08-24-25
I was reviewing a student’s profile page design last week. He’d created a page with the usual elements - name, social handle, about section, email. He’d even added an “Achievements” section that wasn’t part of the assignment because, as he put it, “without that, it would just be very blah… It still kind of feels minimal, but not in an intentional way... In a, ‘I don’t know what else to put here’ kind of way.”
I know that feeling. You land on something that feels… fine. Clean enough. It functions. But you’re settling because you genuinely ran out of ideas, not because you chose to be minimal.
Sometimes the issue isn’t the design itself, it’s the context.
I told the student: “It’s sometimes hard to do that when you have such a small, limited, homework assignment. It’s not necessarily gonna be the most dynamic kind of looking page.”
Then I showed him something simple. I added a status bar at the top of the phone mockup. Time, battery, signal bars. Then the bottom navigation bar. Suddenly, the design felt more official.
“Sometimes when you start adding in the actual details that are gonna live with all the other stuff, it’s like, okay, well this is not as blah as I thought it was.”
When you design a profile screen in isolation, it feels empty because it is empty. Add the UI elements that will actually surround it, and it starts to feel intentional.
But context is just the starting point. The real work happens in exploration.
Here's something I shared on the call: “One thing that’s really gonna help everyone is just, you know, bang out like 10 more versions. Don’t overthink it too much, but change it like quite a bit, especially when you’re just exploring.”
Don’t make 10 tiny variations of the same idea. Make 10 legitimately different approaches. What if the image was huge and the content minimal? What if you tried 60px padding instead of 24px?
Fig. 1
This is especially true with homework assignments. Unlike client work where you might need to follow established systems or brand guidelines, homework is your chance to exercise creative freedom. Try things that feel too bold or too different. Really stretch yourself.
The magic happens when you study your own work. You make version 3 and the color choices work really well. You make version 7 and realize the hierarchy of the UI elements are clearer. Now you can combine the best parts and make informed decisions.
Once you’ve found a direction through exploration, that’s when you zoom in on the details. Does this need to be 17px or 15px? Should this padding be 24 or 28? These tiny iterations matter, but only after you’ve established the bigger picture.
When you can point to different approaches you tried and explain why you chose what you chose, you’re demonstrating clear thinking. You’re showing systematic process instead of hoping something works.
That’s the difference between “I don’t know what else to do” and “I explored different approaches, refined the details, and this works best for these reasons.”
Next time you feel stuck, try adding context first. Then explore broadly. Then refine systematically. You got this.
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