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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.
AI has made me faster but less proud of what I create.
Tyler:Yeah. That's related. It's it's probably because I pushed pixels and Figma that I'm there was work invested versus that piece kind of being automated. Mhmm. But I'd say like back to like the discovery phase like leaning into that harder, like the problem solving and idea creation part is it's really core to what we do and that you should be And you're officially live.
Nick:We're officially live. Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. Alright. We're going to do a a quick fire episode.
Nick:Multiple questions around product design careers and whatnot, all answered within five minutes per question.
Tyler:Do it. I'm ready.
Nick:Yeah. First thing I saw this week is around email design. You know, newsletters, transactional emails. Is that a thing you guys do at your company? Like, from a design perspective, do you think do you think about it?
Tyler:I do. And I feel like I'm the only one in the shadows thinking about emails. I don't know whether it's, like, in the b to b space, but, like, people forget about emails and how the power of emails. Everyone thinks about the the in app experience and, like, notifications, etcetera, etcetera. But, like, the power of an email is, like, unchallenged.
Tyler:And I'm and I'm I'm wondering why more people don't leverage email for whether it's, like, promotions, new features, a status update, which dives into, like, email notification settings. Underutilize more than for for my liking.
Nick:Yeah. Well, yeah, for sure. Like, if you if you would list the social media accounts you have and I would list mine, like, there's probably overlap, but also places where you are active and I'm not, and then the other way around too. But you and I, we both have email address, everyone with a phone has an email address. You know?
Nick:So it's very safe. The reason I'm bringing it this up is because I saw a post on social media somewhere where the designer was very confused about, you know, the design of newsletters and and emails. Made me think about just the different email clients that you have. Some are very outdated, and I've had a few newsletter clients. And it's very hard to design for newsletters because you have to you have, you know, Outlook, different versions, and the Gmail, Apple Mail, all you know, they all do things slightly different.
Nick:So it's not really something you can go really fancy in. It has to be very basic to make sure that it works for all these clients, even like Outlook '20 sixteen, if you have a corporate client, for example. So it's very frustrating to work in, but also I don't think many people do it. So it's also perhaps an opportunity to become newsletters design expert.
Tyler:I think so. Yeah. There's so many rules. There's like I I think there's two types of emails that you can create. It's one, it's like if it's a newsletter.
Tyler:So like when you're saying newsletter, I'm imagining someone with a personal brand who is kind of sending out content, writing newsletters leading to, like, whatever their product or service. And then there is the enterprise, and that could be, like, an ecommerce shop or that could be, like, a business. They're sending out emails. And how you design either one, I think, vastly differs. I think for the first one, if it's a personal brand, there's you have to think about, like, spam filters, the content versus text.
Tyler:Because when you're doing the personal brand, I think the we've moved for we've moved towards the minimalist design. So, like, what I've seen work really well is just text based, no buttons, no CTAs, just text links Yeah. And keeping it, like, underneath three links in in total to keep you from moving to that promotional slash spam. That folder, like, the creativity is I think it's more in the copy than it is the design of the actual email for, like, that that first Yeah. Persona there.
Nick:Yeah. I think so. I I I've seen some very cool new set of designs, but then they for reasons you say they they do break or they do not really have a good delivery rate. You know? So boring I know.
Nick:Maybe boring is not the the good word, but boring is probably the way to go here.
Tyler:Yeah. And also depends on, like, the your audience, like like, how many subscribers you have. Because I've seen, like, Femke, for example, has a really good designed email, meaning it's not simple text. It has, like, the blocks, different layouts, promoting different things. But like the affordance there is that she has a larger list versus someone who's starting out and has a smaller list.
Tyler:You're you're you're trying to play by the rules, and you're you're Yeah. You're playing that. You're optimizing for open rate, which the person who has a larger audience can kind of get away with it.
Nick:Yeah. The bigger your list gets, the the lower I think your open rate gets. You know? Because I remember with my smaller list, I was very happy with the 50% open rate. But then people told me, like, yeah, you know, just wait.
Nick:Just wait until you have, like, 5,000 people. You'll you'll be happy with 30%. And I'm not sure why that is, but it's apparently, it is the case.
Tyler:Yeah. True. Or you can clean the list and then maybe make the open rate rate higher. But still, like, that's a balance of, like, open rate versus click through rate. So Yeah.
