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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.
My wife and I, we built a a baby tracker. Okay. Because as you know, there are two. So it's really easy to to get confused like like when did like baby a, when did she eat or was it baby b like the day like thirty minutes ago or six? Like it's really easy to get confused Yeah.
Nick:Mixed up. So you know, I made this, you know, if I coded of course, I made this this one page thing where we have both names and if you click it, it's just, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Tyler:And you're officially live.
Nick:We're officially live. Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. Hello, Tyler. How are you?
Tyler:I'm doing great. How about yourself?
Nick:Yeah. Also good. You know, last time or since last last time, I got twins. So I'm a father of three now. Congratulations.
Nick:Yeah. Big step. Thank you.
Tyler:Two twins. Yeah. Bigger step and also a bigger leap into not having sleep, which is, you know, par for the course.
Nick:Yeah. True. Yeah. It it does make you really focus on important things. You know, there's less time for work.
Tyler:Mhmm.
Nick:So for each moment that you have, think is, you know, what should I do now? What's really important? Or the other way around, this thing that I'm about to do, Can it wait? Should it should I do this now? You know?
Nick:And I just noticed me getting very efficient with all of that. You know, it's there's there's a good lesson, a work lesson there, I think.
Tyler:That's totally fair. And what's what are the what is your top thing that you wanna focus on after this reflective time?
Nick:What do you mean, like, work wise or, like, what do you It could
Tyler:be anything. It could be work wise. It can be life philosophy. You can touch
Nick:on it. Yeah. Well, you know, I what I noticed recently is that it doesn't matter how much time you give yourself. Like, you'll always hit this wall of, oh, man. I'm out of time.
Nick:You know, I Mhmm. I'm working full time. I had this feeling of there's more to do. But then with three days a week, I didn't really notice any difference. Like, I I got more or less the same amount of work done.
Nick:Revenue is more or less the same. You know? And I had the same feeling of, you know, I could have done more, but it's just a realization of you're wasting a lot of time if you work full time because you're just you can sit around and then talk and and and go for a walk and all that stuff. You you're not doing it when you feel like there's less time. So that's a big eye opener for me.
Nick:Like, I think we can all be way more efficient.
Tyler:I think so. I feel what the term is or what the rule is, but, like, if you set if you allocate time to a task, you will fill the time versus I forget what the term is. But you shorten the time, you'll still get the task done Mhmm. In the time that's allotted.
Nick:It's one of those those UX, like like, things you know from the flashcards from in school, the someone's law. I don't know whose name it is anymore. I'm I'm sure, you know, people fresh out of school will now be listening, like, oh, no. It's this, this, this. How can you not know it?
Nick:But, you know, you tend to forget. I I I mean, I have an excuse. I have a baby brain. You know, I'm just so sleepy. I I don't know anything anymore.
Tyler:You forever have an excuse. No one will no one will judge you for it.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you know, I'd we did think about something new. Right?
Nick:We were going to do a series of episodes, this being the first one. But let's I mean, let's announce it first. Like, we're going to do 10 episodes on how to become a modern in demand and successful product designer.
Tyler:I think we have the with our two heads together, I think we're gonna come up with some really good information.
Nick:Mhmm.
Tyler:By the end of this series, I think a product designer is gonna have the skills or the or the at least the map to get them to where they wanna go and help them succeed.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. And and and, you know, the cool thing about our show is that, you know, you and I, we both have more or less the same, you know, level of experience. But you being, like, in a new in house, a very, like, strategic driven design position and me just being more, like, smaller companies, freelance, you know, quick, quick, quick, sales, sales, sale, that kind of thing. Like, we both have our own perspective on careers, and I think that together, I guess, you just, you know, create insights and or great balance of use is what I should say, I think.
Nick:That's what this series is going to make make it really great, I think.
Tyler:Amazing. Looking forward to to cracking those out.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. So first one, and I really wanted to start at the beginning, is is setting up your environment, your your working environment and the pipeline of of, you know, tokens and things and prototypes and and experiments that you that you do because, you know, I I think well, I hope you agree here, but today's designer is all about turning this idea into something tangible, you know, prototype just to see if this idea that I have, if it makes sense, if it works, present it to someone, see if they're enthusiastic about it, if it has potential. Right? But you need to have a place or just your quick way of of setting all of that up.
Tyler:100%. I think the thing is true. I think we have access I think what what's enabled us more so is MTPs. So, like, it looks it looks like a a series of things that you connect to to give you the right amount of context to do your best work. So the first thing I'm thinking about is analytics.
