I recently had an enjoyable interview with Shirley, a talented product designer, and I thought it would be worthwhile to share some highlights from it. We focused on the history of tools for product designers and developers and how we at Jux aim to eliminate handoff friction, giving software designers the power to directly affect production.
Days before Jux, and the problem
My journey began as a mobile developer in 2011. I’ve since worked in various roles across startups at different stages—from small to high-scale companies with significant user engagement. Over time, I transitioned into product management, leading teams and tackling challenges that, I realized, were shared across the industry.
One problem persisted in every team I joined: the infamous designer-developer gap. As a developer and later a manager, I encountered friction when translating design into functional products. This gap, which we often refer to as the "handoff," consistently created obstacles. I described it in detail in my article from 2023 “Coders from Mars, non-coders from Venus”, and the article’s title was also the theme for the interview with Shirley
The starting point
My path took an interesting turn when I met Tom and Liran, my two brilliant co-founders at Jux. Like me, they had experienced similar struggles when it came to designer-developer teamwork. We realized that the tools available back then just didn’t cut it when trying to align designers and developers.
We started discussing pain points and planning solutions. It was clear that we needed a radically different approach to eliminate the inefficiencies of handoff processes. Eventually, Jux was born from this idea—our shared desire to solve these deep-rooted issues.
The evolution of design tools
The tools designers and developers use have changed a lot over the years. If we look back at 2010-2011, designers were mostly using vector-based tools—Adobe Sketch, Illustrator, and others—whereas developers were already building in code environments. The two worlds didn’t naturally align. Designers were working in a static visual space, while developers had to translate those visuals into code, often losing details along the way.
With the advent of tools like Figma, the situation started to improve, as these platforms encouraged more online, collaborative design. Yet, there was a significant difference between designing something in Figma and actually seeing it work as intended in a complex product environment. Moreover, Website design tools like Webflow or Wix, do an excellent job for website design and simple interfaces. However, when it comes to building truly complex products, they often fall short. These tools provide only limited production capabilities, which is insufficient for more nuanced, multi-layered product experiences.
Therefore the challenge, as I see it, is that even the best design tools today are still rooted in vectors. Designers may be able to create beautiful prototypes, but a large gap remains when it comes to translating those designs into fully functional, production-ready components.
This disconnect is what we aim to resolve.
Bridging design and code
At Jux, we’re striving to eliminate this gap between design and code by bringing the creative process closer to the actual production environment. Our approach isn’t about creating another “no-code solution” that limits developers. Instead, we’re about creating a seamless way for designers to interact with and influence the final production product directly, without the need for extensive back-and-forth.
Jux is designed specifically for deeper use cases; complex products that require more sophisticated interactions between design and code. We want to solve the problem not just for websites or straightforward customizations but for intricate, production-level products that require an ongoing collaboration between designers and developers.
Moving beyond handoff to true teamwork
Our ultimate goal is to eliminate "handoff" entirely. We envision a world where designers and developers work in harmony within a shared space, allowing both disciplines to contribute to the product without creating throwaway artifacts that become outdated the moment code becomes live.
With Jux designers can create components that are inherently tied to the production code, and developers no longer need to interpret static visuals—they can use what designers produce directly, making the entire process faster, more efficient, and true to the original vision.
Thank you Shirley for being so attentive.
