Small projects need small teams

Smaller projects can benefit from a design team, but this is not feasible in most cases. Let's be honest, smaller projects are not backed by huge budgets and hiring a designer costs money. So, in smaller projects, the design job falls to the individual developers. If that is the case, it is even more important for you to know about the design ideas behind the HoloLens apps so that you can make apps that are as attractive as the samples, or even better than them, of course.

In small teams, each developer is responsible for all the work. You might have specialists in your team, people who tend to know more about one topic than their fellow teammates, but in general, everyone should be able to take over from everyone.

This means that developers have to get out of their comfort zone. Most developers think that the old battleship grey applications we had in the days of Windows 95 still look gorgeous. They tend to think in terms of functionality, not in design aesthetics. In their eyes, there's nothing wrong with a screen filled with buttons in a large grid. As long as you can find the things you want to do, the design is done.

I am exaggerating of course, but this is not that far from the truth in general. Developers think differently about software and user experience than graphical designers do. You need each point of view to make a project successful, though.

You cannot expect a user experience specialist to write code for the backend of a huge banking application. Everyone sees that. Yet, we do expect a developer to create a great looking, easy-to-use application on a mobile platform or on the HoloLens. Luckily, with a few pointers, it is not impossible to create acceptable applications when your team does not have dedicated designers, and that's what I will show you right now.