand, or to start a bespoke software project of your own, please visit Clever Software Group

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