Figma Didn’t Kill Critical Design Thinking. We Did.
The industry’s obsession with tools is hollowing out the craft.
There’s a quote by Marshall McLuhan that’s stuck with me for many years: “First we shape our tools, thereafter our tools shape us.”
And I think it’s time we take a hard look at what’s shaping us now.
At the risk of aging myself, when I got into design, it was the wild west. No Sketch. No Figma. No XD. The tools were all over the place — and constantly changing. Photoshop one day. OmniGraffle the next. Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Axure, Keynote, code — whatever got the job done.
The Most Consistent Tool Wasn’t a Tool
The only constant? Paper and pen. A whiteboard and marker. A Sharpie. The back of a napkin. Idea to hand to surface — quick, unrefined, and raw.
That was it. And it was enough.
Because the most consistent tool… wasn’t a tool. The tool wasn’t the point. The thinking was.
Before the polish. Before the pixels. Design started with ideas, not interfaces. And maybe it’s time we remembered that.
Because we didn’t define ourselves by the tools we used. We defined ourselves by the problems we solved.
Fast forward to today: Figma is the tool. It’s powerful, elegant, collaborative. It’s made design more consistent, more efficient, more accessible. I’m not here to knock it.
Let me say it plainly: If Figma is the only place you’ve learned design, there’s a good chance you haven’t actually learned how to be a designer. Because tool fluency is not the same thing as design maturity.
The Tool Is Shaping the Thinking
In a way, I feel bad for designers who’ve only ever known design through Figma. Not because they’re doing anything wrong — but because they’ve never had to work without it.
When your first and only design environment is a highly polished, component-based system, it becomes second nature to think inside those boundaries. And that makes it dangerously easy to confuse what the tool allows with what design actually is.
I see it all the time:
- Critical thinking stalls when there’s no clear pattern to copy.
- Sketching and divergent thinking are skipped altogether.
- Interaction design and IA take a back seat to spacing, consistency, and polish.
- Collaboration becomes harder when someone doesn’t speak “Figma” fluently — because we’ve mistaken tool language for shared understanding.
Figma is brilliant at what it does. But it’s not neutral. It gently pulls designers toward surface-level thinking: layouts, flows, components. And if you don’t know how to step outside that — if you’ve never had to — then your entire design process risks becoming a mirror of the tool.
When Tools Drive the Work, Thinking Takes a Back Seat
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Design today is starving for critical thinking — and core disciplines are collapsing because of it.
And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s the cost of a tool-centered culture.
Figma — and tools like it — have streamlined workflows and enabled rapid output. But they’ve also quietly pulled designers toward the surface layer of design: frames, flows, and pixel perfection.
Over time, this tool-first mindset has shifted our priorities.
We don’t start with structure — we start with components.
We don’t wrestle with ambiguity — we tidy up auto-layouts.
We don’t think through the problem — we jump straight to the file.
As a result, we’ve built a culture where testing replaces thinking. Where usability studies are treated as verdicts instead of insights. Where A/B testing is used not to learn, but to avoid making a call.
Designers are losing the ability to think deeply, debate productively, and own decisions. Disagreements feel like personal attacks — because we’ve lost the shared language of why. Tradeoffs rarely surface — because we’ve over-optimized for speed and harmony.
And it’s not just individual skills that are eroding. It’s entire disciplines.
Service design. Information architecture. UX strategy. These once-essential pillars have been so overshadowed by tools and trends that some orgs are questioning whether they even matter anymore.
That should stop us in our tracks.
These aren’t fringe practices. They are the connective tissue of great design. And yet many teams are struggling to find designers who can confidently navigate them.
Because in a tool-shaped world:
- Designers are fluent in flows, but shaky on systems.
- They can polish a screen, but can’t map a service.
- They know components, but not context.
This isn’t a call for nostalgia. It’s a call for competency.
Because when design is driven by tools, deep thinking erodes. When the file becomes the focus, structure gets forgotten. And when we lose the foundation, design becomes decoration.
We’re Replacing Design With Tool Expertise
Let me be clear — this isn’t all Figma’s fault. Figma didn’t kill critical thinking, tradeoffs, or imagination. But it made it easy to forget those things.
