Five Pull-The-Thread Design Questions for Any New Feature

Before I open Figma for any new feature, I run through these five questions. They take twenty minutes and they save me from the version of the design I would have shipped if I had started with the canvas.

1. What does this feature look like when it is empty? Most product designers think about the loaded state and fudge the empty state at the end. The empty state is when you decide whether the user keeps going.
2. What does it look like when it is broken? Network failed, server timed out, the API returned malformed JSON. Design the error state explicitly. The default browser dialog is a confession that you did not.
3. What does it look like in dark mode? Not as an afterthought. As a parity requirement. If your light-mode mock looks better, your dark mode will look like an afterthought.
4. What does it look like at 375px? The phone is the floor. If your design only works on 1280px, you are designing for the wrong audience.
5. What does it cost to delete? Some features are easy to add and impossible to take back. Comments on profiles. Public reaction counters. Be more careful with those.

If I cannot answer all five, I am not ready to design.