We live in a world where technology is evolving at a breakneck speed. It can be daunting, especially for designers, when tools that seem to replace us come out every week. What does it mean to be a designer today? What is good design anymore? How does one still produce it? These questions haunt a growing number of us, in design and across engineering, research, and product.

Good design has many definitions, but I believe it is refined, thought through, and connects emotionally and practically with its intended user. It is a singular and simple output or solution created and synthesized from diverse and complex inputs. By this definition, and despite everything changing around us, three principles for creating good design have held true through every technological shift.

Principle #1: The power of iteration. Great work must undergo numerous iterations on its journey to excellence. A timeless product is crafted through an experimental process marked by trial and error, continuous iteration, and occasional bursts of creativity. We must do and re-do work to unlock the challenges that help us reach greater levels of depth. Many great artists and inventors celebrated their iterations. As James Dyson said, “I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one.”

In this process, we must learn to celebrate rough drafts as fiercely as we embrace finished products because a design is never truly complete. AI makes iterations faster and cheaper, but it hasn’t removed the need for them.

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