Plus a late-take on the Adobe Figma purchase and why speed matters. 
The Last 2 Weeks.

A fortnightly roundup of product design, email, and climate news.
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Welcome to Issue #2.

It’s been a few weeks since we learned about Adobe buying Figma. Of all the takes I read, Mike Davidson’s is my favorite. He wrote about Figma’s performance as a big reason for the acquisition. Figma is fast! Investing in speed is always a safe bet. In 10 years, nobody’s gonna say “Gee I wish my app was slower.” Yet performance is hard to achieve, it’s not something you can just throw bodies at. So Adobe threw dollars at it instead.

For now, I’m cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. Only time will tell.

And if you want the memes, here they are… all them them.
(⚠️ This is a very large Figjam file!)

Adobe Pacman eating pieces of Figma's logo.

Product Design

Lately I’ve been knee deep in design debt.

I’m a product designer, but I don’t work on the first version of my company’s product. Probably more like the 194th version. What started as a simple, sensible product evolved into a barely-coherent pile of features. It’s what Jared Spool refers to as experience rot, and it’s inevitable for most software products.

This year we’ve been fixing our design debt, so I was excited to discover debt.design. As I read through the site, I drew direct lines to the problems we are facing. If you’re facing design debt in your own work, it’s worth noting that Alicja (the site’s author) offers private workshops. I’m currently pitching the idea to my team leads.

Climate

Brent Toderian wrote a great Twitter thread on electric vehicles. He argues that while electric vehicles are a step in the right direction, avoiding cars all together is even better. In the same way that reducing and reusing is better than recycling.

Meme showing that media attention usually goes to EVs rather than walking, cycling, public transport, and parking topics.

Automakers want us to think everyone needs a car. And that it’s ok that parking occupies more land than housing in Los Angeles. And that, to quote one of my favorite movies, people still love their cars.

Never forget, the electric car is here to save the car industry, not the planet. Brent Toderian

After reading this, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Cars do not have to be so central in our lives. We’re already seeing cities embracing green transport and car-free zones, so I’m encouraged to see things like this in popping up in places like the Garden State Plaza in Paramus NJ (since folks in suburbs are more dependent on their cars).

Fun

My daughter forgot the name for apostrophe so she called it a flying comma. - Megan Davidhizar

I would’ve spent hours digging for the answer and kids are just like “Flying comma. Moving on.” I love it.

Thanks for reading the second issue! I plan on sending these out on the first and third Tuesday or every month. Not technically every two weeks, but a schedule that I can keep to.

See you in two weeks ✌️
- Ted
@tedgoas