12 Design Practices I Learnt from 21 Years of Building SaaS Products

Project description

Nobody sees the 47 features you removed. The 12 times you said no. The debate you killed to protect clarity. They just feel the result. After 21 years in digital product design, I’ve learned this - Design isn’t about pixels. It’s about judgment. Here are 12 practices I live by - 1. The Framework That Changes Everything 2. The Art of Saying No (Without Being a Jerk) 3. Making Your Thinking Visible 4. Consistency: The Boring Superpower 5. Controlled Chaos: Breaking the System You Built 6. The Long, Difficult Journey to Shipping 7. The Legacy Nobody Talks About 8. Context is King (And Users Are Terrible Historians) 9. Constraint Breeds Creativity (And Twitter Taught Us That) 10. Your Users Are Smarter Than You Think (But Also More Distracted) 11. The Best Feedback Comes From Watching, Not Asking 12. Your Design System Will Fail (And That’s Okay) Great design doesn’t shout. It whispers. And when it’s done right, no one claps for the interface— They just move forward without friction. That’s the win.