The article discusses the importance of design systems from a developer's perspective, emphasizing how they can enhance usability and streamline the development process. It begins with an analogy comparing the intuitive experience of riding a bicycle to the desired user experience in software applications. Just as riding a bike becomes second nature, the goal is to create software that users can navigate effortlessly. Design systems are presented as a solution to achieve this level of usability, allowing teams to build and ship applications quickly while maintaining consistency through standardized components. The piece highlights the potential pitfalls of poorly implemented design systems, which can hinder rather than help development. It stresses the need to treat design systems as products that require ongoing investment and maintenance to remain effective. A well-maintained design system can provide stability and speed up development, while a neglected one can lead to technical debt and inefficiencies. The article advocates for an iterative approach to building design systems, contrasting it with the traditional waterfall method. Developers are encouraged to focus on simplicity and to build design systems incrementally, using user feedback to guide improvements. The example of Slack illustrates this point, showing how the company managed to standardize its components without sacrificing development speed, ultimately leading to the creation of Slack Kit. Another critical aspect discussed is the necessity of maintaining design systems to prevent them from becoming obsolete. Developers often express skepticism about using design systems due to past experiences with poorly maintained products. The article suggests that design systems should be flexible and adaptable, allowing for both standardization and customization. The Spotify design system, Encore, is cited as an example of balancing consistency with the need for creative freedom. The importance of alignment between developers and designers is also emphasized. Effective communication and collaboration can prevent wasted effort and ensure that both teams are working towards the same goals. The article uses Airbnb's experience to illustrate how a shared visual language can enhance productivity and consistency across teams. Finally, the article encourages viewing design systems as basecamps for exploration rather than constraints on creativity. By providing a stable foundation, design systems can empower developers and designers to innovate and experiment without losing sight of consistency and usability. The piece concludes by promoting UXPin Merge as a tool that facilitates the creation of production-ready prototypes, further enhancing the design and development workflow.

In the realm of modern user interface (UI) design, the significance of design systems has become increasingly apparent. Customers today expect seamless experiences, intuitive navigation, and the opportunity to engage with innovative and meaningful products. If a UI fails to meet these expectations, a design system can serve as a crucial tool for improvement. A design system is essentially a standardized collection of resources and tools that design and development teams utilize to create cohesive digital experiences. This includes reusable patterns, guidelines, kits, and code that contribute to a consistent user interface and user experience (UX). The importance of UI design spans all stages of product development, and many components within a design system are specifically crafted to enhance UI quality. Companies like Apple, Google, and Mozilla have embraced design systems as integral to their brand identities, often sharing them to assist others in crafting exceptional digital experiences. The advantages of a comprehensive design system in enhancing UI are manifold. Firstly, it establishes a common language among team members, which is vital in an industry where terminology can evolve and vary between organizations. A design system codifies this language, ensuring clarity and reducing misunderstandings, particularly when non-technical teams are involved in initial prototypes. Secondly, design systems optimize resource utilization. UI professionals focus on creating engaging digital environments, and by having standardized components, they can avoid repetitive tasks. Once a button or form is perfected, it can be reused, allowing designers to dedicate their time to more significant challenges, such as user research and client collaboration. This efficiency not only improves the UI across products but also fosters professional growth within the design team. Moreover, design systems proactively address UI challenges. Without such a system, basic components may be altered without adherence to established UI principles, potentially leading to poor user experiences. A well-structured design system considers every element from the outset, ensuring that only the most effective components are included in the final design. Testing becomes more streamlined with a design system in place. The inclusion of a pattern library allows for individual components to be tested easily, facilitating A/B testing and ensuring that only specific elements are varied during trials. This consistency helps maintain a uniform user experience across different iterations, making it easier to respond to user feedback. Creating a design system is not a one-time task; it is an evolving process that adapts to changes in technology and user needs. As standards for web accessibility and new technologies emerge, design systems must be updated to reflect these advancements. Continuous improvement is essential, as design systems should encompass all critical decisions, leading to outstanding UI designs that require fewer revisions. For those interested in developing their own design system, resources and guides are available to assist in the process, ensuring that teams can create effective and user-centered digital experiences.

