Craft in Product Design: A Framework for Evaluation
Craft isn't a one dimensional trait. Here are 5 criteria to help talk about craft.
We continue to hear about confusion among the design community about the importance of craft in product design, in both hiring and growing design cultures. Some of the areas of confusion I’ve observed:
Are we prioritizing look and feel over use value and usability?
How does one attempt to evaluate visual design, when it can be so subjective?
Is this a step backwards for UX from product-minded thought leaders to pixel pushers?
I’ll give a personal history and then share a rubric I’ve been thinking about to help hiring managers and design leaders better evaluate and discuss craft in both candidates and help grow employees.
A bit of history
I started a design agency in 2010 as a bit of a rebellious move. Agencies at the time would often have two design titles - the UX/Interaction Designer, who could get paid between $150-200+/hr. They researched, thought deeply about problems, architecture, flows, had business acumen, maybe even coded. Then, there were visual/UI designers - sometimes billed out at a fraction of the UX designer’s rate, because they needed to be given exact wireframes and specs from a UX designer.
So the UX designer was discouraged from “doing visuals” and the visual designer was discouraged from thinking deeply about the product.
I fundamentally disagreed with this division of labor and went rogue, hired a team of generalists, and trained designers to do both UX and visual design equally well, treating neither one as a second-class skillset.
This had a really positive side effect - I got to work with bleeding edge startups (including Uber when they were a seed stage company). Startups work fast and run lean. They don’t have patience for a waterfall between “UX” and “Visual Design”.
The industry has since caught up. We’ve had the term “Product designer” for over a decade now, describing a designer that can do it all - product strategy, UX, visual design, prototyping, potentially even research and front-end code. People have strengths and passions in some of these skills more than others, and a big part of building a great team is matching the team’s needs with a designer’s strengths and desire to grow in areas where they’re not as strong. In my opinion, this is an ideal state for the modern designer.
Why craft matters now
Craft doesn’t matter more now than it did before. It’s always been a differentiator in software. I wrote about this here about a year ago.
I believe one thing that’s changed now is that a combination of Gen AI, design systems, and established best practices in the field has leveled the playing field. A founder or product manager can sketch up a pretty good idea of what a product could be. Maybe not great but good enough to convey the idea. Taking a design 80% of the way there is no longer enough for someone who’s dedicated to design as a career.
Another thing that’s changed is consumer expectation. We’ve seen enough mind-blowing stories about disruptive products that win over ancient, extremely valuable competitors exclusively on great design. This is a win for design as a discipline and should be embraced.
My favorite recent example is Ramp.
If you’ve worked in Corporate America, you’re probably familiar with the time-sucking nightmare that is Concur, that was the only option for most corporate expense reporting until several years ago:
And then, there’s Ramp, now a startup valued at $22.5B and rapidly expanding to solve many other corporate pain points:
For the employee who first encounters Ramp on the job, expect tears of joy instead of dread when doing expenses after a week-long sprint in another office. For the employer - expenses are done on time, and employee spend more time doing the work they were hired to do. That’s design ROI. ✅
This is why craft is so valued right now. It’s finally no longer questioned as having a direct impact on the bottom line, and something that just works but is painful and ugly to use will get left in the dust quickly in today’s world where you can AI-assist code a competing product in no time with very little overhead.
Criteria for Visual Craft
In my previous article I suggested 3 types of craft:
Informational & Behavioral Craft: a product that’s simple and easy to understand and use, even for first-time users (UX focus)
Functional Craft: a product thats built well, performant, and works as intended (UX & Eng focus)
Visual Craft: a product that feels good to look at and use - even delightful - and reflects the brand (UI focus)
The “Visual Craft” bucket is what I’ve been discussing here and the one that sparks the most controversy and confusion. The feeling is that the requirements and evaluation criteria are vague and opaque, and as leaders, it’s our responsibility to address this.
Here’s an example of Visual Craft evaluation criteria you could use when thinking about a new hire and helping a designer grow their craft.
Criteria 1: Technique
The designer’s mastery and application of design tools and skills. Today, this not only includes Figma and an array of prototyping/motion tools (Rive, Origami), but using GenAI/code-assist tools to create high-end proof of concepts and even directly improve production UI code in some companies.
Criteria 2: Intentionality
The designer’s thoughtfulness in visual/UI choices, apparent in the work itself. If asked, a designer can explain the high-level visual approach and a rationale for the placement and design of anything on the screen - visual hierarchy, typography, layout, components used, information displayed (or removed). Nothing is represented in the work without a solid reason based on the user and what they’re trying to do.
Criteria 3: Voice
The designer can express the brand in a way that’s appropriate and reinforces the brand’s strength through their design choices. In the case of Ramp above, the work is lightweight, uses ample white space, feels dynamic, quick and easy. For more senior designers, the ability to not just reflect an existing voice but be a “tastemaker” - creating a never-seen-before visual approach as a true differentiator in the market - is extremely valuable for some roles, but not all.
Criteria 4: Attention to detail
The designer doesn’t stop at 90%. Every detail feels polished and thoughtful. Prototypes are dynamic, transitions between states are fluid, animations are natural. They’ve done their best to work with engineering to QA products to get from “almost there” to “ready to ship”. There’s zero “jank”.
Criteria 5: Visual Communication
The designer can explain and at times sell their work through clear, compelling, visual-forward narratives that show rather than tell. The spoken word complements their presentation artifacts and they’re able to be efficient in crafting deliverables at the appropriate altitude and visual approach for a given audience - from a 1-hour deep dive with the engineering team to a 15-minute pitch to the CEO.
The next time you’re looking at a designer’s work (or thinking about your own strengths and growth areas as a designer), I hope these categories can help clarify how to talk about “Craft”:
Be specific about which criteria are working or not working instead of overgeneralizing someone as “strong” or “weak” in Craft. Someone who’s weak across the board probably shouldn’t be a designer.
Be honest about what mastery level for each criterion is important for your role, team, and company. “Voice” for a SaaS dashboard is critical in Ramp’s case - a highly competitive, differentiating space. That’s not always the case.
Think about careers and long term growth. What skills on your team complement a designer’s growth areas in Craft. Have they exhibited curiosity and the ability to learn quickly, and can they be coached? Do they have other strengths that make it an even exchange to bring knowledge to the rest of your team?
If it’s not clear from all of the above, I’m glad the industry is holding designers accountable for visual craft in addition to behavioral and functional craft. Let’s not flip the pendulum and weigh one more heavily than the others, but think about each candidate and employee holistically. The next generation of designers has better tools and access to learning than ever before. As leaders, let’s help carve a path for today’s designers to succeed at growing into the “Superdesigner” many thought would be too difficult to achieve just a few years ago.