Tyler:Maybe the open rate is lower, but the click through rate might still be higher if you keep everyone.
Nick:It's it's a bit like SEO. Like, there's this black box thing we don't really understand. Only, like, we can put things in and something comes out, and then we try to have a conclusion on on why that is, but we don't really know. Like, some people say you have to be really strict about your list. Like, if someone doesn't open your newsletter for three editions in a row, they have to go out.
Nick:Because if you get too many non opens, like, you know, Google Mail service will notice and they will flag you and they will not deliver your emails anymore. While some people also say, like, that's complete nonsense. Like, nobody really knows that. It's just a myth, you know, and that's an SEO thing as well, you know, where the Google algorithm, nobody really knows, you know. Yeah.
Nick:So I think it's a cool opportunity, newsletter design, but it's also very frustrating at times. So It is. Be warned.
Tyler:Yeah. I mean, yeah, I I think underrated is emails because it's like what it is is a holding pattern. Like, you've you've brought people into your world, and then they get these emails so that they're top of mind until you have something to kind of deliver. Like, you want them to go and purchase something or go in a on a website or watch a video, etcetera, etcetera.
Nick:Yep. True. I wanna keep talking about newsletters, but that's not what we're doing here today.
Tyler:I mean,
Nick:you know, want to talk to shout yeah. I want to say, like, next, you know, next one.
Tyler:What's next?
Nick:Well, we have a few few more people losing their their interest in product design because of the higher challenge level that that we have these days. Is that the case? Is is it really more difficult than before? Because I think, for example, for junior designers, I think it's always been very tough to get your first job because people have always been looking for fresh out of school, but three years of experience.
Tyler:Yeah. Of course.
Nick:You know, I I don't think it's that different today, but I also might be too far away from it with, you know, ten years on the job. So I wanted to verify that thought with you. What do you see?
Tyler:I'm seeing more like, I'm seeing, like, people I'm I'm now on Reddit because of you, so thank you for the for the sales now. I'm deep into the UX Reddit threads. I'm seeing more people leaving UX into non tech related spaces. So people starting their own, like, whether that's going into real estate, starting their own nail salon, like, people leveraging, like, their the business side of, like, product design while leaving the aesthetic, like, the design the design part, which seems like an interesting transition, like starting your own thing. It has nothing to do I mean, you can probably make the website.
Tyler:You can probably make, like, if there's a servicing part of it, but I'm seeing a lot of people leave for, like, a traditional a traditional job, I guess. But in the entrepreneur, like, being a business owner, which is interesting.
Nick:I had a I had a colleague, client slash colleague. He was a UX designer, senior UX designer, and he opened an Italian restaurant. Mhmm. You know, made me think of him when you said that people are going more in traditional jobs.
Tyler:Yeah. Which is interesting. Like, years ago, I I a developer that I a old colleague of mine, he he quit doing, like, engineering work, and he opened up a like, one of those ninja warrior spots where you can, like like, we have kids or adults practice, like, doing the monkey bars or doing those little tricks thing. I was like, what an interesting pivot. Yes.
Nick:Yeah. It's it's it's not it's like just leaning into something else. Like, I'm an engineer in IT, and now I'm going to be a marketer in IT, but it's just leave everything behind, do something completely different. Mhmm. I will I will always wonder if they take parts of their original job with them to a new job.
Nick:So if the the designer guy opening a restaurant, will he have the best website with the greatest UX ever because of his background?
Tyler:Yeah. And I think even higher level, I think it's probably just bringing over problem solving, the ability to problem solve. There is a problem, and then how do I how do I fix it? Something goes wrong, that's okay. Let me Yeah.
Tyler:Let me fix it for the next I think that mindset at least might be might might be well served when you transition to something that's outside of that potential world.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. That's true. You know? So it also goes to show if you're a bit selfish.
Nick:Like, if you can survive long enough with more people leaving, know, also if you surviving like an AI wave or whatever, probably higher. I'm not sure how big the the outflow of people actually is because you read the the horror stories on
Tyler:Yeah.
Nick:On social media, but you don't know if it's like 1% or or the majority of people or something in between.
Tyler:Yeah. And I think it's also just, like, the consequence of, like, the role changing. So it's becoming this this is what I've seen also on the developer side. I think it mirrors what's happening on the design side as well is that the developers are doing, at least where we we are now. Like, the the code that's being generated is by Claude, like, probably 70% of the time.
