Avsnitt
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My #1 source of imposter syndrome is when I see designers prototyping beautiful interactions like this or even this.
It’s one thing to create gorgeous interfaces, but crafting complex interactions from first principles is designing on expert mode. And it’s a big reason why Linear lists interactions as a requirement three separate times in their job description for principal designer.
So this week’s episode is all about how to unlock the skill of interaction design 👇
Gavin Nelson (Mobile designer for Linear)Janum Trivedi (Prototyping specialist at Airbnb)Alex Cornell (Gen-AI designer at Meta)Dennis Muller (Founder + designer at Amie)Dan LaCivita (Co-founder of Play) -
I use Granola every single day and it’s quickly become a beloved product in the tech community.
But it was a winding journey to get there…
So in this episode their co-founder and designer, Sam Stephenson, gives a behind-the-scenes of what it was like going 0 → 1 with Granola:
How to navigate the idea maze for an AI productWhat Sam has learned about prompt engineeringWhat it takes to succeed as an early stage startup designerHow they arrived at Granola’s breakthrough interaction patternA glimpse of Granola’s future product roadmap and teams strategyThe piece of advice that reshaped how they think about onboardinga lot more⭐ Granola is offering 3 months free for you and anyone on your team(!!) using this linkThey’re also hiring a founding designerSam mentions Soleio who was their first investorDaniel Kahneman is the psychologist Sam mentionsThe Science of Managing our Digital StuffDavid Lee is the YC Partner who gave them onboarding adviceIf you liked this episode then you’ll enjoy the interview with Colin Dunn (co-founder and designer of Visual Electric)
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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I’ve spent a lot of time studying how the best design teams operate and two of my favorites are Ramp and Plaid.
So this episode shines a light on specific practices they put in place to create a culture of craft 👇
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What do Raycast, Daylight, Amo, The Browser Co, and Mainframe all have in common?
They all hired Ellis Hamburger to help tell their story.
So this episode is a bit different...
We're going to get away from the pixels and go deep into how you can use language to tell a compelling story about your product.
Some highlights:
How to tell a story that people care aboutLessons from the Language team at SnapchatBreaking down specific copywriting strategiesQuestions to help you figure out your product’s storyWhat we can learn from the CEOs of Snapchat vs. Browser Co.How to make your product onboarding unforgettablea lot moreEllis talks about the Browser Company’s “Peek” videoJordan Singer’s Mainframe websiteDaylight computer websiteEllis mentions the 222 onboardingThe Permanent website (”design is how its made”)Ellis quotes the Build bookAmo’s “Where did our friends go?” manifestoRaycast’s “Why” page and Focus mode -
AI introduces an opportunity for all kinds of novel interaction patterns.
But it creates a whole new category of design challenges too…
And this episode breaks down the biggest challenge of all.
Colin Dunn (Founder and Designer of Visual Electric)Maheen Sohail (Gen-AI designer at Meta)Tyler Angert (Founder of Patina Systems)Maggie Appleton (Design engineer at Normally)Ammaar Reshi (Head of Design at ElevenLabs) -
This week’s episode is with Alejandro Matamala Ortiz, the cofounder and Chief Design Officer at Runway—one of the leading generative AI companies in the world today.
The way they work is incredibly unique. So a big focus of this interview is digging into how AI is shifting the way products get built and what it all means for designers:
How the lines are blurring between rolesHow AI flips the order of building new featuresWhat it means to “carve” AI products vs. build themHow Alejandro believes the role of design will changeWhy the embed frontend engineers on the design teamWhere the film and video industry might be headed nexta lot more -
Most designers fall into the same trap when presenting their ideas.
So this ~5 min episode breaks down how to pitch your designs like a pro.
Chris AbadGabe Valdivia -
This week’s episode is with Christophe Tauziet who is the Head of Design at Plaid—one of today’s leading fintech companies.
We go deep into the ways he’s building a culture of craft and the rituals they’ve evolved to consistently sweat the details. There are a lot of practical processes and ideas in this episode.
Some highlights:
Keys to a great async video share outHow to foster a winning CRIT environmentWhy Christophe implemented “polish reviews”Ways to foster collaboration within a design orgPractical advice for giving better design feedbackHow Christophe changed what he looks for in design candidatesa lot moreBrian Lovin’s article “Teams should work with the garage door up”
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You can have the greatest design concepts in the world, but none of that matters if they don't make it into production.
So this episode is all about how to create an aura of inevitability around your ideas.
It features stories from early Facebook, Webflow, and Figma 👇
Vincent van der Meulen (Design engineer at Figma)Soleio pt. 1 / pt. 2 (second designer at Facebook)Kevin Wong (Head of product at Webflow) -
Palantir is one of the most powerful products in existence today.
It provides critical government and enterprise infrastructure from the factory floors to the front lines. You can literally build your own Airbnb on top of their development platform.
But with great power comes lots of complexity… So in this week’s episode, Design Lead Aashman Goghari gives us a behind-the-scenes of what it’s like designing products at Palantir.
Becoming better at “problem decomposition”Two patterns for handling complex interfacesHow to think through systems like a developerHow data models can impact your design processDesigning new user experiences for “Ferrari products”How to collaborate more effectively with backend engineersFinding the balance between edge cases and the golden patha lot moreAashman mentions the Concepts app for sketching on iPadPalantir is currently hiring designersYou can follow Aashman on Twitter -
When comes to brand design, Mike and Cara from Smith & Diction are pretty much top of the game (you might recognize them as the ones who did the brand identity for Perplexity).
During our interview, it didn't take me long to realize that these two have more hacks and mental models for creativity than just about anyone I’ve met.
So here are a few of my favorites.
