UX Trends
UX Trends
The State of UX Design in 2024
The state of UX
100
 
 

design lessons
for 2021

 
 
 

Things are not ok. We are in the middle of a global pandemic that has taken the lives of more than a million people. Those of us who have been able to keep our jobs in the economic crisis have been working remotely, leaving us feeling isolated and struggling to remain productive while the world burns outside.

As if that wasn't enough, state violence against marginalized populations has escalated, while the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Across the world, we are seeing the rise of authoritarian regimes fueled by the manipulation of truth and the dissemination of lies on social media.

 
 

Things are not ok.

 
 

In the six years we have been publishing this report, we have always challenged ourselves to discuss our industry beyond tactical visual trends or insular new technologies. In this edition, we decided to expand even further.

Not trends, but lessons. Lessons on how to make an impact beyond our products, how to collaborate beyond Zoom calls, how to organize ourselves beyond our bubbles, and how to improve our craft beyond artboards. Lessons from voices we still don’t hear as often in the design mainstream — but we should. Lessons that can help us all dive into 2021 a bit more prepared.

 
Black.jpg
 
1
Act more than talk.
Listen more than act.
 
2
The design community must not stay silent.
 
3
It’s time we stop using like and don’t like in our design reviews.

Knowing how to articulate the thinking behind our decisions is as important as knowing to design.

 
4 · Project of the year: Self-defined
And stop using some other words altogether.
 
5
Linkedin is becoming uninhabitable.
 
6
Friction in design is not always a bad thing.
 
7
Friction, in some cases, should be a requirement.
Trump blocked tweets. Warning says tweet content is disputed and might be misleading about the election results.
 
8
On December 31st, delete your backlog: whatever you need to focus on next won't be there.

9
You’re muted.

One of the most popular phrases in 2020.

 
10
(And it might be intentional.)

In 2020 we have seen tech workers fired for organizing unions, designers laid off for reaching out to workers on the ground, and employees silenced at multiple levels by company leadership. Now that we are no longer meeting in the office as a team, it has become even more important to create new spaces to connect with our coworkers and to make sure our voices are heard.

 
 
11
Empathy is not enough.

“Many people assume that empathy is an inherent skill of all designers and, therefore, easy. This mythology is deeply problematic and detrimental to human-centered practice.”
Caitlin Chase

 
12
Compassionate action is better than empathy.

“Empathy is feeling what someone else is feeling. It is attempting to crawl into their minds and hearts and experience what they’re experiencing. This is impossible. We cannot feel what it is to be anyone but ourselves. (...) Compassion, unlike empathy, allows us to remain rational. It’s what allows us to act when someone gets injured in front of us. Compassion allows us to take action in the face of their pain; we trust their anger and pain without taking it on.”
Tatiana Mac

13
Not being racist is not enough.

“This is a moment where everybody must make a choice. What are you willing to do differently to root out the white supremacy the technology sector perpetuates? Are you going to continue to uphold the status quo or are you going to move fast and break up the old way of doing things?”
— Tiffani Ashley Bell

Activist chanting in a Black Lives Matter protest in Oakland California.

Photo by Beatriz Escobar, via Destiny Arts Center.

 
14
GPT-3 can be a friend.

GPT-3 gave designers a scare. For a split second this year, we thought we had been replaced by a Figma plugin — one that utilized AI to auto-generate screens based on a text entry from the user. We quickly realized the threat wasn’t the AI itself, but our tendency as designers to focus on the repetitive part of the process.

 
15
Our job description is changing, and that's ok.

As more UI patterns becomes standardized, we need to change our focus. “The role of designers is changing, there is no doubt. It will become more about their ability to define the problem to solve; how should they solve it; consider the broad implications on society, people, and the environment; and to learn how to control the machines with their words.”
— Ruth Kikin-Gil

16
Algorithms are far from being neutral.

“In the US, a widely-used healthcare algorithm falsely concludes that black patients are healthier than equally sick white patients. AI that is used to determine hiring decisions has been shown to amplify existing gender discrimination. (…) AI systems shape the information we see on social media feeds and can perpetuate disinformation when they are optimized to prioritize attention-grabbing content. The examples are endless.”
The Algorithmic Justice League, founded by Joy Buolamwini.

