Design Thinking is a wonderful concept. It has enough structure so teams can work consistently inside it, yet it’s flexible enough to allow for the introduction of new ideas in the middle of the process. It enables for a level of experimentation and creativity that isn’t usually possible in other, more rigorous development procedures.

However, adding new ideas or features while working on a project might lead to design debt.

What exactly is Design debt?

We know a product has ‘design debt’ when the UI is inconsistent, the information architecture is bad, the text is confusing, and the UX is fractured.

When new design components are introduced to an application without thinking how they will eventually fit together, this is known as design debt. As a result, the app has some amazing capabilities and may appear lovely, but it lacks a clear route for the user to follow in terms of usability. That frequently implies that important information is hidden behind a slew of tabs, or that the overall user experience is clumsy.

You’ve definitely heard of technical debt, which is the concept that picking the simplest (rather than the best) development solution today leads to problems later on when more code is introduced. While technical debt is inconvenient for other developers trying to disentangle jumbled-together code, Design Debt has very substantial and bad consequences for the end-user. In the end, your app will require assistance.

“Design debt is not a problem in itself, it is rather a symptom of a bigger and much deeper issue, rooted in the way we design and build products.“

Credits: Amber Jabeen

Any software development project requires quality assurance. From setting goals and commitments to release management and smoke testing, quality assurance spans the whole software development process. Your quality assurance team regularly examines and audits the software solution you’re producing, using multiple methodologies, standards, and models like as ISO 9000 and CMMI, to ensure that it satisfies the defined quality criteria. The team ensures that every feature works as planned and that no deviations or possible faults make it into the final release.

Why is it dangerous?

The worst aspect about design debt is that it doesn’t manifest itself in one fell swoop. It slowly creeps up on you, becoming larger and larger until you see it. It’s a huge hassle and a large mess to clean up by then.

We recently completed some work for a customer that precisely matches this pattern. They had been striving to improve their app and make it as helpful as possible before coming to work with us. They were going about it the proper way, too. They were asking the correct questions of their consumers and were aware of the issues they were having with the app.

Where does Design debt come from?

While a shorter time to market is appealing, it should never come at the expense of design quality. Otherwise, your design’s usability and consistency will deteriorate with time. Every incremental modification, every new part or feature incorporated into the design can slowly erode the structural integrity of your product if adequate design verification and validation methods are not followed.

Here are a few pointers that make it even more relatable:

1. Assumptions are made by your team at the outset of the project.

2. The project’s scope has not been established, controlled, or documented.

3. Pursuing short-term goals at the expense of design compromises the long-term viability of your product.

4. When creating a new feature, the present state of your product’s UX/UI and overall design direction are ignored.

5. You don’t have effective communication and workflows between designers, developers, and quality assurance.

Conclusion

When your user interface has become somewhat uneven, the elements have grown fragmented, and new features appear to have been introduced out of context, it may appear that revamping the entire thing is your best and only choice at this time. But this isn’t totally accurate. Yes, when it comes to dealing with design debt, a pricey redesign may seem the obvious final choice. However, you should never make such decisions without first examining all of your alternative possibilities.

In this article, we have talked about a lot of points but to summarize it for you, just make sure of the things that you should not do as a Designer:

1. Teams create features without considering how they will affect the customer experience.

2. Focus on user problems more before jumping straight on to the solution

3. Ensure maximum collaboration within teams.

4. Involve developers in the design process- By means of simple collaboration or actual pairing when working on a feature, you can make the design and development processes better aligned with each other.

” This blog offers generic information. By no means, it is professional advice. The information aforementioned is believed to be factually correct. The information provided is solely based on the author’s judgment and is subject to change. This is not endorsed by any 3rd parties or other brands.”