For a long time, while building solo projects, I would start designing and then get discouraged, or become too excited about the coding part and switch over to building. This often led to quick progress initially, but it would quickly stall out as soon as I encountered a complex UI requirement or a lack of forethought in the product's features.

The same thing happened with my product, called Marble, an intermittent fasting tracker for iOS. After some initial inspiration, I was able to complete a significant portion of the product in a way that was usable, but not necessarily pleasant for the user or easy to understand. I got stuck trying to iterate with different screens and figuring out what data should be presented to the user.

After being stuck for a while with no progress, I decided to test making a UI design again, and this time I chose Sketch instead of Figma. Figma has been my go-to for a long time due to its collaboration features and my previous experience using it, but it often caused a lot of decision fatigue, leading me to abandon the design for any product.

Sketch was one of the first design apps I was introduced to and seems to have come a long way since I first used it. It was also my default choice because many Apple UI kits are provided for Sketch. After getting set up and familiar with the app, I was impressed by how fast I could recreate my current progress and start working on new features of the app. Having all the standard Apple components within reach was a huge game-changer and made it possible to try out a few variations while still maintaining the look of a native iOS app.

This approach won’t work for everyone, but I’m definitely going to try designing iOS apps before starting to build them, especially with how simple it is to get started with Sketch.