Thoughts on design

I’ve spent time this past year pushing back against the grain A LOT. I’ve advocated for design-driven development, argued for process, and felt frustrated when the culture didn’t meet me there. I think I’ve come to realize that pushing against the grain constantly is exhausting, and ultimately not that effective. I am here to be a good designer & design manager, making sure our product is well designed & usable regardless of the process in which it’s built.

Discourse is not built on the foundation of a lot of modern products that make lots of choices about what to say no to. Trying to fit it into that box doesn’t serve the product or the people working on it.

What I’m learning is to re-embrace what makes Discourse Discourse. We are scrappy, open source, developer-driven, and fast. Design in this environment isn’t “make me a mockup and I’ll build it.” It’s more of a thought practice. It’s asking the right questions before decisions get made, staying aware of where you can genuinely help and inserting yourself there, rather than fighting too hard for a seat at a table.

I wrote this before the release of Claude Design as well, which (even though it’s early) seems like it will really change to way designers and engineers work together.

But how?

Some ways I am beginning to put the above ideas into practice are more active pairing sessions & communication with my teammates, and those outside of my team:

• 1hr pairing w/ Charlie (Designer)
• 1hr pairing with Martin (Engineer)
• 1hr pairing w/ Dave (Product Manager)
• Sharing ideas / mockups in channels I may not have previously participated in much
• Asking teammates to watch them use new kanban features I and others have implemented
• I think in this new space where lines are blurring between design & engineers the strongest foundation we can create is communication. Maybe even over communication should become normalized.