If that's what you want you can just use Apple as a case study because that's what you end up getting if you want "modern" and minimal. Even just drop the CSS file from source into an LLM and go through how it is implemented.

https://www.refactoringui.com

PS. Refactoring UI is from the guys who created TailwindCSS.

It really depends what you're looking for. If you want something deeper, more abstract, I would recommend going straight to something like Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Christopher Alexander, which I think typically appeals to the more abstraction-oriented part of the mind of engineers. If you want to get more actionable, practical day to day recipes, Refactoring UI as suggested somewhere else in the thread is a decent suggestion.

It took me a few tries to get up the will to actually read it. It was years ago, so I don’t remember a lot of details. My main take away was to make controls logical for the thing being controlled. “Norman doors” are the big one, but I often think about it while I’m in my car trying to do something on a touch screen, when all I want is a knob, button, or switch.

In the modern era of web design I think it would point to these websites (like most of Apple’s product pages), that make users scroll through indulgent animations, just to get to the content. It may be cool the first time, but is very annoying for repeat visits, and it feels like it breaks my scrolling expectations. Not to mention all the horizontal scrolling thrown in there, which becomes a headache for those without the hardware to do it easily, and confusing to change scroll direction all the time.

I tried reading it and hated it, then I came back knowing bits and pieces of its contents from elsewhere and was like "yup, this is the only place I've seen all of this together".

I've never revisited the book and thanks to your comment I might not ever now ha

I have to admit that it was very hard to me to follow what they were saying.

Maybe I’m dumb, maybe the person didn’t explain it well, or, maybe system thinking is really complex and thus hard to convey and use.

Design thinking on the other hand is easy to understand and apply.

"Design Thinking" as a brand has codified that in several ways - not all successful. But the underlying principle is sound: there are plenty of examples of products/services that failed to address one or more of the 3 dimensions.

I found this quote from the linked article [0] more helpful:

> Design thinking can be described as a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.

[0]: https://www.designorate.com/design-thinking-guide-what-why-h...

The biggest differentiator of design thinking is really addressing the XY problem. In 95% of cases clients will come to you to design their solution. Ie they already think they have a solution to their problem and now they want it to look good.

Design thinking is basically more like root cause analysis, or the 5 why's.. and an emphasis on taking to end users (the people with the problem) without having a solution.

Once you understand the problem more fundamentally is only when you start cooking up with a solution.

And the result of that process might not even be a traditional design, but perhaps just a tweak to something, like moving your onboarding to later in the ca process..

In practice however.. 95% of designers who say they practice design thinking disregard this, and just want to design wherever the client asks for