Design doesn’t need more tools, it needs more judgment

Every month, a new design tool comes out. One that promises to make you faster, more productive, or more creative. And for a while, it works, everyone tries it, shares it online, and suddenly, if you’re not using it, you feel behind. But in the end, nothing really changes. The same problems are still there, just with a different interface.

As a designer, I’ve seen how the craft has gained more buttons but less thinking. We switch tools as if that could fix what’s really a problem of judgment. If something doesn’t look right, it’s not because we’re missing an app, it’s because we don’t understand why it looks that way. If a flow doesn’t work, it’s not because Figma lacks a feature, it’s because we didn’t understand the user.

Design doesn’t improve with more features; it improves with better reasons. But that sounds less exciting than talking about plugins or AI. Tools are easy to learn. Thinking well is not.

I see designers obsessed with automating everything, using AI to generate screens, finding the shortest shortcut to prototype something. And yes, technology helps. But when you let the tool think for you, you stop thinking about what matters. Instead of understanding the problem, you just pick an option from a menu.

There’s something dangerous about that comfort. When the tool does everything, the designer becomes an operator. And when that happens, the work loses intention. The result might look perfect, but without judgment behind it, it means nothing.

Judgment isn’t learned through tutorials. It’s built over time, through mistakes, questions, and observing how people use what you design. Tools change every year, but judgment is what stays when all of them become obsolete.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t use them. I use Figma every day, and I also use AI. But I try to make sure they work for me, not the other way around. They should be support, not a crutch. What defines good design isn’t whether it was made with the latest version, but whether it makes sense, solves a real problem, and was done with intention.

The industry is moving too fast chasing what’s new and forgetting what’s essential. We don’t need more ways to move rectangles; we need better questions. We don’t need more color options; we need to understand why we choose one over another.

Design doesn’t get better when you change tools. It gets better when you change the way you think.

And unfortunately, that doesn’t come in any update.