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Design rationale, critique and decision records · Proficient · Lesson 79 of 99 · 10 min video, then about 2 hours of practice
Writing design rationale and design documents
After this you can write a short design document (problem, goals, options, recommendation, open questions) that lets people review your thinking without a meeting.
Why it matters
As your scope grows, more of your influence happens in writing: a design doc or one-pager read asynchronously by people you will never be in a room with. The structure that works is the one engineers use for technical design docs, adapted: context, goals and non-goals, the options considered with their trade-offs, the recommendation, and the open questions you want input on. Write the options honestly, including the one you did not pick. Trap: a design document that is a gallery of final screens. The screens are the conclusion; the document is the argument.
How to use this resource
A practising designer's concrete advice on structuring and explaining design rationale, including what to leave out. Published 2020; the advice is about communication, not tools.