?? Design process, CSS Changes & Figma tips

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?? Welcome to the 1,339 designers who have joined us since our last issue!

Today we're talking about something I've been thinking about quite a bit as I plan to build out a new design team at my company—design process. Every team does it differently but I think there are some inherent principles in every process.

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– Jordan & Taylor

???Design process vs. principles

The product design industry puts a lot of emphasis on process.

As a result, I hear from stressed-out designers all the time asking questions like this:

• Where do I start on a new project?
• How do I know what to do next?
• Which process should I learn?

It’d be great if UX design was as simple as, “do this, then do that, then do this.” In practice, unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

So what method do we use to answer these questions? What is a better way of looking at the practice of UX design?

The reality

Experienced designers usually come to realize that clinging to a process framework is incompatible with the reality of the everyday work of a designer. Why?

One process does not fit all scenarios. Everyone does it differently (even if they follow the same process):

• Design is different across teams. Every company and team within a company has its own way of doing things. There are unique roles, established practices, assignments, and priorities. Things are even different across industries (fin-tech is different than e-commerce, and so on). No two teams do things the same way.
• Design is different across projects. There isn’t a cookie-cutter list of requirements for every project. Each one you work on will have a different scope, goal, constraints, context, background, budget, complexity, timeline, starting point, and resources.
• Design is different across designers. You will personally connect more with certain ways of doing things. There are good practices to stick to, but trying to force yourself to fit into other people’s ideas of a good process might not work well. You’ll naturally gravitate toward certain ways of doing things over the course of your career. And designers with different processes who are working together can teach each other, learn new tricks, and cover more gaps.

What's the better way?

Considering the above reality, what is the process? Where do we start? It’s important to base your work on good practices, so when we’re given an assignment, how do we know what to do?

The first key to understand is that design is not a process, it’s a practice. It is based on judgment, critical thinking, relationships, adaptability, and craft.

Instead of thinking of design as a procedure, think of it as a toolbox. For different projects, you need different tools. If you’re asked to pound in a nail, grabbing a screwdriver isn’t ideal.

But if you have an understanding of first principles , you can apply them to any scenario. You can reach for the right tool in the right situation.

The principles

Each process framework does things a little differently, but they all have four underlying principles in common: understand, ideate, test, and implement. These are the guiding tenets that have emerged over time in the design field.

If you’re learning about design or just want to make sure you’re following the best practices, you should think fundamentally in terms of these four principles. You can adhere to them and check your work against them. They encompass the daily work of UX.

That's my main point for the newsletter issue, but if you'd like to read a bit more about this, see this article I wrote a while ago that goes into a bit more depth about the topic and these principles.

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?? Scoop

What’s going on in the world of product design and why it matters.

CSS continues to get some great enhancements, including :has , container queries, and much more .

Our take

For those of us involved in front end coding, these are very helpful adjustments. As mentioned in one of the above articles, it's almost as if we're entering a "golden era" for technical web design. So many of the recent and upcoming changes are going to result in more flexibility and control, while simultaneously getting rid of a lot of the really frustrating parts of CSS.

For those of us who aren't involved in coding, this simply means that your developer friends will be able to code your designs more accurately in some cases because some of the technical limitations will be lifted. Plus it makes their lives easier—something you should be happy about!

?? Gems

Quick item to consider this week.

Some great tips Molly Hellmuth found from the Figma team:

We're curious: Do you do any coding at your job? Hit reply and let us know!