David Leggett

Design Environments

Summary:

Creating a series of high fidelity storyboards to deliver designs is an inefficient and clumsy. Storyboards are static, redundant, memory intensive and difficult to update when changes arise.

 

The Design Environment method is a combination of approach and technique that produces an always-accessible holistic prototype anyone on the team can visit to review experiences rather than just screens. It also takes designers less time to produce designs, makes iterating simple and enables immediate usability testing.

 

Read about my framework for design creation and delivery.

A New Design Deliverable for Agile, Cross-Functional Teams

Design Environments are a new class of prototype: persistent, interaction-rich, and positioned as a pre-development environment alongside DEV, SIT, UAT, and PROD. Created and maintained by designers, Design Environments allow product, engineering, research, and QA to validate workflows, explore behavior, and align on direction—before development begins. This paper outlines the concept, explains its strategic benefits, and proposes how it fits into modern product delivery practices.

The Problem: Design as a Bottleneck or Afterthought

Despite modern tooling and team structures, design is often brought in too late to impact upstream planning. High-fidelity mockups still function like storyboards: linear, static, and discardable. The result is costly rework, misaligned expectations, and late-breaking usability concerns that surface only after tickets are written or code is in progress.

The Opportunity: Design as a Persistent Environment

Design Environments reframe the role of design from a set of handoffs to a continuously available, collaboratively used environment. Like DEV or QA environments, they have permanent URLs, simulate behavior, and remain accessible throughout the product lifecycle.

 

Each screen in a Design Environment is built within a permanent frame in Figma, complete with embedded logic, interaction, and modular components. These environments aren’t discarded when the sprint ends—they’re revisited, evolved, and referenced as the single source of truth for behavior and flow.

Benefits for the Team

Product Managers can validate ideas before story writing, walk stakeholders through real experiences, and use the environment to define scope.

Developers can preview behavior, logic, and responsive design—resulting in better estimations, fewer implementation gaps, and faster sprints.

 

UX Researchers can conduct usability testing within the environment itself, accelerating the feedback loop.

QE Engineers can begin writing test cases early, based on shared behavior rather than assumptions or late-stage demos.

 

Designers become strategic contributors to delivery planning, not just post-handoff polishers.

Strategic Alignment with Agile and Lean UX Design Environments support Agile practices by encouraging early cross-functional collaboration, reducing handoff ambiguity, and enabling incremental delivery. They also align with Lean UX by enabling faster validation, less rework, and continuous learning—without relying on production code.

Scenario Example: Internal Access Request Portal

A large enterprise is redesigning its internal tool for employees to request access to systems, apps, and data. The team uses a Design Environment to model the full flow—from the employee's request form, to conditional fields based on department, to admin review and approval screens. Product managers validate scope with stakeholders directly in the prototype, researchers conduct unmoderated usability testing across departments, and QA engineers begin writing test cases from real interaction logic weeks before development. The environment stays live throughout the release cycle, acting as the shared reference point for all teams involved.

 

Adoption Considerations While lightweight in ongoing maintenance, Design Environments do require thoughtful setup by designers. Teams adopting this practice should align on:

  • Frame permanence and naming conventions
  • Shared navigation patterns
  • Role expectations for review and usage

 

Design Environments are not a replacement for development—they are a bridge between intent and execution.

Conclusion

Design Environments offer a way to embed design earlier, more continuously, and more meaningfully into the delivery lifecycle. They reduce friction, increase clarity, and create shared understanding. This enables new ways to collaborate with Product Development colleagues and, most importantly, fosters trust with users. Ultimately, Design Environments help teams ship the right product, faster.

Resources

Article:

UX Collective Bootcamp

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David Leggett

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Design Environments

Summary:

Creating a series of high fidelity storyboards to deliver designs is an inefficient and clumsy. Storyboards are static, redundant, memory intensive and difficult to update when changes arise.

 

The Design Environment method is a combination of approach and technique that produces an always-accessible holistic prototype anyone on the team can visit to review experiences rather than just screens. It also takes designers less time to produce designs, makes iterating simple and enables immediate usability testing.

 

Read about my framework for design creation and delivery.

A New Design Deliverable for Agile, Cross-Functional Teams

Design Environments are a new class of prototype: persistent, interaction-rich, and positioned as a pre-development environment alongside DEV, SIT, UAT, and PROD. Created and maintained by designers, Design Environments allow product, engineering, research, and QA to validate workflows, explore behavior, and align on direction—before development begins. This paper outlines the concept, explains its strategic benefits, and proposes how it fits into modern product delivery practices.

The Problem: Design as a Bottleneck or Afterthought

Despite modern tooling and team structures, design is often brought in too late to impact upstream planning. High-fidelity mockups still function like storyboards: linear, static, and discardable. The result is costly rework, misaligned expectations, and late-breaking usability concerns that surface only after tickets are written or code is in progress.

The Opportunity: Design as a Persistent Environment

Design Environments reframe the role of design from a set of handoffs to a continuously available, collaboratively used environment. Like DEV or QA environments, they have permanent URLs, simulate behavior, and remain accessible throughout the product lifecycle.

 

Each screen in a Design Environment is built within a permanent frame in Figma, complete with embedded logic, interaction, and modular components. These environments aren’t discarded when the sprint ends—they’re revisited, evolved, and referenced as the single source of truth for behavior and flow.

Benefits for the Team

Product Managers can validate ideas before story writing, walk stakeholders through real experiences, and use the environment to define scope.

Developers can preview behavior, logic, and responsive design—resulting in better estimations, fewer implementation gaps, and faster sprints.

 

UX Researchers can conduct usability testing within the environment itself, accelerating the feedback loop.

QE Engineers can begin writing test cases early, based on shared behavior rather than assumptions or late-stage demos.

 

Designers become strategic contributors to delivery planning, not just post-handoff polishers.

Strategic Alignment with Agile and Lean UX Design Environments support Agile practices by encouraging early cross-functional collaboration, reducing handoff ambiguity, and enabling incremental delivery. They also align with Lean UX by enabling faster validation, less rework, and continuous learning—without relying on production code.

Scenario Example: Internal Access Request Portal

A large enterprise is redesigning its internal tool for employees to request access to systems, apps, and data. The team uses a Design Environment to model the full flow—from the employee's request form, to conditional fields based on department, to admin review and approval screens. Product managers validate scope with stakeholders directly in the prototype, researchers conduct unmoderated usability testing across departments, and QA engineers begin writing test cases from real interaction logic weeks before development. The environment stays live throughout the release cycle, acting as the shared reference point for all teams involved.

 

Adoption Considerations While lightweight in ongoing maintenance, Design Environments do require thoughtful setup by designers. Teams adopting this practice should align on:

  • Frame permanence and naming conventions
  • Shared navigation patterns
  • Role expectations for review and usage

 

Design Environments are not a replacement for development—they are a bridge between intent and execution.

Conclusion

Design Environments offer a way to embed design earlier, more continuously, and more meaningfully into the delivery lifecycle. They reduce friction, increase clarity, and create shared understanding. This enables new ways to collaborate with Product Development colleagues and, most importantly, fosters trust with users. Ultimately, Design Environments help teams ship the right product, faster.

Resources

Article:

UX Collective Bootcamp

Contact me