Handoff Studies

RESEARCH – DESIGN OPS – TEAM BUILDING

MAY 2024 – JUN 2024

The handoff process is extremely important for development teams, efficiency and clear communication between designers and developers are fundamental to the success of the project. Because of this importance, I worked to bring improvements to the team handoff process, focusing on improving communication and ensuring consistency of deliverables.

THE CHALLENGE

Make improvements to the handoff process, helping with the team communication

MY ROLE

I was responsible for organizing and conducting research, leading workshops, defining and developing solutions to identified problems.

THE TEAM

I worked as main designer with the support of other designers in the team.

The problem

As the project progressed, different teams participated in the same product and new features and updates were created, the handoff process became a pain for the teams. There were many doubts about the implementation of the screens during the sprint, generating rework. This topic was a issue discussed in several team retrospectives.

*Confidential information has been hidden

Team Survey

To understand the team’s needs regarding the handoff, workshops and dynamics were held with people on the team, so that each person’s problems could be heard and explored. These workshops took place separately between the design and development team so that the perspective of both sides is heard.

*Confidential information has been hidden

During the workshops, participants were asked to write positive and negative points and possible suggestions about the current handoff in advance so that these points could be discussed by the team during the activity. Each workshop was adapted to be best enjoyed by each team, using tools that were best known to each team.

Main Takeaways

Lack of screen history, difficulty in viewing changes and different versions

Components lacking documentation

Designers are unsure of what needs to be described in the handoff

The development team has difficulty visualizing the main points on the screen

Ideation and finding solutions

After understanding the team’s needs regarding handoff, a search for references and techniques on the subject was carried out, thus understanding what could be used by the team.

Solution

To resolve the 4 main pain points, new components were created for use in the handoff, in addition to new sections facilitating the reading of the handoff

Components

A tag was added to the header used in Handoff describing the design version and the status of the flow as a whole.

A status tag was also added to the individual cards on the screens, in addition the text was divided into parts, making it easier to read and making it clear what information needs to be filled in by the designers, an “updates” field was also added, so it is possible to view clearly new updates on the screen

New individual screen cards were created, for the description of elements and another for the description of components already added to the design system or for local components

Card for element description

Card for components in the design system and locations

Sections

To help divide information, two sections were created, in addition to the one already used showing the flows, so the components and screen variations can be viewed more objectively.

Results

The updates to the handoff process were positively received by the team. Reducing rework and doubts about designs during sprints.

The studies have demonstrated the importance of listening and understanding the difficulties of team members to improve work methods and the quality of deliveries.

The main learnings, highlighted the need to implement specific actions to improve communication within the team, finding these solutions together, thus improving their adoption and bringing better effectiveness to the team.