Tyler:But the majority of what they're spending their time on is what they're calling a planning document, which is let's think about the problem, the different use cases, and then this document is then given to Claude to execute. But they're spending the majority of that time planning out the discovery and, like, what should be built, which is what I think we're doing now. We're spending more time on at least what I'm seeing on my preview is like more time on the discovery and less time on on the execution part.
Nick:Yeah. And for me, that's fine. Like, I enjoy that early stage work. But yeah. But you also have people who really enjoy like the the literal crafting and just the the rectangle drawing to, you know I I don't want to minimize it too much, but, you know, that part, like, the really the pixel perfectness, almost like the painting and the artistry of it.
Nick:Like, that's what people some people also really enjoy that part. And I think that's more under fire today than the early stage work. Yeah. I I yeah. I I still like it.
Tyler:I recently figured out how to not have to Figma, which is interesting. And so we're doing a lot of prototyping in in Claude or Cursor. And then once that's validated, then I have to translate it to Figma, which is still an important step because there's that's where you can find the edge cases. The prototype is really happy path, you can't always see some of the things you have to kind of think about. Like one one example is like if you have statuses for like a table, for example, you generally when you're prototyping, you're not you're not having a table with all eight different statuses.
Tyler:Those are kind of jumbled in your head. But Figma has this Figma agent tool, which I use to basically take a screenshot of the vibe coded thing and have it create the UI in Figma, but I connect my design system to it. So it recreates the screen with the right tokens, with the right components, with the right variables. So essentially, I'm not pushing pixels. I'm having AI push the pixels, which is which is fine for me, but I I understand why like, if this is the direction we're going into, the people who are really hunkered down on, I need to, like, be in the weeds touching each border radius, I understand what's being lost there.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I get it. It's no no shade.
Nick:Like, I'm I'm I really don't want to say that they're they're wrong or anything. Like, I really get it. Before we continue, if you're feeling stuck in your design career or if you feel like you're doing solid work while no one really notices, we've got a bunch of extra stuff on our website.
Tyler:We're building a community for product designers to actually learn, grow, and get hired, not just scroll and collect more inspiration.
Nick:There's also articles, checklists, and courses.
Tyler:All based on real world experience from both of us. No fluff, just what actually works.
Nick:Check out designtablepodcast.com. The link is in the description. And I I I am still not sure if, like, the the the thing you're describing, if it's better or just different. You know, is are you faster or is the results better? Or can you communicate it easier?
Nick:Or like, is there a real objectively seen is there an objective improvement somewhere with that way of working compared to you actually being in Figma?
Tyler:Yeah. Mean, I someone has to be in Figma because, like, that workflow is only enabled by the design system being perfectly created. Otherwise, if you didn't if I didn't have a design system, I couldn't do what there's still time. There's someone in there, person that's the head of the design system team who's making sure that all those components are are good and then they also scale. If that was there, I that that workflow is useless.
Tyler:Yeah. And especially especially useless if you're just starting from zero to one also.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Next one, I think somewhat related to to what we just discussed and partially an answer to my question maybe.
Nick:Kirst, what you think about this statement? AI has made me faster but less proud of what I create.
Tyler:Yeah. That's related. It's it's probably leaning on because like, probably because I push pixels and Figma, then I'm there was work invested versus that piece kind of being automated. Mhmm. But I'd say, like, back to, like, the discovery phase, like, leaning into that harder, like, the problem solving and idea creation part is it's really core to what we do, and that you should be proud of.
Tyler:Like, the output shouldn't just be the the consequence of you pushing pistols around. It's like the thought, the problem solving, the empathy for the users, the growing the business revenue, that part is hard too and then should be valuable. So you should be proud that what you did had a had a result.
Nick:Yeah. My yeah. Is is that something well, maybe more in open way, what part of your work are you the most proud of? Or do you have something that that you achieved recently where you're like, yeah, man, that that was great. I'm so proud.
Tyler:Yeah. There's like it's like the problem solving piece. So, like, probably most recently, like, was really, like, heads heads in the sand, like, prototype land, like, sales prototypes. We're selling a thing ahead of actually building it building it because we're trying to validate the concept. Cool.
Tyler:Someone we're seeing a lot of interest in this feature. People are close to buying it. Now we start to build it. Now, like, translating that into, a spec document, whether that's Figma or Confluence, etcetera. And then finding and then collaborating with engineering to figure out, okay.
