“Because people will think it’s done.”

That’s what my poetry professor said when I asked why she wanted to ban the use of computers in her workshops.

I was .. confused and a little upset. Typing out my creative work felt like I had taken this big step of being “ready” for other people to see it.

I mean, I worked hard on the layout of that poem after spending hours and hours writing versions by hand.

Very efficient — and looked ready for a book.

As an English major, in my last two years of school I was reading at least two books and writing at least one paper a week. One semester I read over 30 novels.

That sheer volume plus curiosity basically dragged me into the computer lab. For the first two years, I had a lame word processor that wasted paper when I had to retype again and again, I didn’t know how to type (but I did know how to play the piano), and I didn’t know how to use a computer. Like, AT ALL.

By the end of that first semester, I was a regular in school labs and I knew how to type. There was Karen, showing me how to use a Mac for about five minutes — annoyed, telling me where to get disks because no you can’t just “save.” Learning by doing, figuring out the differences in how PC and Mac networks worked, so many key commands, Eudora, MUDs.

I used Macs for writing, PCs for playing with the internet. I only let myself go to the dark, stuffy, Doritos-to-cover-the-BO PC lab after I was done with actual work. The Mac lab was no less full of computers and a maze of cables and cords, but had fewer people basically living in it and the lights were usually on.

When I went to type out poetry, I copied the style from books I had: Palatino bold italic, 16pt for the title, 12 pt Palatino for the text, linotype, pretty sure. Big 3” margins. Print 20 copies, bring to class. Super efficient.

What we did before computers

Before all that, the writing of a poem always started on a blank page. Always blank, never lined.

I would write the first draft of something, set it aside for a few hours, come back and red-line it. If I felt like it still had something, I would rewrite it on the following page with more edits.

Repeat at least 10 times until I felt like I had really gotten to the idea and done a passable job.

Poetry also requires efficiency & spareness in the number of words needed to get an idea across.

Instead of going to the lab, at this point I would write out a legible copy, copy it about 20 times at the library, and take it to class for workshopping.

Everyone would read it, mark it up while they read it, and then we would critique it for about five minutes. Students would pass over their marked up copies, and I would take them and my notes home for more revisions, or the trash, depending.

The heart of the problem

Jane’s complaint was that when other students were handed my page that looked like it came out of a book, they’d be less likely to critique it as a draft. Less able to see it as a work in progress. Less critical of the idea behind it.

Sure enough, the comments were fewer and less helpful, less about the idea. What she said clicked; I never typed one out again until after all the workshopping and drafting was done.

It was too aesthetically pleasing to look like something that could be broken apart, thought about more, truly critiqued.

And that is my problem with design systems (& heavy reliance on Figma).

When designers tell me it’s much “easier” to just build something in the design system, I agree with them — sure, it’s easier — but it also requires zero deep inquiry. When we are looking for which component to use, our brain is doing something different. We are sorting through options and thinking about how we did this last time. We are check-boxing basic UX.

We are not thinking about what the best thing is for the user.

We are thinking about the best way to build what has already been decided.

I have stopped trying to fight this battle because no designer wants to hear that they need to think things through more when there is a) so much pressure to deliver and b) design exploration is pointless in most organizations.

Let’s be honest. We’re either validating or building something we’ve been told to make. We can claim to be negotiating. We can maybe make a small difference. But most of the time, those decisions have already been made in rooms we weren’t in.

The outcome and cost of shallow thinking

I end with another story.

One time I was at a critique that, inexplicably, product managers and the CDO had been invited to join. The designer had asked me to join for support, which seemed odd, but sure, no problem.

As the designer set the agenda and context, and started to talk through the work, the product manager stopped them at the explorations slide and said they needed to “skip it and move on to the actual design .”

I thought, oh good, another critique where I need to clean up afterwards. Now I see why I’m here.

Also, that wasn’t a critique.

As people left the meeting, knowing I had that in front of me, I asked the product manager ... what was that?

They said, “I don’t understand why you need to explore anything. There’s only one way to design this.”

There was a lot of shoring up that day - of the designer, the team, and some very direct feedback for that product manager about interrupting people who are presenting (which I also gave during the “crit” — I was so appalled, and the CDO was silent).

The moral of my little parable

The next time you’re thinking, I’ll just whip this up in the design system, it’s faster for everyone, think again. The cost might not be worth the efficiency. Not only will other people think it’s “done” — you will start to believe that, too.