This week's episode is with Andy Zhang who was the lead design engineer at Windsurf. So we're going to shine a light on all of the ways you can make an impact as a design engineer including:

• Owning more of the frontend polish
• Thinking through design patterns and packaging features
• Bridging the gap between technical features and intuitive UX
• Saying “no” to features to preserve the simplicity of the system

He also shares some great stories and advice including:

• What it was like working as an intern at Figma with <10 people
• How designers can start to get more comfortable with code
• How he taps into his experience as a PM at Uber while selecting the right design process
• a lot more

• Rasmus Andersson (https://x.com/rsms) - Designer/engineer at Figma, mentor to Andy
• Kevin Hou (https://x.com/kevinhou22?lang=en) - Lead product engineering at Windsurf, Andy’s basketball teammate who helped him get the job

I’d bet real money that you have been on Smashing Magazine at some point in the last 18 years…

Good news is, this week I got to interview the founder, Vitaly Friedman, who is also one of the leading thinkers in UX right now.

In this episode we go deep into how AI is changing the way we interact with digital products and how our patterns and processes are evolving as a result.

Some highlights:

• The use case for dynamic interfaces with AI
• How to design a less painful refinement journey
• The best AI design patterns to use for inspiration
• When to use quiet AI vs. visible AI in your interfaces
• Why more products should be “AI-second” not “AI-first”
• Why we need to slow users down when designing AI products
• How designers can establish trust when users interact with AI
• a lot more

• Consensus
• Elicit
• aiuxpatterns.com
• Episode with the Gamma Head of Design
• exa.ai
• Perplexity
• ChatGPT
• Gemini
• Norman Nielsen Group

If I told you someone had a background as a senior designer at companies like Uber, Dropbox, Apple, and Patreon then you'd be pretty impressed, right?

Same.

But Adam Noffsinger walked away from all of that to start Alma (which you might remember from the Smith+Diction episode).

So this episode is a deep dive into what it really looks like to go 0→1 as a design founder.

Adam even walks us through his Figma file for Alma so if you’re interesting in startups or designing something from nothing, then I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation 👇

This week’s episode is with Pietro Schirano who is the founder of the new design tool MagicPath and one of the true forward thinkers on AI. We go deep into the future of prototyping, design workflows, and what it takes to catalyze your career with AI.

Some highlights:

• How design workflows will evolve
• Using AI as a collaborator not just a tool
• How Pietro was able to build influence at Anthropic
• Why interactive prototypes are becoming table stakes
• What designers need to understand to master the models
• Why design architects will be the highest paid role in the future
• a lot more

• DesignerGPT (5 million users)
• TweakCN
• Origami (Facebook’s prototyping tool)
• Figma.ai domain purchase

This week I got an inside look at Figma Make while talking to Holly and Nikolas all about the future of prototyping…

We get into real world use cases for different kinds of prototypes and how our workflow is evolving as designers.

One thing is abundantly clear, things aren’t so linear anymore.

Some highlights:

• How Figma Make fits into your workflow
• Rethinking what “high fidelity” means for a prototype
• How code is the glue and what it means for collaboration
• What are the less obvious use cases for prototyping with AI
• Meta prototyping with interactive playgrounds and inspect panels
• a lot more

• Figma Make - AI-powered prototyping tool within Figma
• Variables in Figma
• Advanced Prototyping in Figma

Last month we did the ultimate Raycast Deep Dive, but there's a lot in there… so this week I want to highlight just the segment from the product design team.

We go deep into how they collaborate, why they’ve started shipping more code, and what it takes to build a culture obsessed with craft.

Don’t forget to use code DIVE20YT to get 20% off your first purchase of any Lovable plan ❤️ Valid until August 21, 2025. Go to dive.club/lovable to start creating

Full Raycast episode - The Raycast Deep Dive

This week, Gunnar Gray (Product Design Lead at Perplexity) dives into the art of designing AI-native experiences.

He shares lessons from shaping Voice Mode and how prototyping with AI is changing the design process at Perplexity.

Some highlights:

• Why Perplexity is racing to get ideas into code
• What it’s like designing at a hyper growth startup
• What it’s like designing dynamic voice experiences
• Gunnar’s journey learning metal shaders with Cursor
• How Gunnar strategically invests in his design skillset
• a lot more

• Perplexity - AI-powered search and discovery platform
• Cursor - AI-powered code editor
• Particle News app

Cursor is easily one of the most impactful companies in all of tech…

And this week's episode is with their Head of Design, Ryo Lu.

You might've heard of Ryo in this episode back when we talked about early Notion and systems design.

So this week we're going to get an inside look at how design operates at Cursor and all of Ryo's experiments with AI 👀

Some highlights:

• What Ryo believes about the future of HCI
• How Ryo handles a barrage of user feedback
• How Ryo approaches systems thinking at Cursor
• How Ryo unified the core primitives of Cursor’s system
• Laying the foundation for the future of Cursor’s system design
• Inside Ryo’s design process and how he knows what to pursue
• Why Ryo thinks specialization will matter less in an AI-enabled future
• Why Ryo believes the future of interfaces will match how people think
• a lot more

This week's episode is with Julian Lehr who is the storytelling lead at Linear

So we're going to step out of the pixels for this conversation and focus more on how you can get people excited about what you're designing.

Because in the age of AI, stories are what makes your product defensible.

So we're going to go deep into Julian's creative process and how he kinda thinks of his role more as packaging.

Some highlights:

• Julian’s sources of inspiration
• Understanding Julian’s creative process
• The new analogy that Julian is working on for Linear
• Linear’s strategy for storytelling for their “Agents” release
• The importance of visual design in copywriting and marketing
• How Linear’s in-house creative studio collaborates on storytelling
• How Linear evolved from using “opinionated” to “purpose-built” over 3 years
• a lot more

• Antimetal website
• Arena for inspiration
• Julian’s website
• Linear’s hands of god visual for Agents release

You probably know Intercom… but did you know they recently incubated a new startup called Fin that has already surpassed the core business?

They’ve pulled off a massive transition to an AI-native product and design org so today we’re going behind-the-scenes with their VP of Design Emmet Connolly.

Some highlights:

• Why Emmett believes designers will own the frontend
• The opportunity for design systems in an AI-first world
• What Emmett looks for when hiring designers in the AI era
• Why liquid glass represents the wrong direction for design
• How Intercom’s AI product Fin overtook their core business
• Why the start of an S-curve is the best time to be a designer
• How AI is flipping the traditional product development process
• a lot more

• Plato’s cave analogy
• OpenAI’s forward deployed engineer role
• Apple’s liquid glass design
• Fons Mans helped on the design of Fin