This post discusses how to build a design system. It covers the benefits of design systems, the potential problems with using them, the best way to go about building a design system, ways to improve existing design systems, and more. It is important to design systems that users understand and want to use. Making a system too strict or complicated can cause adoption issues.

Design system experts from Bumble, GitHub, and HP discuss leveraging the new Code Connect feature to integrate design and code, highlighting the importance of a shared language and seamless workflow. They emphasize the need for continuous collaboration and the adoption of best practices to maximize the utility of design systems, ensuring consistency and reducing friction between designers and developers.

Design systems play a crucial role in ensuring consistency and efficiency across various applications within an organization. However, their effectiveness hinges on proper implementation and adoption by design and product teams. Lynn Hao, a Lead Designer at Adobe, emphasizes that a design system, such as Spectrum, must be actively used and understood to reach its full potential. This requires not only well-designed components but also comprehensive guidance and ongoing support as the system evolves. Spectrum serves over 100 unique applications and a diverse team of more than 600 individuals at Adobe. The challenge lies in guiding teams on how to properly utilize the design system, especially during significant updates like Spectrum 2. The design system is a living entity, constantly iterating, and understanding how to assist others in its implementation is a process that requires time and experience. To facilitate ongoing documentation, the Spectrum team created a playbook that evolved into an internal website, serving as the primary source of information. This website provides a stable and scalable platform for sharing guidelines, best practices, and resources tailored to the needs of designers and developers. The documentation includes fundamental principles, detailed design guidelines, integration instructions for developers, and support resources to help teams navigate the system effectively. Key screen explorations are another valuable tool for demonstrating how to flex the design system in real-world applications. These explorations illustrate design challenges and suggested solutions, helping teams understand the intended usage of components. For instance, the Spectrum team encouraged the removal of unnecessary dividers in favor of using spacing and typography to group content, which was visually refreshing but required careful communication to avoid misinterpretation. The documentation process also involves providing workflow-specific guidance. The Spectrum team discovered that product teams respond best to a combination of high-level guidelines and concrete examples. By referencing existing solutions for complex use cases, the team can promote early alignment and develop broader guidance over time. Communication is vital in keeping teams informed about updates to the design system. Regular announcements about changes, bug fixes, and new components help ensure that teams are aware of how updates impact their work. The Spectrum team uses platforms like Slack to share in-progress updates and gather feedback, fostering collaboration and ensuring that guidelines are adapted for new use cases. Ongoing support is essential as teams grow and the design system evolves. The Spectrum team employs various communication channels to address questions and provide guidance, ranging from one-on-one support to feedback forms. This approach allows for personalized assistance while also efficiently managing straightforward queries. System designers must maintain a strong opinion to ensure coherence across products and adherence to good design practices. They should provide constructive feedback, acknowledging the expertise of product teams while offering insights based on their broader perspective. This collaborative approach fosters shared ownership of the design system and encourages teams to seek guidance rather than simply requesting approvals. Understanding the underlying needs behind requests is crucial for effective support. By asking clarifying questions, system designers can uncover the rationale behind specific requests and suggest scalable solutions that align with the design system's principles. This process not only helps in addressing immediate needs but also strengthens the overall design system. Ultimately, the success of a design system relies on making information accessible and useful, guiding proper usage, and fostering collaboration among teams. Through documentation, communication, and shared ownership, the Spectrum team aims to ensure that the design system is not only adopted but also effectively utilized to enhance the design process across Adobe's diverse applications.

Design systems built with proper affordances are the key to creating intuitive and versatile user interfaces. Designers can ensure that components are robust and flexible by clearly defining and implementing boundaries around their intended uses. Collaborating with product teams and applying data-informed design contributes to quantifying the impact of design decisions.

This one-page summary of design system activities and best practices includes steps for planning, stakeholder engagement, and aligning design system goals with product goals.

Design docs outline the implementation strategy and key design decisions for a software project. They help identify potential issues early on, achieve consensus, and ensure cross-cutting concerns are addressed. They're used extensively at Google for every software project and for documentation and knowledge sharing.

