Episoder
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I remember the exact moment where I first explored MercuryOS. It was clear Jason Yuan was one of the most skilled design thinkers I'd ever encountered. No wonder he landed a role designing AI products at Apple shortly after.
But the main reason I wanted to interview him was to learn more about his new product called Dot. It's by far my favorite personal AI and a beautifully designed experience. So this conversation is a behind-the-scenes of his latest journey and a fun glimpse at what the future might hold for software products. We go deep into:
What it looks like to design with soulWhat makes Jasonâs design process uniqueWhy Jason left Apple to build New ComputerHow Dot is the spiritual successor to MercuryOSHow more designers need to become AI engineersWhy Jason thinks dynamic interfaces are over-hypedHow to design a product based on one magical interactionWhat Jason learned about storytelling from his background in theatrea lot moreDownload Dot or check out the websiteJason's original MercuryOS projectThe original Dot website featuring Meiâs story (from the Wayback machine so give it a minute to load)Jason references Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of Super Mario Bros) -
Mariana Castilho has one of the most impressive career trajectories of any designer Iâve ever met.
I first saw her while mentoring through Shift Nudge and within a few years sheâs landed roles at Universe, Vercel, and most recently as the first designer at Pierre.
One of the keys to her growth has been investing in her skills as an engineer. So a big part of this interview is learning what it takes to transition from designer to builder.
Some highlights:
The future of design engineeringWhat makes designing dev tools uniqueHow Mariana has grown as a visual designerWhat itâs like working with design celebritiesWhat it means to care deeply about implementationHow she finally succeeded her 3rd time learning to codeHow teams like Vercel consistently hit a high bar for crafta lot moreSave $200 and join me in enrolling for UI Engineering 101 for designersMarianaâs component library UI LabsMariana led the original design for v0 by VercelVercelâs Geist Design System -
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This weekâs episode is with Janum Trivedi who makes some of the most stunning prototypes in all of design. So the main goal of this conversation is to answer the question âwhat makes a piece of software feel great?â
Some of the key talking points:
The 3 levels of animationShipping a major refresh of the Netflix iOS appWhy shaders are a big deal (and how they work)How Janum built the download animation for ArcWhy Janum built his own animation engine (Wave)Learning the principles of fluid design working on the iPad pointera lot moreCheck out Janumâs demos on his website2018 WWDC talk âDesigning fluid interfacesâThe Book of Shaders websiteDisneyâs 12 principles of animation -
Ben Blumenrose was one of the earliest designers at Facebook and has spent the last 12 years as a co-founder and Managing Partner of Designer Fund. Thatâs allowed him to invest in many of the design founders that youâve heard from on this shown (like Jorn from Framer or Colin from Visual Electric).
So the goal of this conversation is to tap into Benâs perspective as a designer turned investor. This episode creates a blueprint for people interested in designing for startups or maybe even building a company of your own.
Some highlights:
The story of investing in FramerHow second-time founders think differentlyUnderstanding your gaps as a design founderWhat it looks like to truly act as an owner at a startupWhat Ben looks for when investing in design foundersWhat types of market opportunities Ben is most excited aboutHow Ben transformed customer support in his first month at FBThe things you should be learning on the job before launching a startupa lot moreApply for the Designer Fund Partnership program
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Imagine leading the design of an AI product that skyrockets to a billion+ dollar valuation in under two yearsâŠ
Thatâs the story of Perplexity and today we get to hear from their founding designer and current Head of Design, Henry Modisett. Some of the highlights from this conversation:
What it takes to thrive as a founding designerWhy Henry likes hiring designers who can codeThe challenges of designing dynamic interfacesWhy Henry didnât want to anthropomorphize the AIThe initial creative direction for the Perplexity brandThe keys to making a consumer product cognitively fastWhy Henry built a mini design system as his very first stepa lot moreSHOW NOTES
Ivan (CEO of Notion)âs tweet about not having a design systemPerplexityâs incredible brand designer named PhiWe talked about how booking.com is a masterclass in optimizing UIKEY TAKEAWAYS
Starting with a design system
Before Henry had any idea what the Perplexity product would become, he built a component system in React as the first step. The goal was to give himself a toolbox to make it easy to assemble new features. Many components are obvious (ex: you know youâll need a grid, type system, color system, buttons, etc.). We donât have to overcomplicate design systems. Theyâre the thing you invest in to move fast⊠not the thing you invest in once you have most of the interface figured out.
