Design — 2020 Software

When every meeting went virtual, captioning became mandatory—not just for the hearing impaired, but for the person whose kids were playing drums upstairs. Keyboard navigation became critical—not just for motor disabilities, but for the user whose mouse battery died and they couldn't find a AA battery anywhere.

Software design in 2020 was ugly, frantic, and exhausting. But it was also the first time the industry collectively remembered that on the other side of the screen is a tired, hungry, slightly frantic human being. 2020 software design

If you look at the history of software design, certain years act as "pressure cookers." 2007 (the iPhone) changed ergonomics. 2004 (Web 2.0) changed participation. But 2020? 2020 didn’t change technology. It changed context . But it was also the first time the

Suddenly, onboarding had to happen in "micro-moments." A tool like Loom exploded because there was no onboarding—you just hit record. A tool like Figma thrived because you could watch a collaborator work in real-time. But 2020

We kept the async workflows. We kept the brutally honest error messages. We kept the accessibility defaults. But we threw away the panic.