In the realm of design systems, the distinction between similar-looking components that serve different functions is crucial for enhancing user experience. Dean Harrison, in his article for UX Collective, highlights the common scenario where designers and engineers may confuse components like badges and pills due to their visual similarities. This confusion can lead to improper usage, complicating the maintenance of a design system. Harrison identifies himself as someone who often points out these discrepancies in his workplace, emphasizing the importance of adhering to the correct component usage. He notes that a frequent complaint in design systems is the misuse of components, which can stem from designers and engineers pushing the boundaries of what a component can do or creating new variants unnecessarily. To address these issues, he suggests implementing a review process involving both designers and engineers before development begins. Additionally, he stresses the need for clear annotations in design files and robust documentation to eliminate ambiguity. While documentation is often seen as a solution, Harrison acknowledges its limitations. Designers may only consult documentation when problems arise, and even then, it can lead to more questions than answers. He uses the badge and pill example to illustrate this point, explaining that badges are used to highlight static metadata, while pills are interactive elements that allow users to modify selections. This distinction raises the question of why similar components are separated rather than combined into one. The rationale lies in maintaining a manageable system and avoiding complexity in usage. Harrison elaborates on the benefits of keeping components distinct, such as simplifying the process of making changes to styling without affecting other components and establishing a visual hierarchy within the user interface. He discusses three commonly confused components: badges and pills, buttons and action buttons, and selects and dropdowns. Each serves a unique purpose, and understanding these differences is essential for effective design. For instance, buttons are prominent elements that facilitate user actions, while action buttons are less prominent and serve specific tasks within workflows. Similarly, selects are used for single-option choices, whereas dropdowns allow for multiple selections. Harrison encourages designers to refer to resources like The Component Gallery, which provides examples and links to various design systems, aiding in the correct application of components. In conclusion, while the article touches on a few key components, Harrison invites further discussion on the challenges faced in component usage, particularly in startups where documentation may be lacking. He emphasizes the importance of clear processes and resources to navigate the complexities of design systems effectively.

In the exploration of design system primitives, Josh Cusick emphasizes their importance in enhancing design systems and empowering teams to create more efficiently. Primitives serve as fundamental building blocks that allow designers and developers to rapidly iterate on user experiences while leveraging design tokens. This approach aims to simplify the design process and reduce cognitive load, ultimately leading to improved productivity and fewer errors. Cusick previously discussed the need for design systems to focus on core components, patterns, and design tokens, advocating for a more streamlined approach to what gets included in these systems. He raises a critical question: if a design system only provides basic components like buttons and text fields, how can teams effectively extend and utilize the system? The answer lies in the introduction of primitives. Primitives, such as Box, Stack, and Grid, are enhanced elements that provide direct access to design tokens, making it easier to apply design decisions. For instance, a Box component acts as a versatile div that can be styled with design tokens, allowing teams to customize properties like background color without extensive coding. This flexibility is crucial for teams that need to adapt components to their specific needs while maintaining design consistency. The Stack component is another example, primarily used for layout management. It simplifies the process of arranging elements with predefined spacing and alignment options, reducing the amount of code required for common layout tasks. By offering top-level props that correspond to flexbox properties, the Stack component streamlines the development process, making it easier for teams to create responsive designs. The Grid component plays a vital role in managing overall application layouts, ensuring consistency across different screens and applications. It can be configured to handle responsiveness, breakpoints, and spacing, allowing teams to maintain a cohesive design language throughout their projects. Cusick illustrates the practical applications of these primitives through examples, demonstrating how they can be used to create complex layouts with minimal effort. By nesting components like Stack within a Card, teams can achieve a clean and type-safe structure that adheres to design system guidelines. This approach not only enhances the user experience but also fosters collaboration between designers and developers, as both can work within the same framework. In conclusion, embracing design system primitives like Box, Stack, and Grid significantly enhances the flexibility and usability of design systems. By providing these supercharged elements that connect directly to design tokens, teams can build with confidence, ensuring design consistency while allowing for creative innovation. This methodology ultimately leads to a more efficient design and development process, empowering teams to deliver high-quality user experiences.

