# Bridging the Gap Between Design and Code

**URL:** <https://forum.zurb.com/t/bridging-the-gap-between-design-and-code/477>\
**Category:** Open topics\
**Tags:** design-influence, design-systems\
**Created:** [December 29, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/bridging-the-gap-between-design-and-code/477 "2025-12-29T16:43:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ben](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/ben/32/442_2.png) [@ben](https://forum.zurb.com/u/ben)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/bridging-the-gap-between-design-and-code/477/1 "2025-12-29T16:43:58Z")

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Designers recently have had the short end of the stick in the product world. But why?

_Perceived_ impact is everything.

A lot of the work that designers do has started to feel like a commodity, not because it doesn’t churn out results, but because the outcomes are tough to track.

**Ultimately, design outputs are ephemeral.** They get lost after the thought-work and discussions drive a product to success.

One solution to “seeing impact” is designers now taking up the coding front, doing the building themselves. [Cursor’s Visual Editor](https://cursor.com/blog/browser-visual-editor) is a testament to the idea.

It’s the same sort of concept as unicorn engineers being part-time designers, but in the sense of “what if that could be flipped upside down”?

This turns the designer’s work into long-lived, or even permanent outputs that can be useful to the user themselves, thus moving the designer closer to the core value: closer to the **user**.

Of course, we cannot forget that **Glare** is another way for designers to move closer to perceived impact, probably more so than a piece of code. I’m honestly wondering if this “design to code” mindset is actually missing the big picture: a temporary filler that will end up not really doing anything other than reducing the overall quality of their product.

Curious, where should designers be moving towards? Are we really headed towards designers pushing up code themselves, or should they be putting their time into something else?

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**Author:** ![Bryan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.zurb.com/bryan/32/448_2.png) [@Bryan](https://forum.zurb.com/u/Bryan)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://forum.zurb.com/t/bridging-the-gap-between-design-and-code/477/2 "2025-12-29T20:14:33Z")

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> [@ben](#):
>
> I’m honestly wondering if this “design to code” mindset is actually missing the big picture: a temporary filler that will end up not really doing anything other than reducing the overall quality of their product.

People want efficiency without effort, so as long as there are funds to keep exploring AI, this meandering will continue.

New workflows and processes need to be implemented to gain actual longterm production efficiency, and that will take work. But I can see benefits. Right now, I see it in our own work… a lot of rework, trying to figure out how to do it right with a team.

Glare is on the other side, with tactical and strategic thinking… which will ultimately create outsized multiples once people understand their production challenges.