Empowerment through code
When you write code, you develop a stronger emotional attachment to the product. Youâre also empowered to continually make improvements without having to go through engineers. The more removed you are from what ships, the easier it is to dish blame on someone else for an experience being janky.
âHaving designers that can code is a hackâŠquality just happensâ
Velocity is everything
Henry makes a point to prioritize velocity over exploration, debate, visual design, etc. And a big part of what makes that possible is empowering designers to make decisions. If itâs a UX question, the designer needs to make a call (âgo with your gut and if you want to change it later you canâ). This is also why having designers who can code is key. Nothing is cemented. You donât need permission to iterate after something ships.
Dynamic UI systems
At the root of Perplexity are UI systems that display dynamic content based on what the user searches. That means as a designer you canât possibly mock up all use cases. You have to think about interfaces as slightly abstracted (ex: âentity comparisonâ which can work for comparing dog breeds, restaurants, etc.). Part of designing a dynamic system is you have to be ok with percentage outcomes. Sometimes the formatting isnât going to be perfect.
Youâre designing the system, giving AI the tools to use, and hoping that it works most of the time.
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This week's episode is with Ryan Scott who was an early designer at Doordash and then spent years as a design lead at Airbnb. Nowadays Ryan teaches hundreds of designers ranging from seniors to VPs how to make a bigger impact at your company.
This episode is jam-packed with insights about:
What itâs like presenting at Airbnb CRITWays to unlock your credibility as a designerHow to mitigate risk when presenting your ideasWhat it takes to speak the language of the businessTypes of âPM-yâ questions that designers should be askingHow Ryan led a massive redesign of the Airbnb booking flowThe right (and wrong) way to make a case for investing in UX debtHow to talk about your work in a way that resonates with non-designersa lot moreGet $100 off of Ryanâs course âDescribing the ROI of designâRyanâs case study on redesigning the Airbnb checkout flowPast interview with Alex Schleifer (Chief Design Officer at Airbnb) -
Investing in my personal brand has been the best investment Iâve ever made in my career. So I wanted to find the perfect designer to give a personal branding masterclass and I think itâs Oliur.
Heâs built a massive audience across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, etc. and he shares his hard-earned knowledge in this episode:
Oliurâs keys to growing on social mediaDifferent ways to create leverage in your careerHow he (accidentally) landed a billion-dollar clientHow you can get more confident putting yourself out thereSpecific ways to build meaningful connections with other designersWhat designers need to know to get better at marketing themselvesa lot moreOliur cites James McDonald as an example of someone sharing their workOliurâs iPhone presets and high income streams videosWe talk about his friend Ali Abdaal (YouTuber, Podcaster, NYT bestseller)Jason Levinâs iMessage screenshot of Travis Scott performingI referenced Jack Butcherâs âthis is pointlessâ graphDan Pettyâs âThat Marker PackâThe old Audience Building course on Maven (RIP)Turkish designer Oguz (Oliur talked about the power of his aesthetic)Gabe Valdiviaâs new app Almanac that he built with Cursor -
This weekâs episode is with Maheen Sohail who is a senior staff designer working on generative at Meta. She joined as one of the earliest designers on both the VR and AI teams, so a big part of this discussion is about navigating ambiguity when thereâs no clear playbook to follow.
We go deep into:
New types of interface patterns for AIThe unique ways she thinks about prototypingEthical considerations when designing AI produdctsHow Maheen explores AI models through side projectsWhy the goal posts for what it means to be a designer are shiftinga lot moreâ KEY TAKEAWAYS
Nobody knows what theyâre doing
This is especially true when youâre designing products for emerging technologies like AI. Itâs easy to look at people working on these AI-native products and assume they have it all figured out⊠but weâre all still learning and exploring whatâs possible. This came up in George Kedenburgâs episode too.
