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πŸ› οΈ 200 Figma variables. Two seconds.

February 25, 2026

Ship Better Interfaces

Build interfaces that stay clear when real users and real constraints show up.

Make better calls, faster with curated reads, distilled into the part you actually need: the takeaway, why it matters, and what to adopt every week.

Less churn. Stronger shipping. No filler.

unicornclub.dev

Hey πŸ‘‹

This week - a tool for offloading design-system busywork without losing design decisions, a validation layer that catches malformed components before they escape, and a tracking method that shows exactly where research recommendations die.

Enjoy πŸ¦„ - Adam at Unicorn Club.

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Think about these:

Build: Try an MCP tool for design-system library work before building manually.

Shape: Add a validation check that rejects malformed component usage before it ships.

Ship: Log each research recommendation with "Goal:" and "Shipped:" to track what reaches users.

Top 3 this week πŸ‘‡

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Build: The MCP Tool That's Changing How I Use Figma  β†—οΈŽ

Offload the library mechanics and keep the design thinking.

Why: MCP tools like Figma Console can automate repetitive design-system tasks (200+ variables in seconds), freeing time for the experience work that matters.

Adopt: Before the next library build, try an MCP tool for variable creation and component mapping.

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Shape: Your design system has opinions. They're just not being enforced  β†—οΈŽ

Documentation says modal needs actions. Production shipped without them.

Why: Without enforcement, design systems become hope: rules written down, trusted to be followed, discovered broken in production when a user stares at a dead end.

Adopt: Add a validation check that rejects malformed component usage before it leaves the design file or codebase.

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Ship: Tracking Adoption of Research Recommendations: The Recommendation-Adoption Score  β†—οΈŽ

Treat recommendations like inventory. Track where value gets lost.

Why: Research recommendations represent time, energy, and money, but without structured tracking, adoption gets overstated and breakage stays hidden until credibility takes a hit.

Adopt: For your next study, log each recommendation with "Goal:" and "Shipped:" labels so you can track what actually reached users.

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AI Coding Summit (Online, Feb 26–27, 2026) β†—οΈŽ

Online event (4 PM CET) covering AI-assisted software development and AI engineering, with talks and workshops on agentic workflows, code review, refactoring, and AI-assisted testing and QA.

Promo code: UNICORN (10% off tickets for AI Coding Summit ).

Dive into more

Shape: How design systems offer creative safety for product teams  β†—οΈŽ β€” Sameness is healthy when things that are the same look and feel the same; unhealthy when things that are different look the same. Use this lens in your next component review.

Shape: The Cost of Consistency: Avoiding Design System Bottlenecks  β†—οΈŽ β€” A rigid system turns a 5-minute padding change into a multi-week migration. Watch for when the "maintenance phase" cost rivals development cost.

Build: LLM-generated skills work, if you generate them afterwards  β†—οΈŽ β€” Self-generated skills before a task do not help. After the task, ask the model to write up what it learned for reuse next time.

Shape: The Technical Decision Framework  β†—οΈŽ β€” A framework for the choices that shape your codebase. Stop second-guessing your architecture, stack, and scope choices. Get the framework engineers use to make decisions they don't regret.

Useful Extras

Ship: A Broken Heart  β†—οΈŽ β€” A 100x speedup from one dumb line of code

Build: Native HTML components don't guarantee good UX  β†—οΈŽ

Build: Potentially Coming to a Browser :near() You  β†—οΈŽ β€” A CSS pseudo-class for pointer proximity

Build: Introducing CSS Grid Lanes  β†—οΈŽ β€” Masonry layouts without JavaScript

Shape: Product Leadership in Government: The Missing Middle  β†—οΈŽ

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Adam Marsden at Unicorn Club

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Adam from Unicorn Club

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Curated by Adam Marsden