How do designers log design decisions? How does a designer picking up a project from another designer find out why something is the way it is? 🤔

I’ve been trying to introduce Decision Records into our design team (but we are going through a merger rn soooooo … all activity there has stopped). The idea is that each project has a numbered list of the decisions that were made and the rationale.

I don't know if this is a dumb question but what constitutes a "design decision"? I would think certain decisions are obvious.. For ex: something that is directly derived from a design system. I guess what I'm wondering is: How detailed would this be (ideally)

To be clear I think this is a good idea but it makes me wonder: a) who is this really for and b) is this potentially the result of an org not trusting designers to do their jobs effectively (whether it's the decisions themselves or justifying them)

I would also say that if designers are expected to do this kind of thing, I would also expect the same of other EPD roles.. It just seems like it would be unfair otherwise lol

Ok, so I agree with you that in some cases it can feel like there’s hidden micro mgmt / not trusting designers in there, in our case there was something very specific that led me to suggesting using Decision Records in the future..

We had to redo our company website & there were conflicting opinions about which platform / tech stack / etc to use. We looked at different solutions & made certain decisions & months later another lead designer swooped in and made a conflicting decision that changed everything.

So in that explicit case (leaving aside the fact that if someone is not in charge they should not be randomly making decisions like that, lol) it felt like we had reasoning for the original decision but this was not 100% documented 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Ah, I see.. That does make sense and can lead to very messy situations. I do think this is something that should/could be co-owned by EPD as far as what's actually implemented and why. Design decisions are a part of it, but the "source of truth" is really what ends up being built

Basically just to say that in lieu of a designer (like if they leave the company, just as an example) the product manager/owner should also be able to speak to "why is this the way it is" if not someone else involved

I agree with you. But I also know from experience that sometimes something that seemed like a good decision 3 years ago wouldn’t be one 3 years later, and sometimes it’s much easier to have an actual record of the decision very clear on the page, not buried in the docs.

(Me speaking from the perspective of someone who was in PO/PM positions as well in the past)

I 100% agree, especially with keeping pertinent information in the actual Figma file. I think cross-referencing also helps though that can quickly become a convoluted mess loll

Maybe a way to cross reference neatly is the thing that needs improving... and getting people to actually document... that part of the process needs work too from what I see and hear

I personally intend to adopt this in the future if I'm managing something like a design system again. There were times where we couldn't remember exactly why we made certain decisions or times where we were reliving conversations we'd had before. (That's fine if it's intentional)

Yeah, I think no matter how good you are at your job, you will forget why decisions were made. You’ll forget why smtg seemed important enough at the time that it would lead to a particular decision. That’s human 🤍 I’m so excited to hear you’re considering adopting ADRs! 🙌🏼

it's also good for the inverse, what was a good reason before might not be a good reason anymore. documenting the *why* and not just the *what* sounds valuable.