To ensure the adoption and success of a design system, creators need to adopt a marketer's mindset, craft a compelling narrative, engage with different stakeholders, and demonstrate its value consistently across the organization. Strategies include developing target audience-specific pitches, utilizing engaging communication channels, establishing clear success metrics, and fostering a community of internal advocates to create a self-sustaining culture of use and improvement.

Brad Frost, author of Atomic Design, shares his thoughts on why we should build a universal design system, how he uses AI to elevate design systems, how design systems designers can succeed in an AI world, the highest leverage activities for DS designers to do, and how designers can communicate better with engineers.

The 2024 Design System Report survey invites all who use or create design systems to share their insights. This year's survey, now shorter and more impactful, focuses on understanding community challenges and successes across various aspects of design systems. Your feedback will shape a comprehensive report with valuable best practices.

Design is not just about aesthetics. It's about how humans perceive and interact with visuals. Key principles including Hick's Law, Gestalt theory, and cognitive load management can guide designers in simplifying user decisions and improving clarity. By applying these principles, designs become more intuitive and enhance user experience.

In the discourse surrounding the justification of design's impact, particularly in user-centered design (UCD) roles, there is a growing concern about how to effectively measure and communicate the value these roles bring to organizations. The author, Andrew Duckworth, reflects on his experiences in various organizations where the need to justify the costs associated with UCD has been a recurring theme. This need often arises from a lack of understanding of the complexities involved in measuring impact, especially in large, multifaceted organizations. Duckworth emphasizes that the question of impact is frequently posed not out of genuine curiosity but as a means to justify budgetary decisions or to defend against potential cuts. He notes that in complex environments, the relationship between design efforts and tangible outcomes can be tenuous at best. For instance, while a designer may contribute to improving a service, attributing significant societal changes, such as reducing child poverty, to their work is unrealistic. The challenge lies in the fact that many designers lack the authority or influence to directly affect the outcomes that are measured. To navigate this landscape, Duckworth offers several strategies. First, he advises against getting caught up in the need to prove impact in situations where the request may be disingenuous. Instead, he encourages designers to focus on their work and the improvements they can make without overstating their individual contributions to complex outcomes. If faced with a legitimate request for justification, Duckworth suggests reversing the ask by engaging the requester in a dialogue about their expectations and understanding of impact. This can help clarify the disconnect that often exists between what is expected and what is delivered. Another key point is the importance of understanding how specific outputs contribute to broader outcomes. Duckworth advocates for creating a model that visually connects smaller design outputs to larger organizational goals. This approach allows teams to articulate their contributions more clearly and demonstrate how their work supports overarching objectives. Additionally, he highlights the need for teams to identify early indicators of impact, or "smoke signals," that can provide quick feedback on whether their efforts are making a difference. By focusing on smaller, more immediate outcomes, designers can build a narrative of success that contributes to larger goals over time. Communication is also crucial. Duckworth stresses the importance of consistently discussing how design work aligns with organizational objectives. By regularly sharing updates and insights, designers can ensure that their contributions are recognized and understood within the broader context of the organization. Furthermore, he encourages design teams to foster a culture of awareness regarding their impact. This involves training team members to articulate their contributions and holding them accountable for communicating their value effectively. Finally, Duckworth advises designers to seek out opportunities where their skills align with organizational needs, building relationships and trust that can facilitate greater impact in the future. By finding allies within the organization and demonstrating value in less-than-ideal situations, designers can pave the way for more significant contributions down the line. In summary, Duckworth's insights underscore the complexities of justifying design's impact in large organizations. By focusing on clear communication, understanding contributions to outcomes, and building relationships, designers can navigate these challenges and demonstrate their value effectively.

Design patterns make certain problems easier to deal with. Some patterns are easier to write in some languages than others. A language update to implement these patterns can make things easier for developers and produce cleaner code. This article presents an example of this where a new feature in Java made a particular design pattern a thing of the past.

