Issue #722: Design decisions
Color of the year, Agents for designers, UX patterns, Vanilla CSS, Usability heuristics and AI principles, and more.
Highlights of the week
- Readymag Websites of the Year winners announced - Check out 3 winners and 25 nominees: the Community, Jury, and Readymag team have chosen designs that rethink how the web looks, feels, and speaks in 2025. - Readymag sponsored
- Articulating design decisions - About making thoughtful decisions and defending design rationale. - Arkadiusz Radek
- Why stealing design works - 99% of designers still get this wrong (and blame others for it). - Felix Lee
Read all week, picked once. The best design links — every Tuesday.
Product design, UX/UI and PM
- Stop asking users what they want - Start watching what they do. - Barry Prendergast
- Bad UX design patterns - Managing complex navigation. - Clayton Dewey, Stacy Kvernmo, Sondra Eby
- UX is your moat (and you’re ignoring it) - Your moat isn’t your model. Your moat is whether users feel at home. - Christina Wodtke
Design engineering
- Vanilla CSS is all you need - No Sass. No PostCSS. No build tools. - Rob Zolkos
- The deep card conundrum - What if you could make a card like a 3D portal, with layers of depth? - Amit Sheen
Artificial intelligence
- AI coding agents for designers - Here's how AI coding agents can also help designers. - Luke Wroblewski
- AI is reshaping UX - What do the last five years of academic research tell us about how design is changing? - Andrew Tipp
Tools and resources
- HTMHell Advent Calendar 2025 - An article, talk, or tool that focuses on HTML every day until Christmas. - Manuel Matuzović
- 10 usability heuristics and AI principles - Master Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics and AI agentic design principles through interactive examples. - Matthew Soriano
Inspiration and creativity
- Color of the year 2026 - Learn more about applying the Color of the Year 2026 across various industries. - Laurie Pressman
- 2025 App Store Awards - Apple honors 17 standout developers for creating the best apps and games of 2025. - Apple
Last but not least
- Design dogma you must unlearn - These false beliefs are holding you back. - Scott Berkun