 
17
Algorithms are not just machines.

Image classification, text transcription, content moderation: behind every algorithm there is a massive workforce that is usually out of sight (and regulations). “When low-cost, politically fractured labor is contracted to infrastructure projects — such as training systems that rely on machine learning or AI — all of the political and social factors embedded in the gig labor platform contribute to the shape of the system being trained.”
Technically Responsible Knowledge, a project by Caroline Sinders

 
18 · Tweet of the year
On that note, we should stop saying 'the algorithm' and start saying 'the way people programmed the app'.
 
 
19
This was programmed by someone.
A collage of dozens of Black names marked as misspelled by Microsoft Word’s built-in spell checker. 2016, Pluralism, Deborah Roberts. Serigraph on Paper.

A collage of dozens of Black names marked as misspelled by Microsoft Word’s built-in spell checker. 2016, Pluralism, Deborah Roberts. Serigraph on Paper.

 
 
20
The 'make the button bigger' problem is not exclusive to small companies.
 
21
Obvious trumps clever.

Design is about prioritization: saying no and taking out what’s non-essential. Creating technology that's user-friendly and clear is more important than flexing one's design smarts.

 
22
Design is greater than the sum of its layers.

Full app designs are now shared on the Figma community, research templates are shared on Notion, front-end code on Codepen, and illustrations are easily accessible and customizable through plugins like Blush. The trend of sharing and remixing reveals that the secret to better design lies in the wisdom of the collective, rather than the genius of the individual. 

 
23
Data visualization can tell powerful stories.

From the insightful reports of the Pudding, the activism of initiatives like the Anti-Eviction Mapping project, and the art pieces created by Mona Chalabi, data visualizations create narratives to help us better understand the world around us.

New York Times front page highlighting the 100,000 deaths in the US by COVID-19 on May, 2020. By December, the number passed the 250,000 mark.

New York Times front page highlighting the 100,000 deaths in the US by COVID-19 on May, 2020. By December, the number passed the 250,000 mark.

 
24
Data needs literacy to combat conspiracy theories.

We have been following the invisible COVID-19 virus through charts and data visualizations and, in some cases, numbers distorted to fit political agendas. When we have events at the scale of a global pandemic, data is at the center of the conversations. Designers have a responsibility to explain how to read the data they’re presenting. One data point (or data alone) can't be the only tool used to measure an issue.

 
 
Flatten the curve visualization. Lower peak graph simulates scenario with protective measures that don’t overload the healthcare system capacity compared to a high peak scenario without protective measures. Sam Whitney, CDC via Wired.

Flatten the curve visualization. Lower peak graph simulates scenario with protective measures that don’t overload the healthcare system capacity compared to a high peak scenario without protective measures. Sam Whitney, CDC via Wired.

25
Data is not only about measuring the past.

Data visualization can be a tool for prediction (and intervention) of the future. The much-discussed "flatten the curve" graphic which circulated in the early stages of the pandemic is a great example of how a visualization can communicate the risks of inaction. Data simulation can help us confront large-scale, complex issues like the economy, health, and climate change by modeling the likely outcomes of various courses of action. 

 
26
The gender of the user should not matter.

27
Brainstorming is an illusion.

Group thinking (sometimes disguised as “workshop” or “design thinking”) is a powerful tool for bringing stakeholders into the design process — but on its own it won’t lead to products with a strong point of view. Don't overcomplicate your process by turning everything into a committee decision. Sometimes you just need to design it.

 
28
Not every project needs to follow the same process.

Our goal as designers should be to seek clarity, not to impose a path to achieve it.

 
Cartoon of person squeezed between the meetings in a weekly schedule.

Illustration by José Torre.

29
That Zoom call could have been an email.

Designers have been experiencing Zoom fatigue and calendar bloating, leaving them less time and energy to work on designing things. To make remote work more sustainable, we need to respect differences in people’s schedules, workflow, and availability by prioritizing asynchronous collaboration over Zoom calls.

 
30
(Something about tech people leaving SF and moving to Utah.)
 
31
Game engines are eating the world.

32
Gamification is ruining the world.

Your product doesn’t need more engagement. There are smarter ways of generating value for your company and for your users. Think harder.

 
33
Keep going.

We’re one third of the way through the list. Let’s look at some exceptional work we’ve featured in our newsletter this year.

