5 Practical Ways to Bring UX into Your Development Workflow (Without a UX Designer)

Even if your team lacks a dedicated UX designer, you can still bring UX principles into your development process with these practical tips.

As a developer without a UX designer, you might think UX is beyond your reach. The good news is, you don’t need a whole UX team to make your products more user-friendly. With the right tools and approach, you can easily incorporate UX principles into your workflow and significantly enhance the final product.

Here are five practical steps to enhance UX without needing a dedicated designer.

1. Start with What’s Already Out There: Use Existing Patterns

Before diving into design work, look at what’s already working. If your team doesn’t have a formal design system, that’s fine! You can still use existing patterns to maintain consistency and user-friendliness.

Here’s how:

• Leverage established design systems like Google’s Material Design or Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. These systems offer pre-built patterns that are widely used and easy to implement.

• Check your company’s past work: Even without an official design system, there’s likely a history of interfaces in your company. Use those to maintain consistency.

• Pro Tip: Consistency is helpful. Sticking to familiar patterns saves time and creates a smoother experience for users.

2. Map Out User Flows with Figma

After identifying the design patterns you want to follow, map out how users will interact with your product. You don’t need a fancy UX background; just a little empathy and a tool like Figma.

Steps:

• Use Figma to create simple wireframes. They don’t have to be perfect; they are just for visualizing the flow.

• Add annotations in Figma to explain each step of the process. It’s like leaving notes for yourself or anyone else involved in the project.

• Include screenshots from existing products or websites to highlight interactions you want to replicate. This helps when communicating ideas with stakeholders.

The key is to ensure the flow makes sense from the user’s perspective. Ask yourself: Is it clear what to do next? Are the necessary actions easily accessible?

3. Collaborate and Gather Feedback in Confluence

Once your wireframes and user flows are laid out, bring the rest of the team in. Confluence is an excellent tool for this. It helps document everything and collect feedback in one place.

Here’s how to use Confluence for collaboration:

• Embed your Figma designs into a Confluence page so everyone on your team can view them.

• Add clear descriptions and explanations of the user flow and key interactions to ensure a seamless experience. Make it easy for stakeholders to follow along, even if they aren’t designers.

• Use comments: Encourage your team and stakeholders to leave feedback directly in Confluence. This helps keep track of changes and ideas all in one place.

By combining Figma and Confluence, you create a straightforward process that allows everyone to stay in sync, even if they aren’t using the design tools.

4. Iterate Quickly with Early Feedback

One of the best parts of using tools like Figma is how quickly you can refine designs. Don’t wait until everything is built to get feedback. Get input early and often from your team and stakeholders.

Quick tips:

• Share your Figma mockups early to get input before coding begins.

• Use the feedback you collect in Confluence to adjust the mockups quickly. This way, you can ensure the design aligns with business goals before serious development starts.

• If possible, show the design to users or potential users. Even casual feedback from colleagues can help identify usability issues early.

This feedback loop saves you from having to rework code later, which can be time-consuming and frustrating. Quick adjustments in Figma are much faster than a complete development overhaul.

5. Use UX Decision Records to Build a Knowledge Base

Throughout this process, you’ll make many choices about how things should work and look. Don’t let those critical decisions slip away! Creating UX Decision Records (UXDRs) is a straightforward way to track key design choices.

What to include in a UXDR:

• The Problem: Describe the issue or need that led to the UX decision.

• The Solution: Detail the new flow, pattern, or design that was chosen.

• Feedback & Approvals: Capture input from stakeholders and note who approved the design.

• Guidelines for Future Use: If you create a reusable pattern (such as handling bulk actions), include instructions on how to use it in future projects.

Keeping these decision records organized in Confluence or another knowledge base will make future projects easier to manage. You won’t have to start from scratch every time a similar UX issue arises.

Wrapping It Up

Incorporating UX into your web development process doesn’t have to be complicated or require a dedicated UX designer. By utilizing existing patterns, mapping user flows in Figma, collaborating in Confluence, and maintaining feedback loops, you can create user-friendly products that align with business needs.

The main takeaway? Iterate quickly and communicate clearly. By involving stakeholders early and documenting your decisions, you can avoid last-minute changes and rework, while also providing a better user experience.