Often times, when I design something that works I have a tendency of just using that over and over again. One example of this is to copy and paste parts of working code into new code. Usually I need to change something, but it makes for an excellent starting point. But this also applies to UI design. When I find a design that works I have a tendency to try and copy paste it everywhere else. I usually have to tweak it a bit for things like space constraints, but this has the upside of a unified design.

However… as you may have surmised from the title, there is a downside to this. And that is when the old design just won’t work for what I want. Now you would think the answer is simple “Just do something different” and yes it should be that easy. But then comes the “rigidity”. You see, I like the idea of the design being “unified”, of everything looking and acting similarly. So the idea of changing a design that has worked up to this point is a hard one to accept. And I struggled with first one idea that just would not work, then another that was somehow worse. But eventually I got it through my head to “just change the layout of the design”. This gave me the room I needed and actually helped differentiate a specific part of the design so that it wasn’t confusing.

So I guess what I have to say is this: Don’t get stuck in one way of doing things. Even if it works it isn’t always the best choice.