Reflection
From the mountain of knowledge we took away from building the graph UI, there were a few concepts that really stood out to us as important. Both because they will affect the way we move forward as designers, and because they will affect the way we move forward as team mates in the larger ecosystems of software design.
1. Scrum with your backend team
Firstly, don't be afraid to dive into learning about the technology your engineering team is using to realize the product, in the end this will stimulate better communication between teams and bring you closer to creating better developer facing tools. Enterprise data management tech can be a daunting domain to dive into, but there's no better way to learn than getting your hands dirty with some code.
Work with the people creating the product. It's as simple as that. If it means learning manufacturing methods, materials, and processes, do it. Your end result will be a symbiotic relationship between designer and developer, your teams will gain mutual respect, everyone will learn something, and your product will be amazing.
2. Use Github for Design
Create an orchestra of the best tooling available. Create designs with sketch, push them to Zeppelin, link to pages on Github, or whichever stack works best for your team. Don't be scared to use development tools for UX, you might even begin to notice a relationship between the way both processes work. And it will make you a better designer and collaborator.
Being able to have all of the mock ups on hand at any time to post in a github issue describing an element or component, creates this beautiful stream of design materials, all the way from conception to execution.
New extensions and plugins are being developed every day to make your job easier. Use all of them. And use them
all together!
3. Push All The Limits
Working at an enterprise scale comes with quite a bit of red tape when implementing new designs. Your product manager is going to tell you it's not in scope. Your sales team will tell you that feature isn't relevant to the market. You will experience creative push back from all directions working in an business outcome driven environment.
It is your job to advocate for creativity.
Practically speaking, all of that pushback is absolutely necessary to the creation process. You have to get it done, you have to ship the thing. But never forget that limitation breeds innovation, and take every chance you can to advocate for the designer inside of you that says "We're going to do it differently, and it's gonna be awesome."
Cheers from the IBM graph team!