Are you struggling with lengthy turnaround times for website and app updates? Developers know the struggle of picking the right components (or reinventing the wheel) when it comes to coding new designs. Meanwhile, business teams are held back from going live, and everyone is annoyed. In 2024, this shouldn't be the case. Not when you can use AI to go from design to live with enormous efficiency. Read the design-to-code tooling guide to learn: The impact of design-to-code on workflows and productivity, Going from design to live in half the time, Practical implementation steps. Get the guide from Builder.io

Creating UX design principles helps teams align, ensuring consistent, high-quality work. The process involves running a workshop to define and prioritize values, refining these into clear principles, naming and formatting them, and setting criteria to measure success. Visualizing the principles and driving their adoption across the organization ensures they become integral to the design process, fostering a cohesive and user-centered approach to design.

It's not unusual to find a ratio of 25:1 between developers and ops people in modern software development environments. Giving developers the tools to succeed is more challenging than ever. This ebook, authored by Director of Software Architecture and Distinguished Engineer Christian Oestreich, covers 9 critical practices that enable developers to focus on writing high quality code. These include: Baking ops tasks into project bootstrapping, Building libraries to accelerate code instrumentation, Integrating reporting agents into hosts and containers, Automating platform compliance checks. To see the full list and a detailed explanation of each principle, download the full ebook from Datadog (free).

The most fundamental goal of software design is to make code understandable. Understandable code is needed for correctness, security, and performance, as a lack of understanding leads to defects, security issues, and misguided performance optimizations. Focusing on understandability means making the code itself readable and providing supporting documentation to clarify complex concepts or system architecture.

This author initially designed a strict, composable design system inspired by Chakra UI to solve inconsistencies and a poorly structured existing design system. However, the system proved difficult for many developers to use due to their lack of experience with functional composition. In hindsight, the author believes a design system built around Tailwind/NativeWind would have been more approachable for developers.

Improving software design to support new features is a process that inevitably involves a temporary decline in performance before reaching a better state. The software designer's role is to envision the desired state and strategically manage the transition process, considering factors like the size of improvement steps, the time to achieve initial value, and the rate of improvement after the initial dip. This process is called "succession" and involves making choices about the design transformation, sequencing steps to minimize disruptions, and balancing risk with efficiency.

Not every tool in a designer’s toolbox is suited for every challenge — a part of being a good designer is knowing which tool is the most appropriate for the specific problem. Instead of focusing on tools alone, designers should visualize and validate visions, continuously cultivate consistency, demonstrate value, and rationalize design decisions.

Design Operations (DesignOps) aims to address pain points and cross-functional gaps in a UX org through a lay-of-the-land assessment and a focused roadmap. To create such a roadmap, designers need to synthesize all past learnings, identify and prioritize initiatives with OKRs, create the roadmap, and socialize it by catering to the audience. Start small and build trust.

Writing code for computers presents its own set of challenges, but crafting code that humans will interact with is an even more complex endeavor. Erik Bernhardsson emphasizes the intricacies involved in creating frameworks, libraries, APIs, and programming languages that are not only functional but also user-friendly. The process requires a deep understanding of both computer science and the psychology of how users think and learn. To begin with, the onboarding experience is crucial. Bernhardsson argues that getting started with a product should be considered an integral part of the product itself, rather than an afterthought. He highlights the importance of minimizing friction in the setup process, suggesting that developers should aim to make it as easy as possible for users to start using their tools. This is particularly important in a landscape saturated with development tools, where users have limited patience and energy to explore new options. Humans learn best through examples rather than abstract concepts. Bernhardsson critiques the common practice of structuring documentation around core concepts, advocating instead for a focus on practical examples that allow users to see how the tool works in action. By providing a variety of examples, users can find a starting point that resonates with their specific needs, making the learning process more intuitive. The concept of "falling into the pit of success" is another key idea. Bernhardsson notes that users often encounter errors while programming, which can lead to frustration. Therefore, it is essential to design tools that guide users back to success quickly. This can be achieved by providing helpful error messages, code snippets in exceptions, and warnings that anticipate user mistakes. Avoiding conceptual overload is also vital. Each new concept that users must learn adds friction to their experience. Bernhardsson suggests that tools should aim to reduce the number of concepts users need to grasp while still allowing for a wide range of capabilities. He recalls his own experience with React, where a few simple concepts enabled him to build complex applications, illustrating the power of simplicity in design. The "conceptual duck principle" emphasizes the importance of using familiar terminology. By naming new features in a way that aligns with users' existing mental models, developers can significantly reduce the cognitive load required to understand new tools. This approach fosters a smoother learning curve and enhances user experience. Programmability is another critical aspect of user-friendly design. Bernhardsson encourages developers to create frameworks that allow users to manipulate and extend functionality easily. By enabling users to programmatically interact with the tool, developers can tap into users' creativity and encourage innovative uses of the framework. When it comes to defaults and magic in programming tools, Bernhardsson advises caution. While it may be tempting to minimize user input through defaults, this can lead to confusion if users are unaware of the underlying options. He argues for a balance between convenience and clarity, suggesting that tools should be designed to be intuitive without sacrificing the ability to customize. In conclusion, writing code for humans is a multifaceted challenge that requires careful consideration of user experience. Bernhardsson touches on various strategies to enhance developer tools, such as ensuring immutability, avoiding unnecessary scaffolding, and creating fast feedback loops. He reflects on the difficulty of designing for first-time users, likening it to producing a pop song where the creator must continually consider the perspective of a new listener. This complexity is part of what drives Bernhardsson's passion for building developer tools, as he seeks to create experiences that resonate with users and facilitate their success.

