Design notes
How I think about the work
Short, practical pieces written for the people who have to build the thing — not for a design-award jury. No listicles, no tool reviews.
Five users is enough to change your roadmap
You do not need a research department. You need five people, a prototype and the willingness to be told you were wrong.
A design system is a set of decisions, not a set of components
Most design systems fail the same way: a beautiful component library that nobody knows when to use. Rules are the product.
Designing AI features people actually trust
The model is rarely why an AI feature fails. It fails because the interface hides uncertainty, and one confident wrong answer is all it takes.
Accessibility is cheaper when it is designed in
Contrast, targets, focus order and text scaling cost nothing while designing. Retro-fitting them after a failed audit costs a quarter.
What handoff should actually include
A Figma link is not a handoff. Here is the checklist I work through before I tell a team the design is ready to build.
Prefer a conversation to an article?
If something here matches a problem you are dealing with, I am happy to talk it through — no pitch attached.
madnansakhi@gmail.com