Are we focusing too much on Design Tools?

The topic of Tools is something that has prompted and continuously prompts a vast array of discussions across the Design community. In fact, as one goes through the annals of Design Blogs throughout the years, that seems to be a common thread that always sparks heated discussions across various fields, invariably pitting one tool versus another, and ultimately coming to the realization that nothing much changes, except for new tools that keep emerging in the market. I’ve now gone through several iterations of Design Tools, including brand new ones coming to the Market, some leaving/ceasing to exist, some evolving into something else, some getting purchased by other brands, much like a telenovela, where everything is in constant flux, and yet still remains the same. The goal for this article is to spark a conversation on how tools are ultimately not an end in itself, but a means to get something accomplished. And as such, if they are indeed an instrument, shouldn’t we allow people an opportunity to choose the best instrument that suits their needs? These topics, convergence of tool utilization and what lies ahead, are some of the considerations for this article.

Tools. We’re still in January, and as is customary, a series of yearly retrospectives occur, to summarize and diagnose what happened, but also to possibly identify trends (and potentiate prognostication for what lies ahead). UXTools published their online Design Tools Surveys for 2020 here and for 2021 here, not to mention other organizations and platforms such as Dribbble and Invision, who also publish their own reports based on salaries, demographic of workforces, among many other topics, all of which aim to inform and give a substantial summarization about what is taking place in the Design world (also around the world, and not just circumspect to the continental US).

For the past few years the evolution of tools, at least when it comes to Operational/Prototyping/UI crafting/Collaboration, in the realm of Product Design, has been dominated by Figma. This cloud enabled tool which is based out of San Francisco and started in 2016, has progressively been eating the market and gaining dominance when it comes to adoption by Designers and Design departments, something that a few years back, had been dominated by Sketch, another vector based tool, with prototyping skills, which started in 2010 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Before that we had of course the dominance of Adobe and its cloud based package, which featured and features an array of tools, all communicating with each other, all aiming to enable Designers and their teams to tell their product narratives robustly (Adobe hails from San Jose, and has been around since 1982). There’s plenty more tools who are also on the market, each competing directly with all of these, including Invision, Axure, Marvel, many of these competing across all competencies, some in just a few, but enough to prompt Designers to investigate and understand where the virtuosity and productivity enablement lies, and how these tools better inform the collaboration of the Design Thinking process. Now many of these tools have their rabid fans, as well as their very vocal opponents, but when one starts analyzing all of them in more detail, they cannibalize each other quite often, and what differentiates them typically is related to integrations with different software packages, cost, some functionalities, third party extras, and not much else. Also, and when you’re a professional in the field long enough, you start realizing some of these tools come and go, some become trends, some impact the market profoundly, others not so much, but ultimately the realization amounts to the same: the Design process isn’t and shouldn’t be reduced to the effectiveness of these tools.

Much like I used to tell my students, when I was teaching Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Premiere, the goal is not to solely focus on what the tools can do. The goal is to realize they’re tools that enable storytelling, the solution you’re crafting and ultimately that you want to showcase. These days with the remoteness of the work force, the need for tighter collaboration, early validation of concepts, communicating with different team members and users/testers, essentially tools that allow for all these different facets to occur simultaneously is more than ever, imperative. Figma has succeeded in this field, since it does all of those tasks very well, and its onboarding/learning experience (interaction cost/perception of complexity), is fairly low. To compliment those factors, many of the professionals in this field have had their training or education in tools that perform similarly and have been in the market longer, therefore enabling the adoption of this tool fairly quickly. Ultimately, these tools, their outputs, even in regards to prototypes, handoffs and capturing feedback, are not that dramatically different. As these tools evolve, and a new cycle of tools will once again emerge, the goal should always be to focus not on the newest and brightest product out there, but understand how to leverage these tools to enable process improvement, making sure the tight collaboration is maintained, and that the voice of team members, users/clients, combined with the utilization of a Design language that is sensical (empowered by easily shareable Design Systems), shapes solutions that resonate and are impactful.

Focusing. One of the interesting considerations on tools is how the common perception on the market is tied with the adoption of one, excluding the utilization of others. Usually, and based on what I’ve observed and witnessed, there aren’t many parallel paths when it comes to design tools. Which is unfortunate, but makes some sense. The time and cost associated with maintaining multiple Design libraries across diverse tools is considerable. However this is something that shouldn’t be discarded when it comes to process adoption.

Focusing on a sole tool, invariably means that the tool itself becomes a standard by which everyone has to abide by, forcing new team members who are onboarded to forcibly needing to understand the tool or ramp up their knowledge on it fairly quickly. It also means, that whatever is crafted internally, and as part of a Design Language, becomes associated with that particular tool, implying that should anything occur to the company that creates or supports that software package, it has an immediate consequence to all that has been crafted in that universe (remember when Adobe phased out Fireworks, and how companies had to quickly migrate to other solutions, including XD, which was first released in 2016). Ideally when it comes to building scalable processes and teams, the ability to have a design language that can easily be shared by different tools, is an ideal situation, since it allows for Designers to embark on a problem solving journey, using a tool that allows them to manage their workflow, collaboration and effectiveness of output, based on their preference and not mandated by a trend. While many of these tools do cannibalize each other, and have a fair amount of similarities, they also have distinguishable features and behaviors, which professionals should be allowed to choose to work with, as opposed to being forced to contend with. These days with the proliferation of extras, third party plugins, the ability to maintain these multi-platform libraries is easier and easier, demanding only organizational and logistical support, when it comes to making sure everything simultaneously updated. Again and to reiterate, the goals are centered around making sure the tools serve the problem solving journey, further cementing collaboration, efficiency and productivity and also, avoiding the funneling of creating excessive dependency towards one particular platform.

What Lies Ahead. Forecasting what lies ahead is always tricky. However I will say this. Since I started my journey in the Design field (early 2000s), and in Product Design in particular, some tools have come and gone, and some have stoically remained intact (and evolved of course). But the lesson has always been: there’s always a trendy new tool showing up, leveraging innovation, captivating, learning from what others have done before. The goal should be to keep assessing, learning from these tools, and making decisions that align with the strategy of the group, the practice itself, and ultimately avoiding falling into the trap of following a trend, just because it is indeed a trend. Build mature and scalable practices, and avoid falling into the traps of tools without depth and without vision. Also always make sure there’s a backup plan, always figure out multiple venues for problem solving, and always include multiple points of view when solving these challenges.

I’ll conclude with a quote from Michael Porter, on the topic of Strategy:

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”