Before the tool, part one
This summer I wrote that the tool changes and the thinking stays. Students have since asked the obvious follow-up. Fine, but where do we do the thinking? It’s a better question than it sounds. Every tool shows you a different amount of your own thinking, and that decides what you can learn in it. Paper shows you everything. Nothing is aligned for you, nothing is suggested. If the hierarchy is flat, you made it flat, and you can see it. Paper is where you find out what you actually think. Figma shows you structure. Components and auto layout look like features, but underneath they ask: what repeats, what changes, what holds when everything moves? Figma is where you find out whether your thinking holds together. AI shows you almost nothing. It hands you a finished-looking screen before you have made a single decision. That’s its power and its trap.
The order matters more than the tool. Decide on paper, structure in Figma, accelerate with AI. A student who starts with AI ends up curating before they can judge, and picks the screen that looks most like a screen. A student who starts on paper knows exactly what to look for when the machine offers forty options. The tool gets faster, not smarter. That’s the right way round. It’s not quite a rule. Not quite nostalgia. It’s the sequence in which judgment gets built, one room at a time.
Margin note: On your next project, write down which part you’ll do on paper, which in Figma, and which with AI. Then notice when you’re tempted to skip a room.
More on this in On choosing tools and On teaching UX in the age of AI tools.
