Quality is the Default
An essay by Austin Knight
Summary
Software has been commoditized. Design has not. As the cost of building products has dropped, so has the bar for what's considered good. Mediocre products are everywhere, but users haven’t lowered their basic expectations. They still judge a product by how it feels, how it works, and whether it accomplishes what they need. They expect the experience to be clean, fast, and intuitive. In other words, they expect quality. Good design leaders recognize this and view quality not as a luxury, but as the default expectation. Something that isn't up for compromise or negotiation.
Users don’t care how hard your product was to build. They don’t see your roadmap or org chart. They don’t know about your legacy codebase or design system constraints. They just experience the outcome.
That outcome must be coherent, fast, reliable, and thoughtfully executed. Small flaws like visual bugs, awkward transitions, and glitchy interactions all signal carelessness. Over time, they add up to what I call Design Debt (it's like technical debt, but for design). When there is enough of it, trust in the product starts to erode. Designers aren’t being perfectionists when they flag these issues. They’re protecting the baseline expectation.
That expectation must be enforced not just within design, but across every function. Quality emerges from a shared responsibility across all of design, engineering and product. Good design leaders introduce and establish this culture, while good companies ensure their peers in engineering and product will pick up the mantle to scale the culture across the team.
People need good design—it’s not just a luxury.
— Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO
Quality is Competition
The best products feel intentional. They earn trust through polish, responsiveness, and restraint. They don’t always have the most features, but they offer the most confidence.
Figma vs. Adobe XD
Figma redefined the design tools category. Its real-time collaboration, interface clarity, and speed made it the obvious choice. XD started strong. Back when it was still called Project Comet, it was far ahead of the competition. I interviewed one of their leads on the UX & Growth Podcast and knew the team personally. I also knew the team at InVision (and interviewed Aaron Walter) and they were rightfully intimidated by XD. Both of these teams were absolutely stacked with top-talent. But Adobe’s structure was too heavy, and InVision lacked focus. I don't think either truly saw Figma coming, and when it showed up, they couldn't keep up with Figma's execution velocity or product quality.
Eventually, Adobe gave up and tried to acquire Figma for $20B, but that was blocked due to regulatory hurdles (and the design community is probably better off for it). And we all know what happened to InVision. Dylan Field’s leadership at Figma was rooted in taste and product intuition, reinforced by execution and a culture of excellence.
Apple Notes vs. Evernote
Notes became the quiet default because it focused on what matters most: instant access, reliable sync, and a frictionless writing experience. It works beautifully across devices, launches instantly, and disappears when it needs to. Evernote once had loyal users (I remember people ranting and raving about it years ago), but it collapsed under its own weight. It introduced unnecessary features, suffered from sync issues, and eventually felt more like a legacy app than a modern tool. Users didn’t leave Evernote because Notes had more functionality - they left because Notes was a better experience.
Linear vs. Jira
Linear is the Porsche 911 of issue tracking: refined over time, built for purpose (and performance), and loved by the people who use it. The interface is clean, the animations are fluid, and every detail from keyboard shortcuts to loading states feels intentional. By comparison, Jira is bloated, slow, and fragmented by years of unchecked complexity. It prioritizes configurability over usability, and that tradeoff shows.
Quality matters. Bugs are defects, not a natural part of your product environment. We have a zero bug policy at Linear: all bugs get fixed in 7 days (usually in 1-2 days).
— Karri Saarinen, CEO of Linear (via X)
Loom vs. WebEx
Remember Loom back in the day? Loom’s original experience was pure magic: record, share, and play instantly with delightful UI and snappy performance. Tools like Zoom and WebEx couldn't begin to touch an experience like that. To this day, they feel like enterprise software, because they are. Loom did a great job of showing how a focused, high quality experience could break through adoption barriers even at large enterprises. I remember when I was at HubSpot, the corporate tooling team that vetted internal software and signed big enterprise contracts was refusing to entertain the idea of a Loom subscription. But it didn't matter what they thought. Loom was slowly and steadily being organically adopted by people all over the company. It became the cool way to communicate. Hell, it was replacing email and HipChat (remember that?).
I was always impressed by that growth path: win the hearts and minds of the people with a great experience, and they'll advocate to the decision makers on your behalf. Soon enough, HubSpot signed a big expensive contract with Loom. They honestly had no other choice. A company that brought consumer-grade design to an enterprise context won. It turns out, even in large corporate environments, people appreciate simplicity and quality of design.
Craft vs. Notion
Craft is elegant, tactile, and thoughtfully structured. It balances power with simplicity, offering a writing experience that feels focused and rewarding. The typography is calming, the gestures are intuitive, and everything feels native. Notion, while flexible and extensible, has become increasingly bloated. Menus are deep, interactions can feel clumsy, and content often feels boxed-in. Similarly, Confluence has long suffered from sluggish performance and visual clutter. It’s the tool you use because you have to. Craft is the one you reach for because you want to.
Things vs. Todoist
Things by Cultured Code is perhaps the most refined task manager ever made. Every detail, from typography, to animation, to interaction design, feels considered and cohesive. Adding a task is fast and satisfying. Scheduling feels natural. It’s a tool that rewards use with joy. Todoist and Microsoft To Do, while capable, feel transactional by comparison. They’re utilitarian, not delightful. They check the box but don’t invite the user back. Things feels like it was crafted by a team that uses their own product and takes pride in every decision.
The details are not the details. They make the design.
— Charles Eames
Quality Impacts Culture
Good designers want to work on good products. High standards attract high-performers. When a team prioritizes quality, that reputation compounds. It draws in people who want to rise to that level. The more good people you have on your team, the higher the quality of the product gets, and the more likely you'll attract other good people to the team in the future.
It's a self-reinforcing loop that happens regardless of whether you're intentional about it. This means products and teams can similarly spiral toward low quality.
Mediocrity is contagious. But so is excellence.
Set the Bar and Keep It High
Quality is a clear signal of leadership. It tells your team that they’re expected to build something great, and your users that they can expect nothing less. When the standard is high, everything else follows.
Design leaders who enforce quality aren't polishing for polish’s sake. They're protecting trust. In the product, the team, the company. They understand that it's not about how many features you ship. It's about what you ship, and how well you ship it. Do less, well.
The best products feel like they were built with care, because they were. And that care doesn't happen on its own. It happens because someone made it the bar and kept it there.
