The invisible side of design engineering

Design engineering is still a bit more ambiguous than something like product design, software engineering or product management.

It sits at the intersection of design and engineering, but if you ask ten different people exactly what it means to be a design engineer, you might get ten different answers.

If you were to judge by looking at social media, you might think it’s mostly about building animated eye candy components.

That’s pretty far away from the truth though.

Social media obviously doesn’t show the full picture, but since I launched Interfaces (opens in a new tab) I’ve been getting asked what my day-to-day work as a design engineer actually looks like, so I figured I’d write down some thoughts I have on that.

The invisible

It’s understandable that the visual side gets the most attention. It’s a big part of what design engineering is.

It’s tangible, easy to share and easy to react to. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Things like animations and interactions are amazing, and when done well, they can completely change how an experience feels.

But there are other parts of design engineering that are just as important, if not more, but don’t get nearly as much attention.

Things like accessibility, responsiveness and performance. Things that are not “interesting enough” to be shared on social media. Edge cases that only show up when people actually start using your product.

That’s a lot of what my day-to-day work as a design engineer actually looks like.

Why it matters

There are many factors that affect what you do day to day. For example, at an early-stage startup you might touch almost every aspect of building a product while someone at a large company might work in a much narrower area.

And while the work might look different, a lot of the principles remain the same.

It’s easy to forget that we’re building things that are supposed to solve real problems and be used by all kinds of people.

And as a design engineer, your responsibility is to make sure the experience is great¹.

Sometimes that means building a beautiful animation.

Sometimes it’s spending an entire afternoon fixing an accessibility issue only a few people will notice.

Sometimes it’s obsessing over making the landing page load just a little faster.

It makes sense that the visible side of design engineering gets most of the attention.

But a lot of what makes a great experience is invisible.

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   What makes an interface feel great? Interfaces (opens in a new tab)

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Thanks to Luke (opens in a new tab) and Hana (opens in a new tab) for providing feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

More

If you enjoy articles like this and want to learn more, take a look at Interfaces, my design engineering magazine.

It’s where I share everything I know about building great interfaces. From animation and typography to performance and accessibility.