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A good database design needs to meet these core conditions: Data integrity: keep data accurate, consistent, and valid, using constraints to prevent bad data Normalized design: eliminate redundancy, conform to an appropriate normal form (typically 1NF-3NF), and avoid update anomalies Performance optimization: design indexes and partitioning strategies sensibly to ensure fast queries and high-concurrency capacity Security and reliability: solid access control, data encryption, and backup/recovery mechanisms to keep data safe Scalability: an architecture that can grow with the business, supports horizontal/vertical scaling, and stays maintainable Business fit: accurately reflect business logic and data relationships to meet real application needs Naming conventions: consistent rules for table and column names, improving readability and maintainability These conditions are interrelated and need to be balanced as a whole, making the best trade-offs for the specific business scenario.

In the early stages of product design, the most important core documents include: Product Requirements Document (PRD) The most critical document. It defines what problem the product solves, who the target users are, what the core features are, and how success will be measured. The PRD gives the whole team a unified product vision and direction. Market Research Report Covers competitive analysis, user research findings, and market opportunity assessment. It grounds product decisions in real market demand and user pain points rather than guesswork. User Personas and User Journey Maps Describe the target users' characteristics, behavior patterns, and usage scenarios in detail. Journey maps lay out the complete flow of how users interact with the product, helping identify key touchpoints and opportunities for improvement. Technical Architecture Document Produced by the engineering team. It defines the technical approach, system architecture, and technology stack, ensuring the design is technically feasible and guiding subsequent development. Prototypes and Wireframes Visualize the interface layout, interaction flows, and feature logic. They help the team and stakeholders understand the design intuitively and surface problems early. Project Plan and Milestones Define the development timeline, resource allocation, key checkpoints, and deliverables, keeping the project on track and expectations clear for everyone. These documents are interconnected and together form the foundation of product design. In practice, the level of detail can be adjusted to match the product's complexity and the team's size.

In the AI era, syncing with backend engineers is barely necessary anymore. When someone else's backend is involved, my workflow is: put the frontend and backend projects in the same folder -> let Claude Code read and understand the backend project and the frontend framework -> specify the constraints and code requirements and have it write a thorough frontend development doc -> build the frontend features. No tedious back-and-forth needed at all.

Payload CMS is quite nice — simple and convenient to configure. The catch is that the Next.js + Payload combo is still fairly resource-hungry, especially at build time. Worth keeping an eye on.