A designer finishes a flow, hands it off with specs and maybe a prototype. The developer interprets the design, works fast, fits it into what’s already there. Something close ships. The designer sees it later, notices issues, and files a few tickets. Some get fixed, some don’t. Most sit in the backlog. This repeats every sprint.
No one’s doing anything wrong. The process just doesn’t support shared ownership of the final result. Designers are responsible for how things look and feel—but they can’t change what actually ships.
More Specs Won’t Fix It
Teams try to solve this with more documentation. Redlines, annotations, QA checklists, meetings, design tokens. All of it adds complexity, but not clarity. More handoff doesn’t mean better outcomes. It just means more points where things can get lost.
The root problem is simple: designers can’t fix what they see. They rely on someone else to implement the last 10% of the experience. That 10% is often what makes a product feel polished.
The Fix Is Giving Designers Access
Instead of sending feedback through tickets, designers should be able to make visual changes directly. Adjust spacing, layout, type, hover states—without touching code, without needing a dev, and without waiting.
This doesn’t mean giving full access to the codebase. It means scoped, visual editing, with automated checks and developer review where needed. Developers still own the logic. Designers own the visual layer. Everyone works in parallel, not in a queue.
Designers Don’t Need to Code
This isn’t about teaching CSS. It’s about removing friction. If a content team can publish a blog post without knowing HTML, a design team should be able to fix UI spacing without opening a ticket.
Visual changes should be easy, safe, and reviewable. That’s it.
Better for Designers, Developers, and the Product
Designers don’t have to wait or explain the same spacing issue five times. Developers stop spending time tweaking margins and interpreting vague design specs. The product ships looking like it was intended. That last 10% actually gets done.
This leads to faster delivery, fewer bugs, and better UX. Not because people worked harder—but because the workflow finally supports what they’re trying to do.
It’s a Tooling Problem — Just Not the Kind You Think
This isn’t about adding more layers on top of design files. It’s not about syncing Figma to dev tools or generating code from prototypes. The real tooling gap is between the final design and the actual product.
Designers need tools that give them structured, scoped access to production UI. Tools that let them implement the last mile safely, without code, and with developer oversight. That’s the missing piece in your process — and solving it makes everything else easier.