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Working with others

In the course of your work, you will interact with a few different practices. Here is an overview of how you’ll typically interact with them:

  • Product: Product folks help UX with definition, discovery, and measures of success. They also help plan out work and bridge between stakeholders, other teams, and engineers.
  • Engineering
    • Front End (FE): Most often you will be interacting with Front End (FE) folks as they will be turning your work into code.
    • Back End (BE): You will work with Back End as well when considering the data you need to design for.
  • QA: QA folks review our work to make sure it works as expected and passes testing procedures, including accessibility. They will let you know when your designs are in a build, any issues that need addressing, and ask that you do a design review to make sure it’s looking and acting as expected.
  • Component Committee: A rotating group of cross-discipline folks representing UX, FE, and QA. They are responsible for auditing and vetting new and updated components in the UI system. The goal is to make sure we’re being thoughtful, consistent, and strategic about how components get added to the app and that there is buy-in and common language across practices.

How UX and Content collaborate​

As a way of scaling the content designer’s work across a team that is working on multiple features and projects simultaneously, the content designer may take on different levels of involvement in projects depending on their scope, size, and complexity.

  • Content designer leads content work: The content designer is heavily involved in features or projects that are complex, have a large scope, or require extensive collaboration between VA stakeholders, including Sitewide Content team. The content designer should be included in all meetings (stakeholder, engineering, product, etc.).
    • For these types of projects, the content designer is already aware of complexity, scope, and requirements as they will be involved in leadership-level meetings in which upcoming work is discussed by POs, PMs, and delivery leads.
    • Content designer completes discovery work (either in direct collaboration with or separate from UX designer), which could include the following tasks:
      • Completing a content-focused comparative analysis (if needed)
      • Identifying copy to be repurposed from VA.gov or other VA products
      • Reviewing relevant VA content briefs (if available)
      • Reviewing prior research results
    • Content designer and UX designer directly collaborate on low-fidelity wireframes and user flows
    • If research is within scope, content designer works with UX designer and researcher to ensure research plans encompass copy-related questions and also to ensure conversation guides are accurately worded
    • Content designer and UX designer continue to work closely on changes to designs, iterations, and edge cases.
    • Copy is delivered directly in Figma design files.
      • Content designer and UX designer can use copy status tags in Figma to note where copy is in the process (i.e., copy needs approval, copy in progress, copy ready, etc.).
    • Content designer owns final sign-off on copy and will likely pass copy through the Sitewide Content team for approval given the complexity of the project.
  • Content designer supports content work: The content designer takes a supportive role for less or smaller projects. Examples include features in which we can easily pull content from VA.gov or smaller projects. Content designer doesn’t need to be included in all meetings.
    • Content designer meets with UX designer and product manager to understand problem space, possible solutions, and technical constraints. Content designer raises possible risks or issues that might affect the copy.
    • UX designer completes content-specific discovery tasks. This may include completing a comparative analysis, reviewing VA style guide/plain language standards, accessing VA content briefs, etc.
    • UX designer meets with content designer to review first pass at copy. Content designer will provide feedback and/or suggestions.
    • Content designer owns final sign-off on copy and may pass copy through the Sitewide Content team for approval if determined necessary.

Design Librarian​

Design Librarian is a rotating designer who maintains and improves how we work in Figma and serves as a resource within the mobile team, VA, and Ad Hoc.