 
34
The truth is paywalled but the lies are free.

Someone in your family forwards you a conspiracy theory message. The content is clearly misleading but presented in such a compelling way that it’s hard to ignore. You do some research and reply with an article from a reliable source which refutes the theory. It's a long, well-argued, in-depth piece and… It's behind a paywall

 
35 · Tool of the year: Stark
Accessibility is not a step in your project.

Accessibility is a mindset; it should be embedded in everything you do.

 
36
Accessibility is big business.

Companies are (finally) starting to prioritize the task of making their services accessible to everyone. This means that accessibility consultancy is becoming a big business — ask the right questions before hiring accessibility experts.

 
37
Designers should know the proper way to write an image alt description.

 
38 · Author of the year: Sheri Byrne-Haber
Hint: it’s not just about describing the image.

Read the work of Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC.

 
39
Time is a design object.

In Western culture, we visualize time as linear and progressive. But that's not the only way time can be represented

Animation of time in various formats.
 
40
A portfolio is about your craft, not your projects.

Focus your portfolio on showing your craft, your polish, and how much you care about your work. When you get to the interview, you’ll have plenty of time to walk them through your case studies from top to bottom.

41
Virus containment looks eerily like modern luxury aesthetics.

“Terrorism, war, hurricanes, and earthquakes create excessive, ultra-visual chaos: fireballs, rubble, water, wounds. The virus, meanwhile, cannot be seen, and the crisis it’s created has, in a horrifying way, tidied the world. Just as each added tally in the death count represents a subtraction from the human whole, the visceral and visual impact of the pandemic has been a mounting absence.”
— Spencer Kornhaber

 
42 · Blog of the year: TAOI
"Information structures have a critical influence on the effectiveness of digital products over time."

— Jorge Arango on The Architecture of Information

 
 
43 · Game UX highlight: Baba is You
There’s this perception that we can’t change the rules of the game. We have more power than we think.

44
The world doesn’t need your brand manifesto.

45
In a world without offices, what is a company?

“Workers (now and in the future) will evaluate potential jobs not just according to the duties of the role, but also on the experiences, culture and care that the company provides to those who are a part of it. Now is the time for the real experience design. In an officeless world, the companies and experience designers who use creativity and compassion as they devise avenues for true connection are the ones who will be most likely to succeed, and their workers will experience more joy, wellbeing, and company loyalty as a result."
Kat Vellos

 
46
In a socially-distanced world, what is a design conference?

Part of the excitement of participating in a conference is the opportunity to network, a benefit which doesn’t translate well to remote events. On the bright side, when there’s no need to pay for stadium-like spaces and expensive lighting equipment, new, smaller organizers can create their own events. This offers opportunities for a more diverse group of presenters to share the spotlight.

A conference is a confined space with thousands of people. Imagine being there right now. Photo by Samuel Pereira.

A conference is a confined space with thousands of people. Imagine being there right now. Photo by Samuel Pereira.

 
47
Also, never speak for free at conferences organized by for-profit companies.

Charge your full price.

 
48
Is your product worth its waste?

The energy used to transfer data over the wire, to keep data centers and networks operating, and to power the user’s device all generates pollution (475 grams of CO2e per kWh, to be more precise). As digital designers, we don’t often think of the “waste” generated by our products, but even good web performance can map to lower energy usage. Start a conversation with your team on how to make your product greener.

 
49 · Product of the year: Face Masks
Wear a mask.

Now a 70+ billion-dollar industry, facial coverings are here to stay. In addition to saving lives, masks have become a political and cultural statement, signifying one’s belief in science and concern for others’ wellbeing.

Different options of cloth face masks. Photo by Sarah Kobos via New York Times.

Different options of cloth face masks. Photo by Sarah Kobos via New York Times.

 
50
Wash your hands.
 
 
51
Remember to breathe.

 
52
Design is political.
Email from UX Collective subscriber complaining about an article on how to fix sexist workplace. The email reads I ain’t going to buy this racist feminist activist BS you people are trying to show down my throat is this article below something the U…

Dear subscriber, design is political. We went ahead and unsubscribed you. 

