Why doesn’t the product build look like the design?

What you might be missing, and what you can do to get your designs accurately built on time, every time.

So close, yet so far. It just needed to be around 8 pixels to the right.

As a product designer, you might have thought this, or something along the lines of it, at least once in your career. It’s that feeling of being so close but not quite there between your design and what actually gets built. Even with the best of our intentions, details are easily missed. Often, the pressure to deliver can be high with some projects, and this can mean you’ll have to pick your battles when it comes to pixel adjusting versus moving onto the next project.

It may feel at times for others that you are being pedantic when highlighting changes that should to be made after it’s already been built. “I love it when the designer comes to me with last-minute changes” — said no developer ever.

The differences between your design and the build often occur from the following reasons:

Imperfect communication

Sometimes details may have been lost during the evolving conversations the team has around the product. It may not have been communicated which version you are working on. Or, it might not be clear to the developer how your static designs are meant to come to life with interactions.

Often, the discrepancies you might find between your designs and what gets built is less to do with how well you can make your designs pixel-perfect, and more to do with being on the same page with your developer team. This is where Fostering a great designer and developer relationship goes a long way in creating your best work.

Your designs don’t translate well into code

This could be because you’re introducing a new kind of design convention without first consulting the developer. Especially if you’re new to the craft, it can be tricky to know whether a certain design is viable or even possible.

While the jury may still be out on whether UX designers should also know how to code, there are certainly benefits to learning code and getting a…