When designing tools
Should tech follow design? Or should design follow tech?
Saw a tweet (yes, I still call them tweets) today that sparked a thought in my mind on design.
There’s always been this common thread in companies where designers pushed absurd layouts, and developers hated them for it.
In some companies, it shifted from developers having an upper-hand, in others, designers had the upper-hand. Neither of these two were ok unless there was genuine collaboration between the two.
We had @henrymodis to chat with our design team yesterday about AI design.
— Karri Saarinen (@karrisaarinen) February 12, 2025
Simple and interesting to for me was that at Perplexity they start projects by exploring LLM capabilities with very simple prototypes, even with just a command-line implementations. Only once there’s proof that the idea can work consistently, and that they can bend it to do what they want, do they start designing the experience.
This flips traditional design best practices. Normally, you start with design to explore possibilities, and the tech follows. But in this domain, or this new era of software, LLM/AI is the tool for exploration, and design comes after. History rhymes here. It’s kind of like the early days of software, where you built first and then designed, because you had to figure first out the capabilities or push the tech to create the first web email or GUI. Design was moot if the tech wasn't feasible.
This is also why people may struggle with AI design they try to approach it purely from a design perspective using pure design tools.
Here’s my humble take:
Building tools for the future?
Tech follows design.
Building tools for the present?Design follows tech.
When design follows tech
To innovate on something that does not yet exist when building a tool for the present, while not impossible, requires a higher level of knowledge, time, and effort for very little output.
In most cases, it is better to have design follow the available tech, rather than reinventing the wheel every time.
It focuses not on the innovative aspect, but in making the best product for the function.
A simple example of that is when building a government app or website, that will be used by the general public. You can, and should, apply many of the common patterns already defined in the market. These are known patterns that people are accustomed to.
That’s basic UX, right?
You should also be thinking about the technology for implementation.
While it’s interesting to keep up to date with the trend tech, you should be aware of the limitations of, not only the market, but the possible legacy technology you’ll be integrating with.
In that sense, design should follow tech. It should adapt to the function to its best ability.
It doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful. Just means that you need to be efficient rather than innovative.
When tech follows design
Now, to build tools for the future, tech should always follow design.
To explore the unknown, you have to keep your canvas infinite of possibilities, and that can only be done in imagination.
The constraints have to be very little, and get narrowed as you progress.
To put it simply, if the tool you are imagining does not yet exist, build it. If you don’t have the tools to build it, then imagine the tools you’ll need to build the tools you have imagined.
If you read through the process of crating the iPhone, you will understand the complexities that went through.
They imagined something and tried to make it happen. When he technology was the limiting factor, they imagined new technology. It took, at times, multiple teams working on the same (side) problem, coming up with different solutions, until one stuck, and they could move on to the (main) problem.
This process takes time, effort, and a high level of knowledge.
But that’s the price you pay for innovation.
What are you thoughts about it?
Hit me up on X, I’d love to discuss.