Design Details · Brian Lovin, Marshall Bock

463: Design Medley, Vol. 1

October 18, 2023·34 min·3 clips

Brian argues that gratuitous animation in dashboards is disorienting and bad for customers.

The chill has arrived. Brian brings in pumpkin spice creamer, Marshall counters with a Costco Christmas tree comparison, and then the show settles into design talk. The docket is loose: pixel stuff, design system stuff, motion stuff, and a sidebar on sharing work while it is still in progress. The strongest thread is button sizing. Joey asks when designers should move away from the default and use small, large, extra-small, or extra-large buttons. Brian likes the question right away. The useful tension is whether size should depend on the button's job, where it sits, or how someone is using the interface. Their answer lands somewhere simple: all of that matters. A sign-up button, a navigation bar action, and a full-screen interstitial are not doing the same job, so they do not need the same physical treatment. The modal example gets specific. If a takeover has one main goal and one preferred path, a larger button can pull the eye toward that option without extra explanation. Size becomes one more control designers can tune, along with copy, icons, and visual weight. The constraints matter too. A button inside a 48 or 44 dip top bar has to be smaller, narrower, and quieter because the container is already making part of the decision. The conversation stays grounded in everyday interface tradeoffs: fit the space, match the goal, scale the label and icon together, and do not pretend one default can handle every case. By the end, the mood loosens again. They point listeners toward the sidebar, mention Twitter and Patreon, and return to the pumpkin spice bit.

As heard by us

A loose, useful design conversation that turns button sizing into a lesson in intent, context, and product judgment.

Design Details uses its medley format well, moving from seasonal banter into the small choices that make product interfaces feel intentional. Brian Levin and Marshall Black spend the strongest stretch on button sizing, treating it less as a fixed rule than a set of pressures:…

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Why you'd press play

You want a smart, loose conversation about button sizes, breakpoints, motion, and work in progress.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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