Following Defaults Is a Design Decision Too
1. Must familiar interactions look the same?
Functional consistency and aesthetic uniformity deserve separate consideration.
- Familiar button behavior and navigation reduce the effort required to learn a product.
- That does not mean every product needs the same typography, spacing, and colors.
- An easy-to-use interface can still express a product’s character and intended audience.
2. Four forces behind similar screens
Platforms, tools, taste, and automation have made similar choices easier and safer.
- Platform guidelines: Rules for consistent experiences expanded into visual standards across the industry.
- Shared libraries: Figma components and templates save time while also passing along someone else’s aesthetic judgments.
- Visual culture: Platforms like Dribbble tend to reward the polish of a single screen over its actual context of use.
- AI automation: Rapidly generating familiar patterns can spread existing similarities further.
3. AI’s first draft frames later judgments
When an output arrives before a product perspective takes shape, the review begins within its frame.
- Changing colors or spacing may leave the information hierarchy and overall mood intact.
- A useful question comes one step before “What should we change?”
- “Does this starting point fit our product and its users?”
4. Define a product perspective before choosing components
Distinctiveness begins with deciding whom an experience serves and what that experience should be.
- Arc’s sidebar-centered layout reflects a judgment about how particular users navigate, expressed through the structure of the interface.
- Before choosing a library or writing a prompt, clarify the audience and intended feeling.
- Keeping a default can still be your team’s deliberate choice when its reasoning is clear.