 
 
 
 
53
Find the truth.
Tell the truth.
 
54
Being a designer is (still) a privilege.

“If you benefit from a position of privilege, sometimes the goal is to not always step up, but to step back. In opportunities to take ownership of a design project, to accept a new leadership role, or to hire an incoming designer, whose voices are you uplifting? Consider your positionality in the spaces you occupy.”
— Tiffany Wong

 
55
Understanding our privilege is the first step towards a more inclusive industry.
 
56
Design can be fun when we remove the gatekeepers.

57
It’s time we look at diversity beyond conventional metrics.

Diversity needs to be at the core of a company’s values, not just a hiring metric. When that’s the case, diversity goes beyond ethnicity and gender, and includes diversity of lived experiences, ability, and generations.

 
58
Our industry needs a different type of designer.

59
Also: hire juniors.

Guess what? Hiring a senior designer won't solve all the problems that have been piling up within your product. On the contrary, hiring junior designers can be a great strategy for elevating your design team. In 2021, we will need the fresh ideas, energy, and possibilities that only junior designers — regardless of age or background — can bring to the team.

 
60
The more you focus on optimizations, the more you lose control over the big picture.
 
61
Design research is only as good as the action it enables.
 
62
We need to rethink our 2021 reading list.

63
You can be interested in product management and be a designer.

And that’s ok. It’s ok to be a designer and be smart about product strategy. Or copy. Or coding. You don't need to change your career just because you are skilled in other areas. You don’t “unlearn” design when you learn other things — accumulating skill sets will only make you a better designer. 

 
64
Dear design tool: don’t forget the designer.

It’s a cycle. Designers fall in love with a particular design tool because it solves a specific need they have. Eager to scale fast, the company shifts their focus from product to marketing — investing in e-books, events, high-end video content, and swag. The product evolves to focus on the CTO rather than the designer. At some point, they become such a corporate behemoth that designers lose interest. Then a new, more focused tool emerges and wins the designer’s heart.

 
65
Getting a seat at the table doesn't mean you need to abandon your desk.

Senior individual contributors (ICs) are expected to become leaders. Leaders are expected to become managers. But designing and managing are two very different jobs.

 
66
Don't measure your design system by its number of components.

If a design systems team is only focused on process and components, chances are they are serving an internal metric rather than the end users.

 
67
Process can’t compensate for lack of design vision.

68
Learn the incentives at play.

It might feel like your colleagues don't value your designs. Oh, well... They likely don’t. Not because you’re not a good designer, but because their job incentive is not "good design". If you want to make an impact at work, you have first to understand the priorities of your colleagues and then frame your work around their needs.

 
69
The best design conversations won't be televised.

When a designer shares their career trajectory publicly, it’s been curated. When they speak about “what it’s like to work at Google”, that story has been vetted by Google’s PR team. When they post something on Linkedin, they focus only on what will make them look good. When there’s an audience, there’s a fantasy — and an agenda. While designers are becoming more comfortable talking publicly about their failures, the most honest design conversations are still happening when the camera recording is off.

 
70
Neumorphism was the most :eye-roll: UI trend of 2020.

Hands down. Which of these will be next?

 
71
The design blog is becoming personal again.

Platforms like Medium, Substack, and other niche design-publishing sites are waning in popularity, while the personal blog is making a comeback. While networked publishing platforms are great for scale, design writers want their their stories look and feel more personal. Medium has launched new features that make profiles feel more like personal blogs and is seeing growth again, but platforms like Wordpress, Gatsby, Ghost, and Webflow are definitely on the rise.

 
72
Shop local.

It’s time you asked tough questions about the brands you support — researching their tax affairs, treatment of staff, negative impacts on local retailers, and how they may be contributing  to social inequities worldwide. Consumers are rethinking their shopping behaviors and choosing to support local retailers with more ethical and sustainable business practices.

 
73
Shop local (software).

What is the equivalent of buying local in the digital space?

 
 
74
Someone designed this.

Someone wrote a brief about this. Someone designed this. Someone programmed this. Someone QA'd this. Someone decided to launch this. And it worked.

Alert on Uber app asking riders to vote Yes on Prop 22. Alert reads If proposition 22 fails to pass your price per ride could increase by 25 to 100% you area may lose reliable ride share service
 
75
Design is business.

Our job isn’t to “make people’s lives better”. Our job is to prove to our stakeholders, with our work, that caring for customers actually leads to better business.

 
76
Design a chair in context of the room, a business in context of its community.

Architect Eliel Saarinen famously said we should always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context. For a business, it is the community it serves and impacts.

