This is an important part as it involves providing developers with detailed specifications and guidelines for implementing the design of the product. This phase helps to ensure that the product is developed accurately and efficiently, while also maintaining consistency and alignment with the original design vision.

Design handoff is the process of handing over a finished design for implementation. It involves transferring a designer’s intent, knowledge, and specifications for a design and can include visual elements, user flows, interaction, animation, copy, responsive breakpoints, accessibility, and data validations.

Apart from the specifications (the “what”) of the design decisions and changes, the design handoff may also include problem statements and business logic (the “why”) that enable software developers to better understand the design context.

The design handoff bridges a designer’s vision and the final product built by software developers. A poorly implemented design leads to a broken user experience. As Szymon Adamiak, the Co-founder of Hype4 Mobile, explains in this video, a smooth handoff and a tight collaboration between designers and developers are crucial for a good end-user experience.

Design specs are detailed documents providing information about a product, such as (UI) user interface design details (colors, character styles, and measurements) and information (flows, behaviors, and functionality). A developer uses this document to take the design into production and build the product to the designer’s specifications.

Designers provide developers with detailed information about the visual design, layout, typography, and interactions of the product, and a style guide that outlines the color scheme and other visual elements of the design, helping developers ensure consistency and alignment with the original design vision.

This information may be provided in the form of design specifications, style guides, or other documentation. Designers also work closely with developers to answer questions and clarify any issues that arise during the development process.

What Should You Include in a Design Handoff?

Most teams continually iterate and improve their products to stay ahead of the competition. Every improvement or new feature you design will involve a design handoff. What you include in the handoff depends on the type of project you’re working on, the stage of product development, and the nature of design changes you need to communicate to the developers.

If the changes are primarily visual (say, changes in the screen layout), your design software’s built-in specifications (e.g., inspect, developer mode) should provide all the technical information the developer needs. In this case, you only need to inform the developer that the design has been updated. Most design tools now allow you to add comments and tag users directly in the design file to direct your team member’s attention to the design changes.

If the changes are more complex, for example, changes in the underlying user flow and business logic, you will need to add that information to the designs you share.

1. Visual design elements: These include the color palette, typography, layout, images and icons.
   • In most design tools, developers can easily extract this information without much input from the designer.
   • For images and icons, check with the developers about the type of files they need (file extensions, image resolutions, naming conventions, and file size restrictions). Relying on vector-based icons (for example, .svg file formats) is often the easiest for designers and developers.
2. Interactive elements: Include notes about what happens when users interact with elements such as buttons and inputs. For example, what do disabled buttons look like? What happens if the user hovers over a clickable icon?
3. Form elements and data validations: In the case of forms, remember to include rules such as minimum character count, whether an input is mandatory or optional, and the format of input to be expected (email, phone number, etc.).
4. Error states: Define what will happen in case of user errors. These include the style and placement of error messages on form fields and the dedicated 404 pages.