Designing a Real-Time Feed With Engineering, Not At Them

The signature feature of the Shomrat HaZorea redesign — a guided selling experience where the assistant 'Asaf' replaces filters with conversational visual cards and the results feed updates in real time — is as much an engineering problem as a design one. I learned quickly that I couldn't design it in isolation and toss it over the wall. Real-time feedback as a user answers visual questions has real implications: query patterns, state management, performance on the results feed. So I brought R&D in while the interaction was still moving. Instead of handing over a finished comp, I shared the intent — "the feed must feel like it's responding to you" — and we shaped the boundaries together. That collaboration shaped the design itself. Understanding the cost of certain interactions let me make better trade-offs: where instant feedback was worth it, and where a small simplification kept the experience smooth without overbuilding. For an engineering leader, this is the difference between design as a spec and design as a partner. The product page — with deep configuration drilling from fabric down to foam — needed the same shared ownership. My approach: involve R&D when the design is still negotiable, so feasibility informs the concept instead of gutting it later.