What I check before handoff

The list I go through before a design goes to engineering. Most of it is about the cases nobody draws.

I keep this list in a note and go through it before every handoff. None of it is clever, and every item is here because I once forgot it.

Empty. What the screen says on day one, before there’s any data.
One, some, too many. One row, a normal week, and the seller with four thousand orders.
Long. The longest name in the database, not the one in my mockup.
Zero and below. A payout of €0.00, and a week that ends in the negative.
Waiting. What shows in the first second, and what shows after ten seconds.
Errors. What went wrong, in plain words, and what to do next.
Read-only. What someone sees when they can view a page but not change it.
Time. Time zones, and what “today” means at 12:30 a.m.
Keyboard. Whether the whole flow works without a mouse, and whether you can see where the focus is.
Words. Whether someone from support and one engineer have read the copy out loud.

If a state isn’t designed, it still ships. It just gets designed by whoever builds it, at five on a Friday.