In collaboration with developers I worked on concepts to facilitate the communication between developers and designers. We explored tools and processes like scrum, slack, jira, kanban, yodiz, etc. from which we worked out design implications that might help cross-functional collaboration, e.g.: triangle work setups with one screen, direct conversations instead of group meetings and simultanous change of code and draft. We came up with a setup of rules and structures to encourage a cross functional team to work as close and efficent as possible. All our findings were published in a design report and will be available for further design implementations.
ethnographic field studies
In order to get an idea of where people work and what surrounds them, e.g. which pictures are to be seen on the walls, I had chosen the method of Ethnographic Field Studies. Here you meet the people and study their natural environment. For my project, it was useful to know what it looks like and what objects they surround themselves with every day. I found out that the distances from one office to another are quite long and this could prevent a quick arrangement. With this method it was possible for me to see the world of designers and developers and to better understand their thoughts about their working environment.
Observation of a project meeting
Observation of the office
Lego scrum workshop | FH Kiel
Goal of the project
I have contacted various design teams and development offices and organized appointments for visits. It was important to get an impression of how these teams are spatially divided and how they work together. These results, however, are relevant for the development of a design concept, because it has been essential to involve the human in the design process, in this case designers and developers. Only through the active participation of the people is it possible to get a realistic picture of the working world and to develop a design concept that has a certain credibility.
Presentation poster | Research insights and Design implications
Interview developer at Light Instruments Start up Kiel
Interviews
I conducted a total of 10 interviews. I have spoken personally with designers from start-ups to the design manager of SDL in Amsterdam to get their opinions on the subject of collaboration between designers and developers. Of course, I also did the same with developers and computer scientists to be able to make comparisons. The interviews were all structured in the same way so that I could make comparisons. My main goal was to get a deeper insight into the years of experience of designers and developers, so that I could incorporate certain experiences into my design.
Design Solution
The design draft is based on three pillars, which have clearly emerged from the user research: spatial proximity, visualization and clarity. I decided to design a workstation that takes these three pillars into account. In agile teams there are often group meetings, which usually clarify what the team is working on and what still needs to be done. For more specific questions from designers and developers I developed a separate workspace which should create space to work on detailed topics. Based on the program pairing model, I created a design that I call cross-functional pairing, since two different disciplines are involved in solving a problem.
Sketch of a cross-functional pairing session setup
