03 Teaching Design to Developers

App Prototyping Studio

Mick McQuaid
mcq@utexas.edu

University of Texas at Austin

20 Aug 2026

Week THREE

But first … the story of Figma

In September 2022, there was a time when it seemed that Figma was going to be devoured by Adobe and we discussed it in class … It may still be worthwhile to explore the situation as it developed … (We still don’t know whether it was really Adobe or Figma that actually killed the acquisition …)

Why do we care?

  • Reliance on Figma
  • Pace of innovation at Figma
  • Questions about role of Figma in the AI-era

Aftermath

  • It failed, allegedly because Adobe lost interest after regulatory scrutiny
  • Scuttlebutt was that Adobe realized it had overbid, but no one knows—Figma’s internal valuation is reportedly half of what Adobe offered
  • Figma continues to lead by nonstop innovation, current team is doing really well in my view, not so well in the eyes of others (ny times perspective)

Still later …

  • Figma went public in July 2025
  • Offered at 33
  • Immediately went to 120
  • Slowly slid to mid 20s
  • Just posted excellent earnings
  • Just made a deal with Anthropic for two-way street

Figma’s stock price

Designers and Developers

How can they work together?

  • Some scholars have studied this question
  • They came together at a conference about ten years ago
  • They concluded that designers need to better understand developers and vice versa
  • They came up with the following ideas, which we’ll implement next week
  • But first, let’s review their material

UCD & Agile

Intro

Most of this material comes from a NordiCHI conference workshop on UCD and Agile, documented in Cockton et al. (2016).

What is UCD (User Centered Design)?

  • When did it start?
  • What was the software environment in which it began?
  • How has it developed?
  • How can it be integrated with Agile development?

Some facts about UCD

  • It started in the eighties, as a result of plummeting hardware costs, leading to the rise of casual users
  • Software engineering at the time was concerned with the software artifact, not users, and waterfall processes dominated the landscape
  • Its initial focus was usability, later defined by ISO 9241 as “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use”
  • The above definition grew and developed over time

Still later, UCD embraced UX

  • UI ⇒ user interface, focused on the human-computer interaction
  • UX ⇒ user experience, more broadly focused on the user’s world

Early Challenges for UCD

  • The phased approach of waterfall methods meant that UCD had to find a place in each phase (not easy)
  • UCD fit better into an iterative approach than a phased approach
  • UCD activities like Contextual Inquiry fit into the problem analysis phase
  • UCD activities like user testing fit the verification phase

Waterfall phases

  • problem analysis
  • requirements specification
  • design
  • implementation
  • verification
  • operation

A waterfall picture

waterfall phases and products

Iterative software development

Iterative software development is a three-part circle

Iterative software development

  • It is less risky, but more expensive, to iterate
  • The iterative process is design, build, test, over and over
  • Why is it less risky?
  • Why is it more expensive?

UCD Today

  • A major approach to UCD is goal-directed design
  • It’s exemplified by Cooper et al. (2014)
  • It’s covered in I320U Information and Interaction Design

Enter Agile

What is Agile?

  • First and foremost, it is a manifesto, posted in 2001, featuring twelve principles
  • Everybody and his brother loved the manifesto
  • Pretty soon, everybody and his brother started saying they were Agile
  • Agile started to lose meaning
  • Let’s try to capture some of that meaning

Agile software development principles (1)

  1. Customer satisfaction by early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
  2. Welcome changing requirements, even in late development.
  3. Deliver working software frequently (weeks rather than months)
  4. Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers

Agile software development principles (2)

  1. Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
  2. Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
  3. Working software is the primary measure of progress
  4. Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace

Agile software development principles (3)

  1. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
  2. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
  3. Best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams
  4. Regularly, the team reflects on how to become more effective, and adjusts accordingly

What agile looks like

Collaboration between

  • Cross-functional teams
  • Self-organizing teams
  • Users / Stakeholders on the team

Focus on

  • flexibility
  • early delivery
  • continuous improvement