Tyler:So imagine you're starting in a new place. You have to understand what base level is. So getting getting into access to analytics tool or even connect it to your cloud or or chat to be tool of choice. So you can pull that in when you're at the start of every project. You have understanding of what's being tracked, what's the baseline, and what is with any project, it's like, what's the current state, the new thing we wanna build, what is the desired outcome, and how can we measure it?
Nick:Yeah. I mean, just a few years ago, you know, you wanted to do the same thing, you know, get that baseline understanding. But in my memory, you had to talk to lots of people, And they were busy or sick or on holiday, and it could take a week or maybe two weeks before you even had people, you know, on the phone or in the same room. And then they would tell you like, oh, okay. Yeah.
Nick:That's interesting. Let me get it for you. And then it takes another week before they give you the data or give you access to the data. All of that, when set up well, is something you can just receive in in, let's say, maybe the same day, more or less, if set up correctly.
Tyler:Too is is you have access everyone has access to all the information. And now we're not now we're skipping those superficial conversations of like, who has this? What is information? And the conversations I find can let me know what your thoughts here, is that we're having more productive conversations because we're getting to the meat of the conversation versus service level. Where is this information?
Tyler:What does this mean? We have we get a good chunk of the information upfront, and then we're asking clarifying questions with the the owner of the the vertical we're we're questioning.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I I I I always found it to be a waste of time to to really have all those meetings of, you know, answering the same question over and over again. Like, hey. There's a new guy on the team.
Nick:He's he has all these questions about, you know, how do I log in and what do we have? And then we're all like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've done this before.
Nick:You know, if that person has just a link or MCP or a way to just receive all of it all of that info beforehand, you know, it just takes all the obstacles out of the way. You'd still need a good facilitator during the meeting because, you know, we can all get off track. But, yes, I mean, it's really helpful that way. Also challenging, because I I noticed within a few of my clients, like, most of them use a mixed panel and just look at data and AB testing stuff and then just overall performance of a piece of software. Whenever we go to the the MCP way, there's a lot of data, but it's not always, you know, filtered well.
Nick:And oftentimes, I see a developer come back a week later, and they're like, oh, you know, we looked at this all wrong. If I apply these filters, we get better data. Mhmm. You know? So being able to go to the data quicker, you know, doesn't solve anything for you if the data itself isn't, you know, really the the correct data to to look at.
Nick:So, yeah, you still have to think. You still have to Of course.
Tyler:Yeah. I think I think there's the benefit there is that we're we're able to catch those issues quicker since we're trying to access it more often. Yeah. So I've come in the same case where, like, I'm tracking a flow, and I'm trying to see, like, what where is the leak in a particular feature? People are dropping off, and there there's maybe multiple entries to that flow.
Tyler:And one case recently, like, one flow wasn't tracked. Right. It was over indexing on an action that had no attribution, which is Mhmm. Which is like, okay. It's it's skewing skewing the the perception of, like, what the actual problem is.
Tyler:But we identified what the leak was, and actually, Claude identified that, oh, you're actually not tracking this metric, which is good. But I think it comes down to, like, the prompt that you're giving it to you're you're giving it.
Nick:Mhmm. And so what does that mean in in practice? Like, let's say you are a designer and you want to to learn more about, you know, understanding data because, you know, if you can measure things, you can see if things are right or not. Mhmm. Like, I assume most designers know what an AB test is, but, like, what else?
Nick:Like, what are the the the big keywords that they should search for and learn about if they want to become, you know, data native?
Tyler:I think I think at a high if you're starting off, I think at a high level, you should understand what are the main funnels within whether it's a website or the app that you're building. Like, where is all the traffic being funneled through? And that usually points you to, like, what are the the five or different features or flows that you have to support and make sure that they're they're strong and they they support the users that they're facilitating. And then that's where you generally start at. And then from there, you can kind of spider web out into the other corners of the app that you're you're updating.
Tyler:But it's basically understanding, like, what are the core flows? What are the core flows that lead to to, like, an action or, like, some kind of solution to the user's problem? What are the different flows that facilitate a purchase that's beneficial to the to the business, which, like, basically keep the lights on Right. Features.
Nick:Can you can you tell our audience just in case they they don't know? Because I didn't know in the like, years ago, I didn't know. Like, what's a funnel?