 
 
77
It’s ok to slow down.

“This is your time. No one else has had a time like this before. You can come out of it older and wiser, or you could simply come out of it. Both are enough. You are enough. What matters most is you and what you need, right now, today.”
Jen Goertzen

 
78
Normalize talking about mental health.

Now that work environment and personal space are blending, it’s even more important to remember to focus on aspects of our lives beyond work. Viviane Castillo's series of articles on self-care for designers has some great insights on how we can make time for ourselves. 

 
79
The so-called Social Dilemma doesn’t have to be a career dilemma.
 
 
 
80
We need to find ways to talk about tech issues in accessible terms.

The Social Dilemma documentary is problematic. It erases voices that have been studying the impact of social networks for a long time and creates a false narrative of how we got here and how much agency we have. But it did bring the topic to the mainstream in a way none of us had.

Ava DuVernay and other creators have already given us examples of how we can talk about complex topics in a more accessible way when we give the right people the tools to tell the story. If the silver lining is that issues with social networks got some attention, the least we can do is to take this opportunity to expand the discussion further.

Social Dilemma.jpg
 
 
81
The old metrics don't work anymore.

Design for peace of mind, not engagement.

 
82
Writing about design is a great way to learn design.

No matter how senior you are.

 
83
Before you write your next great article, research what’s already been written on the topic.

Do your homework. Otherwise, you’re simply erasing design history. It's ok to write about a topic that other people have extensively written about, if you approach it from a position of humility, rather than authority.

 
84
How gets you the claps, why gets you the impact.

After 12,000+ article submissions received this year, "how-to" articles are still the most popular, but the ones that go deeper into “why” get the best repercussion from our readers. Popular doesn’t mean good.

 
 
85
Which career path are you on: generalist, specialist, or influencer?

Gotta make those Youtube thumbnails pixel-perfect.

Youtube thumbnails with clickbait titles. Titles are UX bootcamp versus design degree! which one should you choose? How much money can a ux designer make? The one rare skill designers ignore! Most UX designers fail this test in interviews!
 
 
86
'Get a job in UX' promises are a scam.

No bootcamps or formulas can guarantee what companies will be looking for or how the market will behave.

 
87
What you say is not as important as the bookcase behind you.
 
 
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hoping the bookcase will make him sound better.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hoping the bookcase will make him sound better.

Zoom calls are a good excuse to color-coordinate your bookcase.

Zoom calls are a good excuse to color-coordinate your bookcase.

Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the far-right Brazilian President, has a bookcase stock photo as background. Cheaper than buying books.

Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the far-right Brazilian President, has a bookcase stock photo as background. Cheaper than buying books.

 
88
Vision is iterative work.

Planning for the next year is going to be different: accept the uncertainty of it. While this sounds challenging, we should keep in mind that design is iterative work. Iterate in small steps that are aligned to your values and beliefs. 

 
89
I am here. I am seen.

90
90% of the internet users are not in the US.

“The key to realizing this decentralized future is to have the research power spread out to the vast and diverse global design research communities.”
Weidan Li

 
91
More communication ≠ better communication.

We can’t compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction with our coworkers by adding more communication channels or scheduling more meetings. Think quality over quantity. 

 
92
The more collaborative your team, the more you need to organize your design files.
 
 
93
You can’t simply ‘how might we’ every problem you see.

While design thinking, design sprints, and other popular frameworks have allowed our field to reach new audiences, these tools have also created the self-serving perception that we need to "how might we" every problem we see. Stop. The increasingly complex problems we face as designers and citizens require a more thoughtful approach.

“You face wicked problems by struggling with them, not by solutioning them. You argue, you iterate, you fail, you grieve, you fight.”
Maggie Gram

 
 
 
94
Book of the year

“Our job as civic technologists isn’t to be the heroes of the stories we stumble into halfway through; it’s to understand and support the people who have already been in place doing the work, and who want to use tech to make improvements.”

— Cyd Harrell in her book A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide

 
95 · Talk of the year: Lenora Porter
Community is a powerful thing.

The power of community, talk by Lenora Porter.

 
 
 
96
Design should be about the community.

“Design justice is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims explicitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. (…) Design justice practitioners, like community organizers, approach the question of who gets to speak for the community from a community asset perspective.”
Sasha Costanza-Chock

 
97
The only certainty is change.

The brief will change. Your favorite design tool will change. Your team configuration will change. Your design process will change. Your job title will change. Some changes happen slowly over the years, others feel like they happened overnight (often because we weren't paying attention). Only when you accept that change is coming, can you be an agent of how things will change.