Watch the full episode with Smith & Diction here: https://www.dive.club/deep-dives/smith-diction
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If you asked me “who has the best taste in design right now?” one of the first people I’d mention is Thiago Costa.
His product Fey is in the S-tier of design and I’ve studied his visual techniques for many years.
Finally, after over a 12 months of pestering he agreed to share his secrets in a interview 🙌
We go deep into:
Mastering the finer details of craftPutting AI at the heart of the new Fey 2.0Where Thiago draws inspiration outside of UIWhat it looks like to have a “heightened awareness”How Thiago evolved the Fey aesthetic from 1.0 to 2.0Specific visual techniques for making your UI more lifelikea lot moreCaravaggio is the painter who Thiago calls the “master of light”The Local Project interior design channel on YouTube -
Today we get to hear from Ammaar Reshi who is the Head of Design at ElevenLabs—the AI audio platform that has come up multiple times in past episodes.
So a big focus of this conversation is learning what it's like designing an AI-native product. We go deep into topics like:
The backstory of Ammaar’s viral AI experimentsPredictions for the future of voice as an interfaceWhat it’s like collaborating with an research teamHow he’s designing novel interaction patterns for AIWhat Ammaar looks for when hiring startup designersWhat it’s like designing at multiple hyper growth startupsa lot moreThread of all Ammaar’s AI experiments (including the viral book and podcast app)Ammaar mentioned chatting with Nate Parrott from the Browser CompanyAmmaar mentions the Rabbit hardware productAmmaar mentions collaborating with his friend Pietro -
How do designers from today’s top teams collaborate with engineers?
After many interviews I'm starting to notice a trend…
The highest functioning product teams throw away a lot of code and it’s a good model for what the new “handoff” process will look like. So this video highlights how it works at teams like Figma, Vercel, Perplexity, Airbnb, and more.
Jenny Wen (OG designer of Figjam now at Anthropic)Teo Connor (VP of Design at Airbnb)John Pham (former design engineer at Vercel)Vincent van der Meulen (design engineer at Figma)Balint Orosz (cofounder of Craft Docs)Derek Briggs (Design + Code at Hypermode)Anthony Menecola (Staff designer at Shopify)Ammaar Reshi (Head of Design at ElevenLabs — episode coming soon) -
This week's episode is with Chris Abad who has led design teams at companies like Google, Square and Dropbox so needless to say he's given a lot of design presentations over his 20+ year career.
So this conversation is a deep dive into storytelling and everything you can do as a designer to effectively share your vision and persuade stakeholders.
He shares every step of his process including a ton of practical tactics like:
Strategies for designing a great deckHow to set up Q&A for success with executivesHis new secret weapon software tool for storytellingStrategies for navigating pushback from stakeholdersHow to frame the “Peak Moment” of your presentationHow he coaches designers to leverage storytelling in their portfolioa lot more⭐ Don’t forget you can also save $100 on Chris’s Design Storytelling course using the code DIVECLUB
Chris mentions the importance of the Story10x bookIA Presenter is the new tool Chris uses for presentationsRidd uses SuperWhisper for transcriptions -
Systems thinking is often mentioned as the #1 trait teams are looking for in designers.
But what does it look like to be great at it?
This episode answers that question by highlighting stories from Notion, Anthropic, and more 👇
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This week's episode is with Anthony Menecola who is a longtime staff product designer at Shopify so we’re going to do a deep dive into ways you can make a bigger impact at your company as an IC.
One of the big themes of this episode is Anthony’s journey becoming more technical and contributing to the Shopify code base so if you’re interested in building your ideas I think you’ll get a lot out of this one.
We also talk about:
The archetypes of staff designers at ShopifyWhat it takes to create an impactful proposalWays to build strategic relationships at ShopifyHow to strategically circulate your design ideasThe art of sharing effective async video updatesHow Anthony identifies future-facing ideas to explorea lot moreAnthony’s website and TwitterThe Shop app -
When I say high stakes design project, what comes to mind?
How about Ryan Scott redesigning the Airbnb checkout flow right before a $3.5 billion IPO? Now THAT is a big time project…
So this episode is all about tactics you can use to make big ideas happen at your company (even as an IC).
And if you want to go even deeper you can use these links to get $100 off Ryan Scott’s top rated Maven courses 👇
1️⃣ Describing the ROI of Design (https://join.dive.club/ryan-scott-roi-course)
2️⃣ PM Masterclass for Designers (https://join.dive.club/ryan-pm-masterclass-course)
Ryan Scott (design lead at Airbnb + DoorDash)Tyler Angert (1st designer at Replit and founder of Patina Systems) -
What does it take to create a product worthy of winning Mac app of the year?
I interviewed the founder of Craft Docs, Balint Orosz, to find out…
So this episode is a deep dive into how they work and what it takes to achieve this level of design excellence, including:
What Balint looks for in systems thinkersCraft’s plan to differentiate with personalizationWhat it looks like for designers to take ownershipHow designers experiment with LLMs and shadersBehind-the-scenes of their viral “quick add” featureWhat makes Craft’s approach to product planning so uniqueThe challenges of designing a user-generated content producta lot moreIntroducing Craft 3
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I’ve interviewed a lot of staff designers to figure out what it takes to have real influence at companies like Shopify, Github, Airbnb, etc.
One thing is clear… if you want to make strategic impact as a designer then you have to get to a place of altitude that allows you to see the bigger picture.
This episode is designed to help you do just that.
Catt Small (Staff Product Designer at Dropbox)Mia Blume (Early design leader at Square, Pinterest + more)Soren Iverson (Founder of Iverson)Kathy Zheng (Head of Design at Optimism) - Visa fler
