I’ve observed the software design process over the last 4 short years and have come to a few conclusions I’d like to write down.

Some themes I’ll cover:

• Quick iteration
• Design <-> Dev seperation
• How I think an open source design spec could solve it

Figma is the obvious platform with the highest capability and most commonly used. I’ve played with it and if you’ve ever used photoshop or other image editors, you’ll likely pick it up.

What doesn’t seem to be solved is the organization and quick iteration that comes with this type of design tool. Especially when collaborating. This slows down fast iteration and feedback loops when trying to hone in on specific UX or design.

With the adoption of AI tooling, I’ve seen UI iterations be quick and snappy. However, a repo doesn’t have the design system and context a figma file does.

What if design lived in the repo for great context for the dev team.

/src
/docs
/design

Then design could have their own “ide” that had great capabilities like figma, abstracted git for great version control and diff resolution. I’ve seen these kinds of tools come to the surface recently in the startup world. Like this one from Cursor. Regrettably, they are proprietary and not agnostic to the AI you have a key for or to the project dev language. Most are focused on web dev.

This kind of tool enables anyone to contribute to a software product in an organization or open source project. I like the idea of file over app. Brings more control to the user for data portability and longevity.

I got started on this idea already. Trying to take a long term view on it but its still in its infancy. You’ll see the starting of the oss first to establish something that will always be there. To me that instils confidence. The actual monetizable product comes later.