--- title: "macro/micro design" author: "Rodrigo Galván" published: 2026-09-29 url: https://rglvn.uy/entries/macro-micro-design excerpt: "On the two altitudes of design, and knowing which one the work needs." tags: ["design engineering", "aix design"] reading_minutes: 5 --- # macro/micro design There are moments in design when the job is to make things exist. And there are moments when the job is to make them right. They sound like the same thing. They're not. I've started to think of them as two altitudes: macro and micro. Neither one replaces the other, and neither can live alone. But they ask for different mindsets, and for different tools. ## Macro: making things exist Macro design works from high up. It plans, structures ideas, decides what goes where and why. It's the moment of drawing the map before walking the territory. At this altitude things don't need to be fully consistent. The interactions can be rough, the spacing can be off, the states can be missing. What matters is that the thing exists, that its shape can be seen, that the pieces relate to each other in a way that makes sense. A rough version that exists is worth more than a perfect one that doesn't. Macro is about direction. It moves fast because it has to: its job is to find out what's worth building before anyone spends time polishing it. ## Micro: going to the detail Micro design goes down to the specific. One interaction, one transition, one border that doesn't quite match the others. It's where the craft lives, the part that people feel even when they can't name it. At this altitude speed is measured differently. It's slower, more careful, closer. It's looking at the same screen for the tenth time and noticing what wasn't visible the first nine. It doesn't question the map; it takes care of each place in it. Micro is about quality. It's what turns something that works into something that feels right. ## Not at the same time The two need each other. Macro without micro produces things that exist but feel unfinished, plans that never land. Micro without macro produces beautiful details in the wrong place, polish on something that shouldn't have been built. But they don't work well at the same time. When you're designing macro and you stop at every detail, you lose the whole. When you're designing micro and keep questioning the whole, the details never get done. Each mindset blurs the other. An experienced designer isn't the one who does both at once. It's the one who knows which one the moment needs, and switches deliberately. Knowing when to zoom out and when to zoom in is part of the craft too. ## Discernment and intuition How do you know which altitude the moment needs? Not from a checklist. The designer builds discernment and intuition over time, and uses them as tools, the same way they use any other. They're trained by use. Every project, every review, every time something felt off before you could say why, exercises the noticing a little more. And what you learn to notice, above all, is debt: the things left pending in one of the two modes, which sooner or later ask to be paid. Macro debt is structural. A flow that doesn't connect with the next one, a decision nobody wrote down, a piece that everything depends on and nobody designed, a plan that has been rough for too long. You detect it by stepping back: reading the whole again, following a path from end to end, asking what's missing instead of what's wrong. Micro debt is in the surface. Spacing that drifts, a state nobody drew, a transition that stutters, two components that should match and don't. You detect it by getting closer: using the thing every day, comparing side by side, looking again when you're sure you've seen everything. Each kind of debt points to its altitude. When the structure is what's failing, no amount of polish will fix it; it's time to go up. When the structure holds and the thing still doesn't feel right, it's time to go down. Noticing which debt is growing is, in the end, how you know where to be. ## Different tools for each Since they're different ways of working, they don't need the same tools. Macro works with plans, execution, and documentation. Structures that can be read quickly, decisions written down with their reasons, a clear idea of what comes first and what can wait. Tools that help think in systems and move many pieces at once. The value is in seeing the shape and being able to change it cheaply. Micro works with small tweaks. Adjusting a value and seeing the result immediately. Comparing two states side by side. Nudging a curve, a delay, a shade, until it clicks. Tools that shorten the loop between touching something and seeing it change, because at this altitude everything is found by trying. Using macro tools for micro work is slow and clumsy. Using micro tools for macro work gets you lost in the detail. Part of operating well in each world is picking the right instrument for it. ## Both, in the code Both altitudes work best in the same place: the code. For macro, because plans and structures that live in the code are plans that exist. There's no translation, no gap between what was decided and what was built. Execution happens where the decisions are, and documentation sits next to the thing it describes. For micro, because the details only exist in the real material. The timing of an animation, the way a component behaves when the text is too long, how a border renders at a corner. None of that is fully true until it runs. Tweaking it in the code means tweaking the real thing, not a picture of it. That's why products where designers code gain so much. In quality, in craft, and in final consistency. Not because designers become engineers, but because they can move fast when the work is macro, and stay close when it's micro, without anything getting lost on the way. --- Macro and micro aren't phases that happen once and in order. They alternate all the time, sometimes in the same afternoon. The work is to notice which one you're in, operate the way that altitude asks for, and change when it's time. Make it exist. Then make it right. And know which one you're doing.