Plan > Product Theme Integration
Why
The theme of the product represents how you want a customer to notice your product. This is the basis for branding and must not be taken lightly. It’s important to reflect this theme in the user experience. The developers should also be both aware of and know how to apply this in their day to day work. Guidelines and standards on how to do it should be in place from the beginning of the product life cycle.
How
Consider the following to enable developers to integrate the product theme into development:
- Theme establishment: A product theme should be in place. Document the main principals of the theme and try to understand the deep meaning of the design. A theme is more than just UI elements, it covers the interactions, user flows and user moods.
- Theme guidelines and standards: It’s important to establish a theme guideline for developers to adhere to, based on the overall product theme. It should be as detailed as possible and cover all different aspects of the user interface.
- Sample implementation: Try to have the product theme implemented in a small vertical from the very beginning. This acts as a reference for implementation in features to come.