Curiosity > everything
I asked Maheen what traits are more important than curiosity for people interested in designing AI products. Her answer? Nothing.
The importance of passion projects
Thereâs a trend Iâm noticing in these interviews⊠the designers who are creating cutting edge use cases for AI are the ones actively exploring the technology with side projects. Reading essays isnât the way to learn. You have to want something to exist in the world and use that as a reason to figure out whatâs possible. For Maheen it was using AI models to colorize images of Pakistan. For Nate Parrott it was using AI to hallucinate in HTML.
Maheen references Alex Cornellâs storytelling abilitiesMaheenâs demo for animating drawings (itâs very fun)We referenced Colin Dunnâs episode about the importance of naming in AI productsMaheenâs colorized photos of PakistanMaheenâs FakeID podcastMetaâs AI releaseMaheen raved about the Rosebud journalling app -
After 8 years designing at Meta, George Kedenburg III pulled a 180 and joined Humane as a design lead. So this conversation is a deep dive into designing AI products and how the role of product designer evolves in an AI-native company:
How to become a creative problem solverHow George navigates ambiguity at HumaneWhy thereâs no such thing as an edge case with AIWhat George learned while using AI to learn PythonHow AI is reshaping the landscape for software designWhy George created a Slackbot to prototype his ideasWhy designing AI products is a bit like designing a kitchena lot morePushing past the pixels
The real value of design is being able to look at an ambiguous situation and understand what you should explore.
Rectangles so happen to be the most common way to express that value. But the real skill is creative problem solving.
Working at a company like Humane forces designers to contribute design thinking beyond the pixels.
Prompt design > prompt engineering
If the AI model is a chef, then youâre responsible for designing the kitchen.
You donât know what the user will order, so itâs a lot of trial and error to ensure you have the right data on hand at the right moments.
Itâs no different than thinking through drop-off in an onboarding flow. Which is why George views working with these models as âprompt designâ rather than âprompt engineeringâ
There are no AI edge cases
When youâre prototyping AI products, your prototypes donât âbreakâ or âfall overâ like they do in Figma. Thatâs because the boundaries of what exists in the prototype become much blurrier.
Instead of designing contained flows, youâre laying a foundation and allowing the model to extrapolate out from there. There are no more hard edges.
George mentions Claude Artifacts as an example of someone putting the pieces together in the right order
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Visual Electric has quickly become my go-to product for image generation and in this weekâs episode we get to learn from the founder and designer, Colin Dunn. The whole discussion is an excellent look at the design founder journey as well as a deep dive into AI-native creative tools. We get into the weeds about:
Visual Electricâs big bet to take on CanvaThe hidden challenges with designing AI productsColin's approach to early user and market researchThe art and science of raising funds for your startupWhere the value will accrue in the landscape for creative toolsWhere Colin draws the line between abstraction and power in UXThe wild backstory of how the company was named âVisual ElectricâLessons learned learned from early startup ideas that were shot downKey takeaways:
AI is like electricity. Once we gained access to this new form of power, we immediately replaced candles with outlets. But it took 50+ years before the microwave and other staple household appliances were invented. When electricity came on the scene in the late 19th century it wouldâve been impossible to imagine these types of products. Colin believes the electricity layer will quickly become commoditized, and instead is solely focused on building âappliancesâ for AI. Because someone is going to build the oven, the sewing machine, the coffee percolator, the electric can opener, etc. It might even be you đChoosing the level of abstraction is one of the core challenges with designing AI products. Most users donât want to be burdened by all of the knobs and levers of the AI model. Thatâs why itâs essential that we define new patterns and mental models that make AI easy to understand. But you have to be careful, because âthe more you abstract something, the less control users have over itâ. One example Colin shares is why theyâre considering combining the âreference sliderâ and âcreativity sliderâ. It simplifies the UX but at the cost of control. And striking that balance is one of the challenging parts about designing Visual Electric.Language is an awkward medium for visual ideas. We need more effective ways to provide visual inputs if we want to generate high quality visual outputs.Want to get early access to Visual Electricâs new product? đ Click hereColin talks about his great his experience with User InterviewsGreg Rosen was the investor who helped Colin in the early daysJess Lee is the Sequoia partner they met withTom from Manual led the branding and chose the name âVisual ElectricâHereâs Manualâs case study on designing the Visual Electric brandVisual Electricâs brand story page (which Ellis Hamburger helped with) -
The Arc browser is one of the best products Iâve downloaded in the last few years which is why Iâm so excited about this interview with their founding designer, Nate Parrott.
