A lot of energy is put into making tools that let designers communicate ideas with developers better (eg hand-off modes). It feels like there’s a belief that the reason designs aren’t implemented as intended, is that developers simply didn’t understand it properly.
So it follows that you can solve the problem by making it easier to communicate design intent, so we see this massive proliferation of design tools. But I don’t think this has ever been the problem.
In my experience (important caveat), developers (and others) have been left out of the design process — the unspoken belief being that the only designers are graphic designers.
Designs reach an incredibly high level of fidelity (to avoid ideas being misunderstood!) and often get signed off before developers even get involved. Then the designs don’t get implemented as envisaged, because the true development constraints weren’t factored into the solution.
But the problem isn’t designers and their tools, the problem is not having all the right people in the room. Whilst there is value in all these prototyping tools, the idea of “developer hand-off” features needs to slink off into the night.
I suppose it’s human nature to want to perfect your creative output before showing it to other people, but that doesn’t work when the overall problem being solved is bigger than your own contribution.
I’m one of the worst offenders, because social anxiety (and trust issues) makes it a real challenge to reach out and collaborate, but I can see how necessary it is.