Tyler:If we have a timeline to build this in, what can we include? Oh, I've just found this edge case. We can't we can't build it unless this other feature is built on the other side of the app that's owned by another team. So we have to coordinate like that problem solving piece. It it's rewarding for me at least.
Nick:It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.
Nick:I I can see that. You know, what happened recently to me is is in a group of people we work with, they were kinda going in circles. Like you have this this problem to solve and they were really, out of all possibilities, they were stuck in in one corner. So let's say you have solutions a, b, and c. They only were aware of a solution a potentially.
Nick:So they were all making variations on a, like on this one a corner. And I saw I witnessed all of it, and I I I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go completely the opposite way. So I'm I came in with the most extreme version of c, not meant to be the actual solution, but I just wanted to break them out of the a corner. You know?
Nick:So I was like, how about c? And they were like, no. No. No. No.
Nick:Wait a minute. How about and then we got all, you know, all the middle ideas, and this discussion opened up way more. You know. And I was really proud. I was looking at the discussion.
Nick:I was like, yeah. I am a good parent. I broke them up, and it's all it's all good now. The discussion is open, we're getting somewhere. You know, so that facilitator role, I think, was really cool.
Tyler:Yeah. Just like you have to find things that like I I guess the the outcome here is like defining things that speak to you, and it doesn't always have to be in like the traditional places.
Nick:Yeah. True. True. Alright. Next one.
Nick:If you have anything, by the way, know, feel free to also bring something up. Otherwise, I'll just continue down my list. Would should we talk about the the big annoying thing? Labels, job labels. I know you have a a view on how they blend together.
Nick:But if someone asks you what you what what it is you do, you still have to give the thing a name. Right? Like Yeah. Like, what are you today?
Tyler:Yeah. Like, what's my purview on? Like, label like, labels I don't care, but labels matter in the context. I don't care what they matter is is my answer there. Like, it it matters in terms of, like, the what's being communicated, like within like, I'm able to speak to it from the perspective of working in house.
Tyler:Like, it matters branding wise, like, your title and what that kinda communicates what your zone of not dominance, but your what you kind of control or like what you what part of the product or process you own. And, like, I think that's important because, like, that enables and the higher up you get, the more promotions you get, that unlocks a kind of a different branding moment, which facilitates better collaboration with other people as you kind of level yourself up. So I don't they all like, all these titles sound very, like, Star Wars ish, like, when I actually think about it. But, like, they matter in in in terms of, like, within a company, within an enterprise, like, how you're being perceived based on, like, the title that you have.
Nick:So are you are you saying that regardless of the the name, there should be design in it somewhere? Because people have a view of what of what design means for them.
Tyler:I think you have to I could be swayed on this one. I think you have to have it just so we don't forget to do it. Like, I feel like there's a world in which we called ourselves, whatever, builder level one. And depending on what you're more proficient at, like, you might forget, like, the design piece and focus on, like, the product and engineering piece. Yeah.
Tyler:But having someone with that title, like, design like, that at least it communicates that you're you should be doing a little bit of that.
Nick:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
Nick:You know, from a freelancer perspective, people search for something. You know? Oh, my my friends told me I need a UX designer to help me with my website. So they are, asking Google or a chat tool to, like, I look for a UX designer. So I I have to make sure I turn up in the places where people are looking for for a designer.
Nick:So so I think in house or when you're more or a design leader or a design influencer or a content creator, I think you can more, you know, play by heart, like just, you know, give yourself give yourself a label you think is cool or funny or or interesting. But I think for freelancers, it's the other way around. You have to make sure people are able to find you. You have to show up in the results. So I just call myself product designer at this moment.
Nick:I think that's Yeah.
Tyler:If I'm looking for
Nick:most common thing currently.
Tyler:I'm looking at someone to design my website. I'm looking for someone with designer in the name. Yeah. Which is yeah. That's totally fair.
Tyler:Like, you're it's the back to your SEO game as as well.
Nick:Yeah. If a stakeholder gives you a silly name because they don't really understand what you do, how much of a point should you make of it? Should you fight him or just be like, yeah. I mean, whatever. I mean, you don't have to fight him.
Nick:You can correct him.
Tyler:This is what I did.
Nick:Figuratively speaking, of course.