Tyler:So a funnel is essentially a series of steps to an action that you're tracking. So, like, for example, that could be you have an ad to your product. It leads to a landing page. It leads to a checkout page, and then there's a there's a success page that you've successfully purchased a thing. That is a funnel.
Tyler:Another one example like in an app is maybe updating your personal settings. So it's landing logging in, landing on the home page, navigating to the settings panel, and then potentially updating your password. That's that's a funnel. But those those funnels are really defined by the movement of traffic. So you you open your app to the public and then you notice patterns like where everyone's kind of navigating to.
Tyler:And any analytics tool can kind of point you to, like, where where people are generally going. And then based on that pattern, you're defining what are what are the funnels that you're you wanna monitor from from that period of.
Nick:So it's it's it's not really different from what a a UX designer would call a customer journey. I mean, there's some overlap there. But there's some overlap. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. Because, you know, I I always think about this example of when someone's looking to book a trip to a resort and, you know, into the, like, top of funnel, like, the entry point is is just being aware that you exist. You know, it might be a social media post or an ad an ad somewhere, and they're really like in the top, like, broad funnel. Like, oh, this this, you know, Tyler's Theme Park. Oh, that's a thing.
Nick:You know, I could visit. They're just, getting aware of your existence. And then later on, like when you go deeper into the funnel, it's more about, you know, from being aware to to considering, you know, comparing options, having your like, seeing if you can find answers to your questions like, is this childproof? What restaurants do I have? I have this allergy.
Nick:Do they facilitate me in in giving me safe foods for my allergy? And then really at the end is is decision time and and purchasing time, and that's really low, like, low funnel stuff. It's how I understand it at least as a another really a marketing person, but that's how I see it. You know? Yeah.
Nick:I think yeah.
Tyler:I think I think it's true. I think funnel is like the, like, the start and end date. The the journey map is, like, the empathetic part of, like, a UX designer's process where you're really getting into the weeds of, like, what makes what do they what does a user need at every step of the way within that funnel? And what are they, like, what are they thinking about? What are the actions that they need?
Tyler:What do they need in terms of, like, a takeaway from whatever product or service that you're they're being they're being offered? And the more granular and detailed and more empathetic you are towards, like, those steps, those get mapped to whatever product or service. So, like,
Nick:they need
Tyler:to do a thing. You offer the the knobs and buttons to help them get through. Yeah. So that's going a level deeper within within the funnel itself.
Nick:Yeah. And and, you know, the thing a designer might think about in the design is, like, the the mental model of, the state of mind. Like, if someone if you if you're working on something that's quite expensive, you know, like like a trip or a car or, like, you know, anything, you name it, When they're exploring and if you really push on selling, you know, you might spook a potential buyer. And then also the other way around, if someone's really if someone's really ready to pay, you know, and then if you disturb his or her flow with more marketing stuff, like, look how great we are. Look at this Google five star review.
Nick:Yeah. You know? Then that's also the the the wrong way. Like, they're already sold on on your thing. You know?
Nick:Needs to push them some more because then you will appear salesy and they might leave again. So you really have to match the intent with, like, how you're pushing the the thing you're you're selling. Like, that's the the kind of, like, the UX challenge you have to overcome and then have to think about. Yeah.
Tyler:Yeah. Because they're exactly. What are what is their mindset or how averse are they are to, like, a certain pressures? And also considering, like, what they're doing in the middle of interacting with your thing. Are they are they on the go?
Tyler:Are in the are they in the car? Are they at a coffee shop? Or are they in office doing this thing? Or are they at home with busy kids? Like, those are things to consider.
Tyler:Like, how distracted are they? So, like, how much focus time do you have, which dictates how fast they need to go through your thing versus if you're doing something financial related, you wanna take your time, service the information, being very transparent so they have the information necessary to do a a very important thing.
Nick:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so learn about all of this.
Nick:You know, funnels, AB testing, conversion, you know, mindset of people. Like, I I think especially if you're working on design for marketing websites, sign up flows, checkout flows, you know, ecommerce, that kind of thing, I think it's really crucial to learn, you know, to take a step out out of your design bubble and into the marketing sales bubble. 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 knows this, 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. One thing I also had in mind, you when we're talking about setting up your environment is for your portfolio and your own experiments and working on on things on and off the job. One example I wanted to give you is my wife and I, we built a a baby tracker. Okay.
Nick:Because as you know, there are two. So it's really easy to to get confused. Like like, when did, like, baby a, when did she eat? Or was it baby b? Like, did they like, thirty minutes ago or six?
