FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE BUILD

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Designer-developers face a unique pitfall: building something enjoyable first, then reverse-engineering a justification to ship it — a trap that handoff-based workflows naturally prevent. The author experienced this firsthand, deleting polished animations for a Search Assist module after not affecting any metrics, despite being technically well-crafted. Writing the rationale in prose before writing code is the proposed solution, ensuring the build serves the decision rather than the other way around.