Keeping the bar high when the barrier is low

Someone asked me recently “How do you continually raise the quality bar in design?”. It was a great question, and one that stuck with me long after the conversation ended.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about more and more lately. As the barrier to building and designing digital products continues to lower, it’s never been easier to launch a website, app or feature into the world. That’s a good thing, I love that more people can build. But the question is, how do we make sure the quality doesn’t suffer as a result?

I’ve heard plenty of hot takes about “taste” being the ultimate differentiator. And yes, I agree, taste absolutely plays a role. But I also think it’s important we don’t lose sight of how far we’ve come as a discipline over the last decade. We’ve fought hard to push design forward. To champion better user experiences, consistent patterns, principles and design systems that bring it all together. That progress didn’t happen by accident. It came from people putting the work in, often behind the scenes, to make things better and more consistent for users.

When those foundations are missing, things start to fall apart. You end up with fragmented experiences. People moving in different directions, creating inconsistency and conflicting patterns.

I’ve vibe-coded enough to see it happening. You’ll have a perfectly good component or pattern, and then you’ll prompt a new feature. Rather than using what’s already there, it generates a new, slightly different version of both. Now you’ve got multiple varied elements and suddenly you’re solving the same problem twice, just less well.

These are the kinds of problems design systems were built to solve. And yet, in an environment where building is faster and easier than ever, it’s easy to overlook the importance of that groundwork. It’s tempting to just ship the thing. But if you’re not careful, that shortcut ends up costing more in the long run, not just in maintenance and tech debt, but in the erosion of user trust.

I’m a huge believer in more people becoming builders. I love that tools are making it easier for more people to participate in design and development. But that shift shouldn’t be an excuse to stop investing in the foundations that underpin high quality work.

Raising the quality bar isn’t just about having better taste. It’s about building the foundations that make it easier for others to do the right thing. Clear principles. Solid systems. Well-documented patterns. Guardrails that guide, but don’t restrict. It’s about creating a culture where people care about getting things right, not just getting them done.

Great design should feel effortless to the user, not the designer. And that’s the difference.