 
98
It's about time we learn how to fail.

All designs are, to some degree, failures. A design requires a set of decisions and with each decision, a set of possibilities is closed off. But embracing failure as part of the design process doesn’t mean doing a sloppy job. Instead, we need to be conscientious in how we fail.

 
99
2020 was tough. 2021 won't be easier, but we can make it better.

Everything that we see happening around us has been brewing for decades: climate change, public health crises, and the escalation of violence against minorities. As designers, what is our role in preventing (or mitigating) future crises? And as citizens, what can we do now to start making things better?

 
100
We are in this together. Let's get to work.
 
 

Written by:
Fabricio Teixeira, Caio Braga

Edited by:
Emily Curtin

Published on:
UX Collective (ISSN: 2766-5267)

Special thanks to:
Rafael Frota, Paula Macedo, Kat Vellos, Meghan Wenzel, Nikki Anderson, Aga Szóstek, David Teodorescu, Benek Lisefski, José Torre, Sacha Greif.

Inspired by the work of:
Harrison Wheeler, Justyna Liska, Tatiana Mac, Frank Chimero, Alexandra Grochowski, Mike Monteiro, Lauren Kaori Gurley, Bryan Carney, Edward Ongweso Jr, Caitlin Chase, Tiffani Ashley Bell, Jonathan Lee, Robert Mayer, Ruth Kikin-Gil, Joy Buolamwini, Caroline Sinders, Clarissa C. S. Ryan, Deborah Roberts, Jordan Singer, Pablo Stanley, Inês Duvergé, Mona Chalabi, Jared Spool, Marcus Lyra, José Torre, Christina Cauterucci, Aaron Z Lewis, Olga Filimon-Lecka, Nathan J. Robinson, Sheri Byrne-Haber, CPACC, Alex Chen, Pierre Ripoll, Spencer Kornhaber, Jorge Arango, Kat Vellos, Thomas Wright, Chris Coyier, Dana Chisnell, Tiffany Wong, Vish Chopra, Jonathon Colman, Joana Vieira, Luis Berumen Castro, Anna Arteeva, Kajsa Westman, Abby Covert, Kevin Kwok, Daniël De Wit, Enrique Allen, Uri Paz, Michal Malewicz, Diana Malewicz, Alexis Lloyd, Hilary Osborne, Poppy Noor, Sara Ashley O'Brien, Jen Goertzen, Vivianne Castillo, Rachel Wenitsky, Cennydd Bowles, Jen Goertzen, Sophie Taylor, Maggie Gram, Cyd Harrell, Lenora Porter, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Marta Zarzycka, Benedict Evans, Lennon Cheng, Darin Buzon.

Image credits:
Beatriz Escobar, Sam Whitney, New York Times, Deborah Roberts, José Torre, Simone Noronha, Helena Sbeghen, Loveis Wise, Criola, Stina Persson, Tawny Chatmon, Samuel Pereira, Netflix.

Remember their names:
George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Marielle Franco. Sandra Bland. Korryn Gaines. Atatiana Jefferson. Tanisha Anderson. Michelle Cusseaux. Charleena Lyles. Kayla Moore. India Kager. Rayshard Brooks. Daniel Prude. Atatiana Jefferson. Aura Rosser. Stephon Clark. Botham Jean. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Freddie Gray. Janisha Fonville. Eric Garner. Akai Gurley. Gabriella Nevarez. Tamir Rice. Michael Brown. And the many other Black people killed by police brutality all over the world.

We dedicate this project to all the readers, authors, and friends of the UX Collective. You can follow our content via Email, Medium, Essays, Twitter, and Linkedin.

 
 
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What was your biggest 2020 lesson?

We asked a few designers and authors to share their thoughts with us:

“Sometimes the hard part of problem-solving is not finding a solution, but agreeing there’s a problem in the first place.”
— Sacha Greif

“We should still be grateful for doing what we love and make the best of it.”
– David Teodorescu

“How does this thing I create impact the world? Is it helping future generations thrive or does it leave them with more unsolvable problems?”
— Aga Szóstek

“I’ve realized how many people want something to belong to and to believe in. We have an opportunity to design for positive connections and meaningful relationships.”
Meghan Wenzel