February 5, 20268 min read

✂️ How to craft good design · The Bunker #135

We all know that feeling when a product just feels right. You can feel the solid construction and the feeling is brutal.

Often it’s because it feels simple, yet at the same time very complete and well thought out.

It even feels easy to use.

It feels intuitive, clean and obvious. But the truth is that simplicity is damn hard to achieve.

The designers you admire didn’t get to those clean interfaces by accident. They got there by asking hard questions, making painful cuts, and resisting the temptation to add one more feature.

After 10 years working in UX/UI with clients and companies, here are my best tips for trying to nail a design with a brutally good feeling.

🎭 The Paradox of Simplicity

“Good design is as little design as possible.”

Simplicity isn’t about removing things at random. It’s about understanding what matters and having the courage to cut everything else.

The problem is that most designers see their job as adding value through features. More buttons, more options, more capabilities. But reality is the opposite: simplification increases adoption.

Adding more things, even if they seem trivial:

Makes the user take longer to reach their goal. Direct opportunity cost for the company.
Makes the user not understand the product well, and decide not to buy it. Another opportunity cost for the company.

Many of our decisions directly impact how much a company can generate with the product. So whatever is there, should be there for a reason.

🔍 The Hard Questions

Achieving simplicity requires you to become ruthless with every design decision. Before adding anything to your interface, ask yourself:

Is this button a necessity? Or is it a feature that’s cool?

Will users not be able to complete their main task without it?
Or does it make you feel better for offering more options?
Or are you adding it because you’ve seen it in other products?

Does this component add value or just distract?

Does it help achieve the goal faster?
Or does it divert attention from what matters?

Can it be invisible? Can it be hover-only maybe? But at the same time, if it’s on hover, do we sacrifice accessibility?

Native components exist for a reason. We often overcomplicate our lives building super complex components when operating systems already provide them. It’s fine to do custom things, it gives personality to the product, but the user is already familiar with native menus, they reduce consumption, and reduce scope. Fewer components, less maintenance.

📖 Product designers are storytellers, not purely interface designers

If you think about it, much of our work consists of trying to explain a story to the user in a way they understand.

Want to create a workflow?

How do they find the workflow?
How do we teach them to use it?
What should I explain if they try to save?

⚔️ Why Simplicity is So Damn Hard

1. Requires deep understanding

You can’t simplify what you don’t understand. Simple design demands that you know your users’ goals intimately, that you understand the hierarchy of their needs, and that you can distinguish between core functionality and peripheral features.

And often, the hard truth is that these are things only a trained eye perceives.

2. Takes more time, not less

Creating something simple requires extensive exploration. You need to:

Research aesthetics and content structure
Test multiple approaches
Iterate constantly
Have the discipline to start from scratch when something doesn’t work. Sometimes starting from scratch allows you to create something new without the noise and influence of what came before

Spend more time on preparation and research and not so much on the design itself. When you’ve done a lot of research, the design will come naturally.

3. Requires courage

Every stakeholder wants their feature included. Every team member has an opinion. Simplicity requires you to say no, a lot. It requires confidence to remove elements that could be useful in favor of an experience that feels effortless.

You have to know how to prioritize well what a specific customer needs vs what will really help the product scale.

4. Try not to solve the same things in different ways

It’s very easy to introduce many features that have the opposite effect of guiding the interface. You make the user have to memorize patterns and achieve the same thing in various ways. Ideally, there should only be 1 way to do things.

5. AI-First

AI is no longer a separate product, it’s something completely integrated into our daily lives and you shouldn’t think of it as an afterthought. Your initial design decisions should already contemplate AI integration.

6. It’s a constant battle against yourself

Your instinct as a designer is to show your skills. But great design is transparent, it doesn’t call attention to itself. Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.

And no, you won’t be judged by how many things you put. Good designers know how to appreciate other good designers even when you don’t put anything on the screen.

Because deciding “not to put something” is an active decision, not a coincidence.

🛠️ The Process Behind Simple Design

Start with content, not visuals

Content shapes design. Design follows content. Nail the structure and focus on the key content before touching aesthetics.

And by the way, don’t use storytelling. Content and how you communicate is part of the experience too.

Question everything

A good designer is brave enough to question the role of every aspect of a project and has the confidence to leave out or make invisible any element that adds complexity or is unnecessary.

Use the 3-5 interaction rule

Can a user perform their main action in 3-5 taps? If not, you’re overcomplicating.

Adding clicks is fine, but if you remove the clicks, can they still achieve it? What of everything you’re doing can be automated.

Embrace white space

The space between elements allows users to focus on individual objects without distraction. Keeping plenty of space around a button makes it easier to find and tap.

Test ruthlessly

You can’t know if your design is simple enough until real users interact with it. Good design doesn’t need explanation, it explains itself.

💸 The Real Cost of Complexity

When you add unnecessary elements:

Users experience decision paralysis. More options lead to fewer purchases. More options slow down execution, add friction and make users not achieve their goal. On websites, this puts the paywall at risk.
Attention gets fragmented. Each extra element competes for focus.
Primary actions get buried. The most important features get lost in the noise.
Maintenance becomes exponential. More components mean more edge cases, more bugs, more documentation. More maintenance.

✨ The Aesthetic-Usability Effect

And finally, people perceive designs with nice aesthetics as easier to use, even when they’re not. That’s why simplicity matters double. It’s not just functional, it’s perceived as better.

But don’t confuse “aesthetic” with “decorated”. True aesthetic beauty comes from:

Clear visual hierarchy
Consistent spacing and rhythm
Predictable navigation patterns
Thoughtful use of color and typography

The designers you admire make it look easy because they’ve done the hard work you don’t see. They’ve asked the hard questions, removed the distractions, and fought to keep only what matters.

“Less, but better. It concentrates on the essential aspects, and products are not loaded with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.”

That’s the work. That’s what makes design damn hard.

See you next week ✌️

Jordi.

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