❌ #1 Ignoring the Basics of Good UX
Mistake number 1️⃣ is skipping your homework on user experience. As designers, we often love to jump straight into creating. We think visually, and we’re eager to create beautiful designs and aesthetic solutions. As fast as possible.
What do we do then? We quickly fire up Figma, create a frame, and start designing visually. 🪄
But that blank canvas – a white frame, an empty artboard – can be a real nightmare. 💀 Vast, limitless, and filled with potential, it can feel a bit overwhelming.
Where do you even start when faced with such an intimidating blank slate? The answer is simple: do your UX homework first. After all, it’s difficult to design a great UI without a solid understanding of UX.
So, how do you tackle this? 🙌
1️⃣ First, create user personas. Understand who you’re designing for. Once you know your audience, try to grasp the situations they’re in. How can you empathise with them to solve their problems? What are those problems, really? What do they need?
2️⃣ From there, move on to defining your conversion goals – what’s the website’s purpose? Once you’ve nailed that down, you can list out all the pages and elements you’ll need to achieve those goals. This leads to step three.
3️⃣ Build a sitemap, a diagram showing all the pages and how they link to each other.
4️⃣ Next, develop user flows – imagine how different personas will navigate through your site to achieve their goals. Consider multiple flows for personas with different objectives.
5️⃣ Then, focus on content. Analyse it from a UX perspective, break it down, organise it, structure the information, and finally, consult with relevant experts, such as UX writers.
6️⃣ After that, create low-fidelity wireframes – basic sketches of individual pages to structure your work so far.
7️⃣ The final stage is refining the interface, crafting high-fidelity wireframes. Only then do you truly step into UI design. This is also the perfect time to fine-tune the visual elements of each section.
By following this process, you’ll be much more likely to produce a design that’s aligned with the project’s goals.
You’ll create something that complements the narrative and context, making it more effective and engaging for users.
❌ Skipping this homework leaves you relying on intuition. If a client asks why you’ve designed something a certain way, your only response might be, “Because I liked it that way.” And that’s not a good answer.
🔨 #2 Wasting the Potential of Auto Layout
Mistake #2 is underusing Auto Layout. This comes down to not fully understanding how pages are structured and how their elements interact.
Auto Layout allows you to set up templates and rules, rather than manually adjusting elements on the screen to make them look right.
👉 Instead of painstakingly tweaking the position of elements, you establish rules that automatically position them according to your guidelines.
This enables you to build flexible designs that adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes and content variations.
In practice, this means you don’t need separate designs for desktop, tablet, or mobile. You create one responsive design. Set the rules once, and you’ve got a scalable component ready to go.
Rather than thinking about placement “by eye,” you start working with principles that can be replicated. It’s a game-changer.
💡 These principles ensure visual consistency throughout your project and make it easier to manage as it evolves.
💻 Auto Layout also makes collaboration with developers smoother.
Handing over components built on clear rules, which can be easily translated into code (e.g., “this card has 20 pixels of padding, elements are left-aligned, and buttons are evenly spaced”), simplifies the development process.
The result? Faster implementation, fewer revisions, and a higher-quality final product.
Auto Layout promotes thoughtful design practices. Instead of focusing on how elements look in a single moment, you’re thinking about their behaviour across different scenarios.
This approach is more strategic, prioritising functionality, flexibility, and consistency.
📚 #3 And Finally – Getting Stuck in a Learning Rut
When it comes to your career, think of it as a marathon, not a sprint. It’s unlikely that every door will open for you after a year in the industry. You need to gradually build your position and plan where you want to be in 10 years.
Digital design is a field where new things constantly emerge. Figma, for instance, releases major updates annually.
Even small updates mean the tool is evolving, and you need to keep up. With new technologies, fresh ways of thinking, and now AI reshaping the landscape, it’s crucial to understand that you can’t rely solely on what you already know.
Learning should be a lifelong process, not just something you do sporadically.
Don’t limit yourself to books or courses – explore visual art, typography basics, composition, and colour theory. These fundamentals are essential for creating good designs. Without them, effective design becomes much harder.
On top of that, keep an eye on the future. Learn about tools and technologies related to web design, HTML, CSS, UX, and UI. Even if you’re not planning to specialise in UX, knowing the basics can be invaluable.
Learn motion design, as animation is becoming a vital aspect of modern design. Interaction is just as important as layout or typography.
And that’s all for today! ❤️