Managing design projects effectively is essential for maintaining a smooth workflow, especially when working within a team or collaborating with various stakeholders. A well-organized approach to design documentation can significantly enhance this process, and utilizing a Design Documentation Notion Template can be a game-changer. This template serves as a centralized hub for all project-related information, making it easier to keep track of details and ensuring that everyone involved is aligned. The importance of a design documentation template lies in its ability to streamline the management of multiple tools, files, and feedback loops that designers often juggle. By consolidating all project information—from initial research to final handoff—into one accessible location, the template helps prevent the loss of critical details, reduces confusion, and minimizes delays. It fosters collaboration among designers, developers, and stakeholders, allowing for a clear overview of project progress and ensuring adherence to brand guidelines through reusable components. To effectively utilize the Design Documentation Notion Template, it is essential to break down its sections. The first step is to complete the Project Overview, which provides a high-level view of the project, including its name, objectives, and key stakeholders. This foundational information sets clear expectations for everyone involved. Next, the Problem Statement section is crucial for defining the core issues the design aims to address. By articulating the problem, its significance, and the challenges users face, this section serves as a guiding principle throughout the design process, ensuring a user-centric approach. The Research & Insights section allows designers to document findings from user research, competitor analysis, and user personas. This information is vital for justifying design decisions and providing context for stakeholders who may not have been involved in the research phase. Following the research, the Design Requirements section outlines both functional and non-functional requirements, guiding the design process and clarifying deliverables for developers. This is complemented by the Information Architecture section, which includes sitemaps and user flow diagrams to organize content and guide navigation. Wireframes and mockups are essential visual components of the design process, and the template allows for easy embedding of these elements. By keeping low-fidelity wireframes and high-fidelity mockups in one place, designers can efficiently track changes and gather feedback. A Design System and Style Guide section ensures consistency across the project by documenting typography, color palettes, button styles, and layout rules. This creates a single source of truth for the visual language of the project. Before finalizing designs, usability testing is conducted to gather user feedback. Documenting the test plan, results, and any changes made based on feedback is crucial for refining the design and ensuring it meets user needs. Finally, the Developer Handoff section consolidates all necessary information for developers, including annotated mockups, design specs, and exportable assets. This centralization facilitates clear communication and minimizes misunderstandings during the implementation phase. In summary, a Design Documentation Notion Template is an invaluable tool for organizing design projects, enhancing efficiency, and fostering collaboration. By providing a structured approach to documentation, it ensures that every aspect of the design process is well-documented and that communication flows seamlessly among all team members.

