ARTICLE SUMMARY: It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re designing, you wake up and realize you are now in design hell with a project that inconsistency has now become a major thorn in your side.
With any project that has incredibly tight constraints designers need to be mindful that like financial debt, design debt will creep up on you and can cause significant problems.
To help you avoid design debt Kai Wong wrote “Design debt is often a hidden killer of consistency. Here’s how to resolve it.” to help you fully understand and how to deal with design debt. Some of the things you should know are
- Design debt happens when you take shortcuts.
- Simplify what actions to take around debt
- Tackle Design debt in small chunks to make significant progress
Design debt is the kind of problem that not only sucks the life out of the designer and kills your creativity, it can damage your reputation as a designer if not kept under control.
One of the key features of this article is it provides you with a way to Take a Design Debt Inventory and keep things from getting away from you and helping you create the best design possible under less than desirable conditions.
As designers we have all been in this situation at one time or another and we will be in it again. This article will give the what you need to know to avoid, or at least minimize the damage from design debt.
This is a great article for all designers and should be added to your tool box as a ready guide for when you feel like you’re losing control over your design situation and need to get back on track.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
