In the Messenger team, we wanted to implement reactions in Media Previews. Nobody really paid attention to this project until we spent time working on a new reaction animation that introduced physics into an emoji rain. This is how the project started to gain visibility, the new experience felt so good that people got excited. I don’t know if it’s how we get buy-in for this project, but we showed that quality of execution can turn a simple idea into a great one.

I learned that ideas don’t sell themselves, execution does.

I learned that ideas don’t sell themselves, execution does.

Now AI has made everyone a designer. I’ve been seeing more Figma mocks or prototypes shared by people who aren’t designers. I’m really glad everyone can turn any idea into visuals, but most of these designs feel off and here is maybe why.

Most of my ideas are bad

Recently I built a giant dashboard, run and automated by Claude. It had all my calendar meetings, summary of the day, summary of each project, it had tasks and draft messages ready to be sent into groups, even documentation that I was able to edit into the tool. But after three weeks, I deleted everything except the tasks. The reason was simple: I was doubling the work by checking two places at the same time. I re-created tools we already have: a calendar, a google chat, even a google doc.

It’s so easy to solve a problem that doesn’t exist since we can build anything with a prompt. It feels like I’m a junior designer again jumping directly to a solution, so excited about building.

Because AI never say no, we should really spend more time thinking about whether the idea is worth it before investing our time in it. The other risk is to see a product full of new features that only add complexity. Most of the people don’t care, they just want something simple that works.

Most of my execution is bad

When I was in design school, I asked a teacher “what is design?” He replied “Design is love”. I laughed. But it’s only recently that I realized how true he was. A designed feature can’t be memorable if some of us don’t spend a high level of care and craft in it. Can this be something other than love?

I still can’t replace my design exploration phase with AI because the results look good but lack substance.

The execution will be even more important than before. The reactions feature worked without the physics animation, but the animation is what made people care. That’s what craft does. Our experiences cannot be good enough anymore. They must become memorable for people because the craft bar will rise. Care, craft and love should show behind every pixel.

Conclusion

Before we start building anything, we should destroy our ideas with energy. If the idea is still alive, we should add love and craft so it becomes memorable for people. Judgement and taste are now sacred skills, production is not anymore.