Product design extends far beyond the confines of design tools like Figma. In a recent discussion, Arkadiusz Radek highlights the misconception that mastering Figma equates to becoming a proficient designer. This notion was underscored during a conversation with Miranda Slayter, a Principal Designer at Booking, who recounted an interaction with a mentee struggling to articulate their design choices. The mentee's response, "I don’t know. It just looked nice," exemplifies a troubling trend among less experienced designers who focus solely on the visual aspects of design without understanding the underlying principles. Radek emphasizes that while Figma is a valuable tool for creating design artifacts and communicating ideas, it is not the essence of product design. The real work occurs outside of Figma, involving collaboration, strategy, and understanding user needs. He shares insights from his own experience, noting that only a fraction of his time—approximately 28%—is spent on creating prototypes and mockups. The majority of his work involves discussions with product managers and engineers, planning research, analyzing customer feedback, and mentoring team members. The article advocates for a shift in focus from tools to the broader aspects of design, such as collaboration and design advocacy. Radek encourages designers to resist the temptation to jump straight into Figma when faced with a design request. Instead, he suggests taking the time to understand the problem at hand by asking critical questions about the feature's purpose, its value to users, and how it fits within the existing system. This approach aligns with the Double Diamond framework, which stresses the importance of problem definition before jumping to solutions. Radek reflects on his own early career mistakes, acknowledging that many newcomers to the field may not grasp the full scope of product design. He reiterates that the goal of product design is not merely to create visually appealing elements but to deliver value to users and contribute to business success. Understanding this broader perspective allows designers to grow and make a meaningful impact on their products. In conclusion, while tools like Figma play a role in the design process, they are just one part of a much larger picture. Emphasizing the importance of understanding user needs and the strategic aspects of design can lead to more effective and rewarding outcomes in the field of product design.

Linus Torvalds emphasizes the importance of data structures over code in software development since good data structures lead to better code design and maintainability. This author supports this view with personal experience, describing how restructuring data in a project allowed the team to move faster in the long run. This prioritization is also how Git grew to be the dominant version control system.

In the realm of software engineering, certain principles emerge from experience, often learned the hard way. A recent article highlights four key software design principles that can significantly impact the development process and the reliability of software systems. The first principle emphasizes the importance of maintaining a single source of truth. When data is stored in multiple locations, the risk of inconsistencies increases. For instance, in a frontend application displaying a bank balance, it is advisable to retrieve the balance directly from the server rather than storing it in multiple places. This approach minimizes synchronization issues and ensures that derived values, like a spendable balance, are calculated on-the-fly rather than stored separately. The overarching message is that derived data should be computed rather than duplicated to avoid potential bugs. The second principle challenges the conventional wisdom of "Don't Repeat Yourself" (DRY) by introducing the concept of "Please Repeat Yourself" (PRY). The author argues that striving for excessive reusability can lead to overly complex abstractions that lose their original purpose. Instead of forcing code into a single reusable class, it may be more effective to allow for some code duplication, which can simplify testing and maintenance. This principle acknowledges that while code reuse is valuable, it should not come at the cost of clarity and functionality. The third principle addresses the use of mocks in testing. While mocks can facilitate quick unit tests, they can also lead to issues when the mocked components do not accurately reflect the real dependencies. The author suggests that relying too heavily on mocks can compromise the reliability of tests, as they may not behave as expected in production. Instead, it is recommended to use real dependencies whenever possible, even if it means writing more comprehensive tests. This approach enhances the reliability of the software and reduces the likelihood of encountering issues in production. The final principle focuses on minimizing mutable state. The author argues that while caching and state management are essential in software development, it is crucial to evaluate what data truly needs to be stored versus what can be derived dynamically. By reducing mutable state, developers can avoid synchronization problems and streamline the development process. The principle advocates for a more straightforward approach, allowing for redundant calculations when necessary, as modern computing power can handle such tasks efficiently. These principles serve as valuable guidelines for software engineers, encouraging them to think critically about their design choices and the implications of those choices on the overall reliability and maintainability of their systems. Each principle highlights the importance of simplicity, clarity, and a thoughtful approach to software design, ultimately leading to more robust and effective software solutions.

The phrase "just implementation details" often underestimates the complexity and difficulty involved in building and deploying software. Designing good software involves challenges like designing a maintainable system, having robustness and observability, and providing a good user experience. The perception that "CRUD" applications are simple is not true since they also require careful database design, production support, and handling of background jobs, user logins, and permissions.