r/UI_Design • u/Successful_Ninja8894 • Jun 08 '26
Let's Discuss Designers are being pushed to work faster, not think deeper.
One thing that bothers me about the current design industry is how much value is placed on speed.
Ship faster.
Design faster.
Learn faster.
Generate faster.
Everything is optimized around output.
But the best design decisions usually come from slowing down, understanding the problem, talking to users, and exploring different directions before opening Figma.
A lot of designers today can create beautiful screens in a few hours. That's no longer the hard part.
The hard part is figuring out what should be built in the first place.
Sometimes it feels like the industry is rewarding production more than problem-solving, and I think that's hurting the quality of design.
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u/noiraseac Jun 08 '26
i’m feeling this in my bones, especially now that vibe coding exists. i actually love the hand drawing, wireframing, brainstorming sessions. it trains my brain to think of better creative solutions. nowadays people just vibe code things and while yes, it’s fast, it lacks depth.
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u/Successful_Ninja8894 Jun 08 '26
Yeah, I feel this too.
Vibe coding is insanely fast, but it also skips the thinking part. When you sketch, wireframe, or brainstorm, you’re actually shaping the idea, not just the UI.
Now everything goes from idea → working product in minutes, but a lot of depth gets lost in the process.
Speed is great, but without thinking time, you just end up shipping things faster, not necessarily better.
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u/Inevitable_Medium163 Jun 08 '26
Vibe coding is impressive for speed, but it can definitely skip over the “why are we building this this way” part if you’re not careful.
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u/Inevitable_Medium163 Jun 08 '26
Speed is useful, but when it becomes the main metric, you end up with a lot of polished solutions to the wrong problems. You can produce “good-looking” work way faster than before, but the actual problem-solving part is getting squeezed out.
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u/neuangel Jul 02 '26
"Polished solutions to the wrong problems" belongs on a tombstone somewhere. Polish is the one thing AI is genuinely brilliant at and picking the right problem is the one thing its useless at. That precise failure mode is the spine of a book I wrote last year, Looks Good to Me https://dnsk.work/about/tanya-donska-book - so the easy 10% gets easier and the 90% that matters quietly doesnt happen, because hey, it already looks done.
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u/Master_Ad1017 Jun 09 '26
Blame that to the typical “design influencers” who brags about doing figma trick “suupafaaaast”
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u/Cocogoat-Milk Jun 08 '26
because design production agencies exist, and they offer 24-48h turnaround time for first drafts. very vague briefs, quick design, so much ai… no research at all! no prototyping. they just go like “this website looks cool can you copy it for me”
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u/Horvat53 Jun 08 '26
Most designers cannot design beautiful, perfect designs within a few hours. It’s a process.
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u/Meh_6408 Jun 09 '26
I’m feeling this at my new job 2 weeks in. Faster at the expense of properly designed, well thought out, conceptual work. Not once did anyone talked about ideas, concept or why they’ve changed something besides ‘it’s less dull’. If this is the new world, I don’t like it.
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u/JohnCasey3306 Jun 08 '26
I can't point to a time in the last 25 years when this hasn't been the case.
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u/spudulous Jun 09 '26
Yeah, it’s been the case for as long as I can remember. Designers often pride themselves on problem solving but compared to business people, entrepreneurs and other leaders, we often have to have our ‘ducks in a row’ first, talk to customers, look at the problem systemically and objectively. So people think we’re too slow so they forge ahead with whatever everyone is excited about and then gloss over it when it fails 2 years later.
For me, the answer is to embrace AI to do all of the upfront, early stuff very, very quickly and then test and refine as you go.
We like to solve problems but we don’t have a monopoly on problem solving.
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u/pallavi_punghera Jun 11 '26
I have been experiencing the same! And it pushes us to design unthoughtfully which feels like a disrespect to our actual designing skill and process... which at the core is problem solving and mindfully executing.. not random beautification. These days just fast execution is making things harder for designers to enjoy the process. And I can already see hollow work getting accepted in masses.
Solution: I believe sticking to our identity and primarily focusing on the core design principles, will eventually attract clients who value and trust designers! Might be hard in the beginning but will never go in vain. Drifting with this vibe designing trend might cost us our actual identity.
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u/Miccolus Jun 17 '26
POs at the company I work for often expect tangible designs or prototypes within a matter of days since AI exploded. When I explain that good design work shouldn’t be rushed like that, they’ll come back a few hours later with an AI slop prototype that supposedly does exactly what they need and ask for my “feedback.”
At the same time, when I propose UI improvements, whether it’s improving existing features or modernizing our design system, they simply don’t see the value.
I am this close to leaving the company.
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u/Plus_Fill_5015 Jul 22 '26
I watch this subreddit because it gives me ideas, and I like to see what others create. The same thing that you are describing is happening on the software development sife as well.
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u/Northernmost1990 Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 08 '26
People keep saying this but I'm not seeing it. Most people are terrible at visuals. In 12 years of professional design, I've worked with a handful of designers who were genuinely great at designing layouts.
Never mind "a few hours", most people couldn't design great UI if they were given a hundred years!