Most designers don't follow through with testing and validating design in implementation. They assume specs are being followed accordingly and closely, by the time it's implemented, it's too late to fix and the product gets shipped. Most small businesses to stealth startups don't have dedicated QA expertises, leaving the task to designers and developers. Developers are naturally focused on functionality first, and Agile culture supports getting an MVP out, then iterating, compromising quality to a certain extent.
To deliver quality products, hold yourself accountable for high and strict standards. Executing a quality assurance process and ideology will ensure precise development, leading to product maturity.
Follow this step-by-step process on how to ensure high quality products.
Step 1: Articulate the impacts of standards to your team
Usability, function, and performance leads to adoption and retention
Brand delivers on professionalism, integrity, and maturity
High quality leads to revenue; poor quality leads to frustration and abandonment
Step 2: Deliver robust designs, specs, and assets
Grid, layout, and style properties are accurately defined
Interaction rules, use cases, and annotations are clear, concise, and accounted for
Assets delivered and components aligned with system library
Step 3: Take part in the development of the UI
Solve edge cases as they arise
Alter designs based on the technical implication or increased scope
Collaborate in real-time implementation sessions with developers for pixel pushing and interaction guidance
Step 4: Review the implementation
Schedule and moderate QA sessions with developers and PM's
Rationalize user impacts and measure scope efforts during heuristic evaluations and functional/visual QA
Make a list of all functional and visual issues and fixes
Step 5: Manage, prioritize, and plan the fixes
Prioritize list based on functional blockers, usability, scope efforts, and visual defects (for more info, refer to How To Prioritize Your UI Bug Fixes)
Create JIRA tickets, assign, and designate to appropriate sprint
Append all necessary design artifacts to each ticket
Step 6: Validate the fixes and sign off on product
Schedule final review sessions
Ensure issues have been updated with the proposed fixes
Mark tickets 'Complete'
Summary
The success of your product relies on your standard and proactivity
Ensure quality assurance is built into the development life cycle from beginning to end
Remain persistent and firm to ensure high quality standards
Always preach the impacts of poor vs high quality
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