This conversation, we get an inside look at what makes design at the Browser Company so unique. We discuss:
How Nate went from engineer at Snap to the Browser Co.Why design at Arc prioritizes fingerprints > consistencyHow Nate collaborates with engineers on ArcThe story behind Arc Searchâs hook featureThe Browser Coâs culture of prototypingHow Nate balances intuition and dataa lot moreâŠNateâs gamified personal websiteA24 film studioNate references the Co-Star astrology app and the old Zenly appPatrick Moberg (the designer on Boosts)Karla Cole (the designer who pulls inspiration outside of tech)Nateâs feeeed RSS app -
This weekâs episode is with Dan LaCivita who is a co-founder of Playâa new way to design mobile apps using native iOS materials. As soon as I saw this app clip I knew it was a big deal and that I had to interview him to learn more.
So in this conversation we go deep into:
How to unlock the skill of interaction designWhat Appleâs sandbox unlocks for designersWhy they decided to launch Play as a mobile appThe importance of keeping your hands in the clayHow AI might impact the future of interaction designa lot moreDan mentions his cofounder JoonYong ParkThe App Clip that first blew my mind -
Gavin Nelson is currently designing the Linear mobile app in addition to the best app icons on the internet. So this episode is a deep dive into prototyping and interaction design:
Gavinâs journey learning SwiftUIHow Gavin got into designing app iconsHow to design physics-based interactionsWhat itâs like designing for power users at LinearWhy interaction design is so important for mobile appsWhy Gavin uses code almost exclusively for prototyping nowWhen it makes sense to prototype at the beginning of your processThe interplay between custom and stock components in mobile designThings by Cultured CodeJanum shows interactions in the Netflix mobile appEpisode with Brian Lovin (who Gavin worked with at Github)Episode with Alex Cornell (who started the design of the Linear mobile app)Parallax effect from the Linear onboarding screen -
If you watched last weekâs episode, then you heard Jordan Singer say how visual search was actually the âkiller featureâ (not generative AI). Whatâs interesting is that this feature was actually a mid-project pivot.
So in this episode we get the full behind-the-scenes of visual search from design engineer Vincent van der Meulen:
Why they decided to pivotHow Vincent went cowboy modeA look at the future of design engineeringWhat good design looks like in an AI worldWhy visual search is a big deal for future AI toolsHow Vincent used video to get Figmates excited about his ideaa lot moreMarco and Jordan from the old Diagram teamMatt Dailey was the engineer that proved designs can be represented as images2024 Config Keynote showing Vincentâs Uber example for visual search -
Live from Config, this episode with Jordan Singer follows his journey from the Diagram acquisition all the way to Figmaâs 2024 AI release. We go deep into:
What didnât ship at Config and whyHow they navigated the early idea mazeHow the role of designer will be impacted by AIWhat it will be like designing dynamic interfacesWhat makes Jordanâs new role at Figma so uniqueWhy renaming layers was such a big internal debateWhy the sparkle icon will become the new floppy diskThe surprising pivot that led to Jordanâs favorite AI featureHow Jordan prototypes by hacking on top of the Figma code baseThe old Diagram websiteFigmaâs new AI landing pageFigmaâs blog post introducing AIFigmaâs 2024 Config Keynote -
This weekâs episode is with Kathy Zheng who is currently the Head of design at a Web3 protocol called Optimism. But before that she was the first designer at Patreon and went on to spend over 6 years at Github.
So the goal of this conversation is to look at how Kathy grew as a designer while at Github and identify the specific milestones on her journey to reaching senior and eventually staff designer.