Tyler:Yeah. Would I think it's it's good to yeah. I think it's good to correct so that they know it's it's clear what the scope of your responsibilities are.
Nick:Mhmm. Yeah. True. True. Alright.
Nick:Let's let's do one more. I'm curious what what your favorite misunderstandings about our work are. You know, the things people say where you're like, that's just wrong. We haven't done that since the nineties, that kind of thing.
Tyler:Yeah. I think it's, like, top two for me is this is, like, when I'm explaining what I do to people outside of tech. I say if I say product designer, the first thing is, so you code. It's probably more true now, but, like, historically, it's like, oh, so you so you program the website? Like, no.
Tyler:Not necessarily. And then it gets into, like, this weird space. I just I draw I draw a picture and then people will code it for me. So it's like, that's that's one. That's a it's a bit annoying to navigate.
Tyler:And the other one is like, oh, so you do this is probably more relevant for me because I'm the title product designer. So I work on software. It's like, oh, so you do websites. Like, no. Not really.
Tyler:Kind of. It's I mean, it is a website, but it's more than that kind of thing.
Nick:Is there, like, is there a bit of I do more than just websites underneath that for you? Or
Tyler:It's just not what I do. It's not it's not like I do more than that. It's just not accurate. Right. Yeah.
Tyler:I mean, I love designing websites. It's not what I do at the moment.
Nick:So Yeah. I I have to explain it always to. You know? I I usually just look at I try to find something they're working on. So I was in a in a shop recently, and then this person asked me while that person was trying to work with some piece of software in the store, like like this this little thing where they can check if a product is in stock.
Nick:You know, you scan the thing and then it tells you. And he was very annoyed and the thing didn't work. And then and then while talking about it, I I told him like, well, I designed things so that that doesn't happen. You know, him being frustrated because he didn't understand the interface and the machine. And he's and he was like, oh, there's a lot of work for you to do.
Nick:He said very frustrated. Yeah. But how how about stakeholders? You know, because the thing I was was aiming for were things like the the three click rule, that type of thing.
Tyler:Yeah. Oh, I know. I'm more aggro and aggressive on that. Like, I've taken approach like, I've taken the approach to being a design person, leveraging a lot of, like, the methodology from the engineering team. Meaning, I don't over I don't explain why I have to do what I do.
Tyler:So it's like, I'm always like, for that three click thing, it's like, this is a matter of fact. Like, there's too many clicks. We have to fix this. Like, line in the sand. This is this is, like, this is my domain of design.
Tyler:And, like, the one example is a three click thing or one of the things is probably accessibility or whatever it is. I always take the approach of, no, we can't we're not doing that. That's that's wrong. Yeah. And I don't I don't explain myself unless I'm pushed.
Nick:Well, that probably saves you a lot of headaches.
Tyler:Yeah. Mean, engineering is not the engineering team doesn't have to explain what linter they're using. It's like that's part of their job. Or they Yeah. They can't do something because it's the component doesn't do a thing.
Tyler:We'll have to create a new one so that increases scope. It's like, no, we're not gonna do it. Which is a bit frustrating sometimes. Like Yeah. We can't do it often means it's hard.
Tyler:It's gonna take too long. Mhmm. Which is like a vague black box sometimes. But I think that's a good approach. If you're truly good at your craft and what you're doing, that types of that type of, like, line in the sand works really well.
Nick:Yeah. That makes sense. You know, it it happened last week. Someone literally told me, yeah. I mean, it's the but then they have to scroll, you know.
Nick:I I think that's really from ancient times, know, thinking that people don't like scrolling. Yeah. They're gonna it's below default.
Tyler:I've never seen a user been like, oh, I love this. And then it's like, move my thumb up, scroll my my index I'm Yeah.
Nick:Just call me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I didn't expect your your reaction.
Nick:Like, I just don't explain myself anymore. I think I will start to do that as well.
Tyler:They pay me for it. Right? I should be good at the thing.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Lesson learned. So thanks for that.
Tyler:Alright. That's another episode in the bag.
Nick:Yeah. Great episode. By the way, if you're stuck second guessing your work or trying to figure out your next move, drop a question in the comments or leave a review. We might actually feature you in one of our future episodes.
Tyler:And if you got any value from this episode, hit subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps more than you think.
Nick:You can can find everything else, resources, articles, and more at designtablepodcast.com.
Tyler:Thanks for being here.
Nick:See you next