Web designers and developers are involved in the process of building a website but they perform completely different tasks. Web designers work on the visual representation of the website. They create visual elements that will make the webpage look appealing to its visitors. The key goal of a web designer is to create a webpage that has all the functionality that meets the customer’s needs. Developers, on the other hand, use different programming languages to create the “skeleton” of the website. In other words, coders set up the technical basement that will make the webpage interactive.
Let’s find out how to build a well-balanced relationship between developers and designers so that your project will ultimately benefit from this collaboration.
Benefits of having engineers and designers working together
To build an outstanding website, you will need to hire software engineers and web designers, making sure to establish constant interaction between them. It’s no secret that the best results are achieved through teamwork.
Streamlined workflow for better performance
Each additional site detail leads to extra costs. The more complex the website, the more time and money you will need to spend on development. If you decide to have your engineers and web designers working together, you can save your money.
You can reduce the costs of production by choosing workers with a wide expertise. They are more effective at work because they have already faced a lot of issues. More importantly, they know how to approach different types of problems.
Moreover, teamwork sparks productivity. When each person is assigned to a task, there is more motivation to work faster than your colleagues. The atmosphere of enthusiasm within a team will reduce procrastination and lead to high performance.
Results are achieved within requirements and deadlines
As for teamwork, you can distribute tasks among all team members so that everyone does what he or she is an expert in. By doing so, you will ensure that each portion of the project is of high quality. When assignments are delegated to professionals in their field, chances are the project will be finished on time.
Diverse expertise is combined to create award-winning websites
As a rule of thumb, experienced workers know how to solve a problem at the first attempt. They do not spend extra time learning by making mistakes. Their previous experience allowed them to practice different approaches, test theories, and gain expertise. With this in mind, they can focus on making your product the best in class rather than just creating a decent product.
How to improve collaboration between designers and developers
All teams are unique and there is no one-size-fits-all way to improve teamwork. Nevertheless, there are basic aspects every company should consider when trying to build a relationship between developers and designers.
Clarify each team member’s roles and responsibilities
If you want to improve operational efficiency, you need to define the roles within a team. Outlining each person’s responsibilities will reduce mutual conflicts between the workers. This will save a lot of time for the company.
It is important to know the right way to define the roles and responsibilities. Before stating personal responsibilities, you should analyze each employee’s personal traits and skills. Then make sure that each employee is aware of the explicit tasks they need to perform to achieve the shared goal.
Get engineers and designers involved in each other’s work to bridge the gap with the labor division
A lot of companies used to isolate software engineering teams from web design teams. This “distance” served as an obstacle to getting optimal results because employees with different functional expertise could not exchange information directly.
In today’s world, there is a highly competitive atmosphere on the market. Every company wants to attract as many customers as possible. At this point, bridging the gap between the labor division can speed up the product development process.
Facilitating collaborative work between software engineers and web designers will let them get familiar with the nuances of each other’s roles. Once both teams are aware of what happens “on the other side”, there will be mutual reliance between designers and developers.
Have brainstorming sessions together
Leaving employees unaware of the company’s goals and plans is a common mistake. Sometimes a manager discusses technical improvements to the product with only the development team leader in person. However, this approach is not effective because other employees will lack information. If you invite other developers and designers to the meeting, they will bring diverse ideas and come up with creative solutions. The best notions can be generated as a result of an active debate where people challenge each idea. In addition, the more employees get involved in the brainstorming session, the better they will understand the connection between development and web design.
Make sure designers and developers have shared goals, language, tools
Misunderstanding will become a common problem once the teams are separated from each other. This will give rise to many misconceptions about the roles and responsibilities of web designers or developers. Educating your employees about the basic skill set and standard vocabulary of other functional teams will be key to solving the problem.
The web design team should get familiar with common tools that software engineers use while creating a website: CSS, Javascript, PHP, JQuery. Getting to know those things will enhance the value of developers’ role in the web designers’ view.
Developers often tend to think that designers deal with much easier tasks. For sure, designers have exceptional abilities that add to the quality of user experience and make the product successful. This entails creating user interfaces, working with typography, and following the guidelines.
You can notice more respect across teams when everybody recognizes the expertise of their fellow workers.
Ensure that expertise is shared within the cross-functional team
In today’s world, web designers and software engineers need to keep up with trends in their professional area to produce the best-in-class products. Thereby, you can provide employees with an opportunity to acquire new skills and learn about the latest technologies.
However, receiving hands-on experience from other professionals can be much more effective. Lively conversations with fellow workers and exchange of thoughts and ideas will enhance the expertise of your employees.
If you feel that your in-house staff lacks professional skills, you can always utilize the Staff Augmentation services. Collaboration with specialists from another company will bring a breath of fresh air in terms of innovative technologies and strategies.
Final thoughts
As a progressive business, you may want to leave obsolete working strategies aside and begin to foster a sense of belonging among employees.
Once web designers and developers find a common language and establish respectful professional relationships, the business will flourish. Mutual respect between employees can speed up the production process, increasing the returns.
When thoughts, ideas, and skills are shared, developers cultivate a designer mindset and vice versa. This will form a shared understanding of different roles and goals within the project.
Bogdan Ivanov is a CTO at DDI Development. He is a professional with an advanced degree in web development, and 7 years of experience in building a technology strategy for the company’s projects. He has a deep understanding of network security, compliance, and operational security.