I’ve seen how quickly strong design work can lose momentum when deadlines are tight and explorations aren’t clearly documented. In those moments, design thinking often lives only in my head—or scattered across loosely connected Figma frames. When that happens, non-designers struggle to follow the reasoning. Key talking points get buried, context fades, and conversations shift away from why this solution works toward what else could we try instead. Not because the work is wrong—but because the thinking behind it isn’t visible.
A Fragile Solution Without Clear Reasoning
One of my biggest takeaways from Articulating Design Decisions is that good design alone is not enough. A solution without clearly articulated reasoning is fragile. When stakeholders can’t see how decisions connect to user needs, business goals, or technical constraints, they naturally begin to explore alternatives. This often looks like scope creep, but more often it’s uncertainty disguised as curiosity. Without clarity, timelines stretch and iterations multiply—not due to poor design, but unclear intent.
When people aren’t convinced that you’re right, they’ll continue to think of alternatives to suggest. The project scope will increase over time as people propose adding more things: a simple control, one more button, a new menu.
Confidence Gaps and the Rise of Opinions
I’ve also seen how poor articulation weakens confidence. When stakeholders don’t understand why a design exists in its current form, trust erodes. In that gap, opinions and personal preferences tend to take over. The work becomes subjective, even when it was originally grounded in solid research and logic. What starts as alignment quietly turns into debate—not because the solution lacks merit, but because the story behind it was never fully told.
Design Conflict Is Often a Communication Problem
The book reinforced something I’ve experienced repeatedly: most design conflict isn’t a design problem—it’s a communication problem. Every stakeholder is optimizing for something different. Design decisions only land when they’re framed in a way that speaks directly to those motivations. When that framing is missing, even strong solutions can be questioned, diluted, or abandoned entirely.
Making Thinking Visible
Articulating design decisions isn’t about defending work—it’s about making thinking visible. It’s how designers protect scope, build alignment, and ensure their ideas survive the journey from concept to production. For me, this realization reframed documentation and storytelling as core design skills, not supporting tasks.
...turn your thought process into something real, sharable, and visible; to uncover the words that will help you to explain yourself to other people in a way that makes sense.
Why This Matters in Practice
For designers working in fast-paced, cross-functional environments, learning how to communicate design as clearly as we create it is essential.Articulating Design Decisions gave language to experiences I’ve already lived—and reinforced the idea that clarity is not extra work. It’s the work.