luis. Profile picture
Nov 2, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read Read on X
It's common during the handoff process to provide screens to our engineering teammates by "throwing designs over the fence"

We've all been there!

This puts pressure on devs to play a game of spot the difference, finding minor changes between screens 🔎

We can simplify this 📣 A layout of 4 app screens t...
The red circles are the true differences, sooooo why are we duplicating *everything* from each screen?

This is inefficient from both sides:
– Designer must track identical screens, with changes doubled* every time there's a modification
– Developer is playing spot the difference The same image as before, b...
Let's remove duplicate screens!

Instead, we can show *component* differences alongside the main screen

Then group them with a section & use component labels to describe the differences

The developers then just need to look at one template, and read the component differences 🪄 The same screen from before...The duplicate screens have ...
Let's look for a practical example

Here's the Target product listing page, sliced up to show the delivery toggle options

Thanks for asking about this one @jgdesignz The Target product listing ...A close up of the section c...

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More from @disco_lu

Sep 9, 2025
I've been thinking about semantic component naming conventions, specifically t-shirt sizing

We normally talk about this with variables – "what happens when you need something in between small and medium?"

I think it's a component issue too. Take this chip set with sizes A component set for a chip component. It has a primary and secondary variant, and base, small, and large variants for size. Each component is available in brand, danger, positive, warning, and neutral schemes.
Each size (base, small, large) is in itself an indication of...something. But what? Would a consuming designer know? I'm not confident

As a maintainer, I hope that the small size is used in specific scenarios, but nothing about "small" tells someone where that is The same chip set from before, but with red lines between each size
This relies on every designer either

1. Reading documentation
2. Copying a sticker sheet example
3. Just knowing

None of these seem that attractive to me! I think we're being let down by t-shirt naming conventions in component sets
Read 11 tweets
Sep 19, 2024
The more I talk to hiring managers and senior designers about what they are looking for in designers, the more I back up the theory that portfolios shouldn't be X, Y, Z case studies, but explorations of your obsession with details
Showing deep, deep examinations of your solutions AND what you didn't deliver is a really great way to show how you approach solving a problem

A slideshow of solutions doesn't show anything below the surface, just a public-facing polished mockup
But jumping incredibly deep into your rough work can show that you really do take the end to end product process into consideration when solving a problem

"this didn't work, because..." is a fascinating discussion that I know would be way more interesting than "here's a flow"
Read 5 tweets
Jul 10, 2024
There's something bugging me about icons

Take a look at these two components, what's wrong? 10 points are on offer Two light blue components with icons inside and a text string reading "label". The left component has a horizontal 3 dot icon, the right component has a vertical 3 dot icon.
That's right! There are two problems:

1) The left padding is optically too large
2) The gap is too loose Visual of the same two previous components, with a yellow annotation pointing to the issues described in the tweet
When composing components like this (with an icon), the process is:

1) Nest an icon
2) Set preferred instances
3) Bubble up the icon to the top level for instance swapping A visual showing the process of nesting an icon inside another component. It also shows two overrides to the icon, one showing the original horizontal three dot icon and the second showing the vertical 3 dots.
Read 7 tweets
Jun 30, 2023
Been asked a lot over the past few days about how to get started with colour variables, so here are some pointers 🖍️

Hope this is useful!
As usual, before we get started here are some T&Cs:

• These are my opinions, take with a grain of salt!
• You will need more or less of these options, adjust to your team's workflow
• Tokens are opinionated, bring your microphone
• Tokens are angry, enter with care
The types I'll discuss are:

1️⃣ Bg = Background
2️⃣ Text = Text!
3️⃣ Border = Also known as strokes
4️⃣ Icon = This is a layer I'm personally adding on, will explain why
Read 22 tweets
May 5, 2023
I think it might be time to reconsider whether atomic design helps or hinders the creation of designs and systems

It’s been the de facto rule for looking at interfaces for a long time, but I find that sometimes it can actually create more confusion 💫 A visual depicting atomic d...
Atomic design is great! The issue we face though is that it’s best suited for frontend code architecture, and not necessarily within design files

It helped me understand the construction and component composability at a foundational level, buuut I want to flip the script a bit
Before we start, I’d encourage you to read the blog post if you haven’t yet: bradfrost.com/blog/post/atom…
Read 17 tweets
Mar 23, 2023
Some more "styles in Figma" thoughts

Let's take a look at the four types of colour styles you might build / encounter in your systems 🎨

• Raw values e.g. #CC8700
• Base tokens e.g. Yellow/400
• Global tokens e.g. Warning/Primary
• Component tokens e.g. Alert/Warning/Text Image
The last layer (component tokens) may be overkill for your needs, and you might not need to get that specific!

The "levels of abstraction" are down to how sophisticated your system might be, and you may not even need...any of the last three if you're okay with raw values😄 A graphic showing the previ...
The way I have structured this, with the arrow inheritance, should indicate that you follow a path down from abstract raw value down to specific component token value

Each level introduces control – providing the systems team with a much stricter way of managing styles
Read 13 tweets

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