We get into the weeds about:
How the role of staff and senior designers differThe traits shared by the best designers at GithubHow to give your ideas a chance to become memesHow to avoid conversational spinout on your projectHow to identify opportunities using systems thinkingHow Kathy is growing as a design leader at OptimismSpecific techniques for storytelling and presenting ideasSome of the people mentioned in this episode:
Max Schoening (former Head of design at Github)Brian Lovin (bookmarking repo project)Kat Fikui (coworker at Github whose .readme we mentioned)Connor Sears (old manager at Github)Jack Conte (Cofounder of Patreon) -
When you think about storytelling in design... Alex Cornell is often the person that comes to mind. And that's a big reason why he's one of the most requested guests on the show. So this episode is a deep dive into the finer details of communication. We talk about:
The story behind his startup CocoonHow Alex leverages his background in videoAlexâs precision and obsession with languageWhy Alex left linear to work on generative AI at MetaWhy getting buy-in for your ideas is kind of like a math proofBehind-the-scenes of the wild videos Alex made at FacebookLessons learned designing the Substack and Linear mobile appsThe mental models Alex uses to construct compelling narrativesa lot moreAlexâs startup CocoonAlexâs famous Chevron vs. 3 Dot video from FacebookAlexâs favorite monospace font is Jet Brains and his favorite serif font is TiemposKlim is Alexâs favorite type foundryWe discussed the dual-panel approach in the Amie mobile app -
This weekâs episode with Maggie Appleton is a deep dive into designing for AI products and LLMs. Maggie shares about her experience as the first designer at Elicit (an AI assistant for research papers) and all of the unique challenges surrounding helping users interface with LLMs.We also go deep into:How Maggieâs grown as a frontend developerWhy Maggie feels like sheâs in a short-run limboStrategies for improving your technical literacyHow writing online has impacted Maggieâs careerThe AI-native tools that Maggie is drawing inspiration fromHow advancements in AI will redefine her role as a designerHow Maggieâs new understanding of LLMs is shaping the way she designsWhy Maggie is more interested in the cognitive applications of AI rather than generative AIMaggie is currently leading design at Elicit (theyâre hiring)âHow Trello is differentâ is where Joel Spolsky explains the differences between horizontal and vertical softwareOpenAIâs introduction of ChatGPT-4oWe talked about the product tldrawThe expanding dark forest and generative AI: Maggieâs talk about the possible futures of flooding the web with AI-generated contentEpisode with Soleio where he talks about looking for âtime to proficiencyâ in design candidates
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Remember how Michael Wandelmeier told us Metalab hired a storytelling coach? Well that coach is Ian Wharton. Heâs an Apple Design Award winner, CEO of Aide Health, and he teaches storytelling techniques to teams like Dyson, BBC, Huge, etc.
So this episode breaks down the key storytelling concepts that he shares in his course Sell the Idea. We talk about the importance of the inciting incident, how to empower others to share your ideas, and a lot moreâŠ
But he also presents some compelling ideas about why designers are the most suited people to start companies that solve societal level challenges. All you need is a bias toward action. So if youâve been considering starting your own thing, thereâs a lot we can learn from Ianâs journey as a design founder.
Ianâs course Sell the Idea (use the code RIDD at checkout for 30% off)Ianâs personal websiteIanâs business Aide HealthMackinnon and Saunders (the stop motion company Ian worked with) -
~6 months ago Amy Lima was laid off and has been preparing for this episode ever since. So in this interview she gives us an inside look at her process for landing a dream role at Duolingo. If youâre looking for your next role then this conversation is quite the playbook. She has the job hunt process down to a science.
Some topics covered:
Avoiding burnout amidst the chaosHow Amy negotiated her Duolingo offerAmyâs advice to proactively prepare for a layoffThe ways Amy iterated on her portfolio presentationHow Amyâs career coach shaped her interview strategySome hard lessons learned during her job hunt processHow Amy measured everything in her application processa lot moreShow notes:
Amyâs layoff announcement postCareer CompassCharlotte Burns (Amyâs job hunt coach)Levels (transparency database + salary negotiation tools)Amyâs job announcement postSponsors:
Framer: How I build websitesJitter: How I animate my designsRaycast: How I do everything on my computer - Vis mere