And as an industry, we didn’t push back. We embraced the ease. The speed. The structure. We started praising tidy files over thoughtful exploration. We began evaluating talent based on how well they could use the tool — not how well they understood the problem.
Somewhere along the way, we replaced the discipline of design with expertise in a platform.
And now:
- Designers feel lost without component libraries.
- Exploration happens inside a grid, if at all.
- Systems thinking is traded for file hygiene.
- Design conversations revolve around Figma features — not customer needs.
Again — Figma didn’t ask for this. But we let it happen.
Don’t Let the Tool Think for You
Figma makes a lot of things easier. But it also makes it easy to skip the hard thinking.
We’ve created a generation of designers who are brilliant at the output, but struggle with the input.
Less time spent understanding the problem. Less imagination. Less willingness to color outside the (auto-laid out) lines.
That’s not a knock on new designers. It’s a wake-up call for all of us.
Are we shaping great designers — or just great Figma users? And if Figma disappeared tomorrow… could you still design?
Designers, This Is Your Call to Arms
Let’s be clear — this was never just about Figma. Figma is just a mirror. A symptom. A signal. The real issue is deeper: design is deluding itself.
We’ve traded thinking for tooling. Strategy for speed. Depth for polish. And in doing so, we’ve started to forget what this work is really about.
So here’s your reminder:
You are not your file.
You are not your components.
You are not defined by a tool.
You are a designer. A builder of systems. A navigator of ambiguity. A translator of complexity. A problem-solver. A creative force. A strategic voice.
So yes — learn Figma. Master it. Use it well. But don’t confuse tool fluency with design maturity. Don’t let the interface define your imagination. Don’t let a workflow shrink your thinking. Don’t let the craft become a cage.
Because the future of design doesn’t need more tool experts. It needs people brave enough to ask the hard questions. People who can lead through uncertainty, wrestle with tradeoffs, and fight for clarity.
It needs designers.
You are more than Figma. You always have been. Now it’s time to act like it.
So How Do We Get Back to Real Design?
Let’s not just diagnose the problem — let’s do something about it.
Getting back to real design doesn’t mean abandoning our tools. It means reclaiming the process and rediscovering the discipline underneath the pixels.
Here’s where we start:
1. Don’t Jump Straight Into Figma
Seriously — pause.
The moment you open the tool, you start solving at the surface level. But great design doesn’t begin in a file — it begins in your brain. Sketch. Write. Whiteboard. Think. Delay the tool until your thoughts are clear.
2. Practice Real Critical Thinking
Stop asking “Does this work?” and start asking “What’s the best fit for the problem?”
Design isn’t just about usability — it’s about intention. Push beyond surface solutions and challenge your assumptions.
3. Explore Multiple Solutions
There is no perfect design. There are only tradeoffs. So don’t settle for the first thing that works.
Generate three to six different approaches. Each one should reveal something new — about the problem, the people, or the possibilities. This is how you grow your judgment and sharpen your strategy.
4. Build the Foundation First
Before you jump to UI, build what sits underneath it.
You need user flows. You need IA maps. You need models of the system. Use object-oriented design. Map behaviors and relationships. Surface-level design only works when it sits on solid structural thinking.
Don’t just decorate — architect.
5. Talk More, Click Less
Design lives in conversations — not just in files.
Collaborate with your PMs, devs, and stakeholders early and often. Understand their goals, constraints, and perspectives — they’re not obstacles, they’re assets. Design isn’t a solo act. It never was.
6. Stay Uncomfortable
If it feels too smooth, too fast, too easy — it probably is.
Good design is messy. Complex. Incomplete. The discomfort? That’s where the real work begins.
This is how we reclaim design.
Not by rejecting our tools — but by remembering what they were meant to support: thinking, structure, creativity, and clarity.
The file is not the work. You are.
Part of a series: Not Dead. Not Done. Real Talk in Design.
Design isn’t dead — but it’s not what it used to be. This series is a raw look at what it really means to survive, fail, adapt, and keep building in today’s world of design. No buzzwords. No fairy tales. Just real talk for the ones still fighting.
Articles in the series:
