Symbolception — A cautionary tale on Sketch symbols
As a recent adopter of Sketch, having come from Adobe’s Photoshop, I have found symbols to be one of the most important and versatile features of this app.
Looking back now, back to my Photoshop days, I feel like I was so unaware of how much better my life as a designer could be. The amount of control I have on my elements. How repeated elements, with a few simple overwrites can become so different; a few simple clicks and a few words typed in a field… Just WOW!
I quickly looked up tutorials on how symbols could be used to facilitate the creation of buttons, input fields, avatar pics, set up colours as symbols to tint shapes, and even create sustainable UI components through the use of nested symbols. (checkout Pablo Stanley)
I had become symbol obsessed!
In my previous company Sketch was still an tool unknown to many, I used it on a couple of projects at most, and so my workflow remained symbol centric. When I joined Runtime Revolution, I joined a team with different workflows and different approaches to using symbols.
My obsession was quickly discovered…
If your work is not final yet, if you are testing it, you should not convert your elements into symbols, or use nested symbols.
“But, but…” — The temptation is too great, I know.
I know it sounds like basic knowledge, but it is not. If you forget this it will be very tricky, sometimes painful even, to change that element back and forth, tweaking it past the available overwrites and adding any other details, while still remaining in context with the rest of the design.
This is due to the fact that you cannot preview how it will look in the bigger picture while editing the symbol. Sketch takes you back to the symbol page and after your make your changes it returns you to the big picture — it’s not a good flow for sure. If you have colleagues, with whom you share your designs, for review, it gets a bit frustrating that on a proof of concept type of work you have to click, click, click…, or press detach from symbol every single time.
Sketch has given me a very powerful asset with symbols, and for me, a layer name freak, a group hoarder and a tidy designer, it’s difficult to break away from this behaviour, but I will have to work on it and as Uncle Ben said to Peter Parker:
Everyone should be more responsible with the usage of symbols throughout their designs. This is especially true in the early stages, when we are only testing things out and so should have our elements be more temporary and adjustable.
So we must strike a balance between the Chaotic and the Symbolception state.
Editor’s Note: The timing of the “Symbolization” process is of crucial importance. While not covered in this topic, let this serve as a teaser for my next article where I will go further in-depth about this timing.
I appreciate you; taking your time to read my rambles. Thank you.
Hi stranger, I am Jorge André Saco currently giving it a shot at writing on Medium for my current company, Runtime Revolution.
You can check out my Behance and leave some feedback, as I am still navigating the UI/UX Design World.
-
Do you have any stories to share? Feel free to comment below! We’d love to hear from you!
At Runtime Revolution we care about the user experience. We are a team of designers and developers willing to make your ideas a success.
