September 15, 2026

Issue #761: Limit the number of details

Too fast to design, Design principles vs. the principles of design, Let's talk about gradients, The least wrong colors, version 2, and more.

The design tool for teams shipping with agents - Introducing Paper: a connected canvas, a new workflow for designers. Let agents do the busy work so you can focus on the decisions only you can make. - Paper sponsored
Limit the number of details - The first half gets your attention. The second half is what makes it possible. Fewer details allow you to care more deeply about each one. - Geoff Teehan
Too fast to design - Perhaps one of the most important design skills in the world of AI will be a very simple one: not to rush into agreeing with the first reasonable answer. - Albert Patrashku

Read all week, picked once. The best design links, every Tuesday.

Design principles vs. the principles of design - Principles of design focus on the how. How a design is executed, composition, arrangement, layout. Design principles are strategic and focus on the why? They are used to aid decision-making about a project's goals. - Ben Brignell
Five eras of UX design and the lessons to keep in the AI era - Human factors has reinvented itself every decade since Bell Labs, the oldest lessons are the ones pointing the way forward. - Patrick Neeman

Let's talk about gradients - When a prompt outperforms the tool, that isn't the machine's triumph; it's the instrument's failure. - Wojciech Dobry
The least wrong colors, version 2 - Picking a categorical color palette is an optimization problem — there's no such thing as the right colors, but if you use the right cost function, and the right kind of hill climbing, you can at least get the least wrong ones. - Matt Ström-Awn
The best dark mode toggle is probably none - My post on two-state dark mode toggles sparked a lot of discussion about the optimal dark mode toggle design. But should you have a (persistent) dark mode toggle at all? - Lea Verou

WCAG accessibility guidelines explorer - Learn and understand web accessibility standards with interactive demos and comprehensive guidance for designers and developers. - Matthew Soriano

Rauno's field notes #5 - Our dashboard at Vercel has a sidebar. All kinds of important notices or promotions live on the sidebar surface. There can often be many of them, so there needs to be a way to navigate through several cards. - Rauno Freiberg

What Silicon Valley gets wrong about taste - In the AI age, taste will become even more important. When anyone can make anything, the big differentiator is what you choose to make. - Celine Nguyen