Staying nimble

2025/03/01 #uiux

As a UI/UX generalist I spend a good amount of my time working with a set of cutting edge tools that continue to change in some way or another every single day. The reasons for these changes are manyfold. Some new tools pop up all the time (recently it's mostly ones doing something with AI), existing tools get updates with new features (lately also mainly centered around AI), some tools get bought and implemented into other tools and some unlucky tools are binned entirely (looking at you Adobe XD).

However, the point I want to make here is that all of these reasons and thus all of these changes of the tools I am working with every single day are completely out of my control. This can be dangerous. If a tool I rely on to do my work gets discontinued or changes in a way that makes it harder or impossible for me to get the results I need from it I could be in trouble. So what can you do about this? By staying nimble!

One way I try to do this is by regularly trying out some of the existing alternatives to the tools I mainly use at any given point. In the past this has meant designing with Sketch when working on my personal project while continuing to do my client work within Figma. In the last few months I tried out wireframing on the iPad with slightly unorthodox tools like Apple's Freeform or Notes. Another good example is a former colleague of mine who turned to Microsoft Paint to stitch screenshots together for simple Mockups whenever Figma got on his nerves too much.

I think there's no reason to confine this learning to only the UI/UX field by the way. Regardless of what area you are working in – be it something completely tool-driven or something where you only occasionally have to rely on tools out of your sole control – it's always a good idea to stay aware of the dependencies in your workflows and think about alternatives so you have some potential exit strategies if push comes to shove one day. Change is certain. So remember to stay nimble!