9 // How I Build Features

I’ll again share a couple of sketches with you, and continuing on last week’s note—that I just threw out a design minutes after starting to implement it—I’ll tell you a bit about my design process.

When I start thinking about a new feature, like recently with the new query component, my ideas are too vague to start coding on it.

All I need to accomplish before coding is having a clear enough vision of the final product.

That’s where tools like pen and paper come in. They help me think and give my mind a broader canvas, and of course help me remember my ideas. Pen and paper are a great tool for thought.

More complex topics that I would iterate through over time or when I want to visualize pixels, not just boxes, go into Figma.

But generally, in this almost prototype stage I’m in with Formable, I go from super rough sketches directly to coding it. Nothing I would recommend to a team of more than one.

Here are some sketches without comments. No need for you to understand them.

Formable still doesn’t have an icon. It doesn’t need one yet, but I do want one.