Nick:Like, it's really easy to get confused and mixed up. So, you know, I made this, you know, a five coded, of course. I made this this one page thing where we have both names. And if you click it, it just sets the time to that moment. And then it keeps showing you when was the last time we fed the baby and and when should be the next time, that kind of thing.
Nick:It synced to both our phones, you know, and but it was really easy to set up because I have this setup at at home where I just you know, I have Claude connected to my coding app. When I click sync, it goes to my website right away. So it's just a few clicks and a few minutes, and you have something running. And I think having that kind of setup ready as a designer is really crucial. Like, whenever you talk to a stakeholder or you're walking walking the dog or downtown somewhere and you see this or you have this idea, you know, it should be really easy for you to have something from that idea on paper or on your screen in just a few minutes.
Nick:You know? Also on the job. Like, you know, let's say you are my boss and you tell me, like, oh, we're really struggling with this and this and this. My gear starts spinning and I'm I have this great idea. You know, before lunch, I should be able to send you a link.
Nick:So, like, hey, you know, you you told me this. How about that? You know?
Tyler:Yeah. I think there's, like, a 100%. I think there's a lot of ideas that are floating around and we're all kinda busy during the day. Something that I really want to kind of nail is a proper system for session recordings. So that could just be me talking out loud because I love just talking out loud to myself alone in my house, or I'm I'm having sessions with my coworkers about different ideas.
Tyler:And some things we don't have to action on. Some things we just have to think about over the next quarter or so. But setting up, like, whether it's like a fellow or like a something that kind of records everything that you're doing so that you can then feed it to like a Claude so you can kind of it'll be like your your reservoir for like future ideas or things that I have to do this week, and you can kind of prioritize. Because I think now we're creating we're creating more than we remember. So, like, having a second brain, I think it's super useful.
Nick:You know, I I have a starting point for that, and I I I might be something to for our listeners to set up as well as I have granola, you know, the the transcription app. Yep. I have it connected to Zapier. Zapier is watching a granola folder. So when I think something is interesting or when I feel very energized or hyped or just feel like a meeting was very important, I can at the end of the meeting, I just there's just one click, like, adds to folder.
Nick:Zapier sees it, and then there's a whole process that happens after. You know, cleaning it up, putting it in a folder, easy for me to find, creating a summary, scoring system. You know, I I put in a few rules, and I can I can I turn this into an article? Are there some key talking points, social media posts, that kind of stuff? And it it gives me, like, red, orange, or green, and it puts it in Slack and just in a content channel.
Nick:And it's really easy to just browse back and and and look at all of that. So I'm not sure if that's the the system you had in mind. You know, it's it's pretty bare bones, but also kinda useful, But that's something I have I have running currently.
Tyler:That's very useful. Yeah. I think just automating all these things that, like, based on, like, output, which is you, it is so, like like, we're getting in the space where it's like it we're being we're orchestrating. So, basically, the the execution part is easy, but it's the the thought behind, like, massaging of ideas. Like, oh, I thought about this thing.
Tyler:What about this? And we have to execute. What does this look like? Oh, this is great. Maybe we'll iterate on this.
Tyler:But, like, the the idea capturing part is super useful. So I really like that idea.
Nick:Yeah. So, I mean, keep that in mind. You know, granola, it's it's it's it has a free version. It's up here too. Both of them are are free, but, of course, you know, the free version is kinda limited.
Nick:But I I think it's an investment that's that's worth your your money and and time as a designer. It's just so so much easier to keep track of all of that. Like, whenever I start a a prompting session, I'm not sure if that's what we should call it, but nine out of 10 times, I put in, like, two or three transcripts from meetings just to build context. And it's just way easier for me to have all of that in in in one place. And that whole system can be way more expensive than than it is than it is now.
Nick:Because now I have just one folder. I have the Zapier folder. You know, I can have multiple folders, you know, coaching, leads, stakeholders, brainstorming, you name it, with all different things that happen once the transcript from Granola hits that folder. Yeah. I feel like not a lot of people are doing it, and I also feel like it's really, like, a way to get ahead of people, like, if you have that kind of system set up.
Tyler:Yeah. Because, like, once you're like, the multitasking has become a skill that I wanna kinda get better at. So spinning multiple plates. So if you have those transcripts, you're able to execute on multiple things at the same time. The the drawback is that, like, some things you forget that you're doing and you kind of lose track.
Tyler:One thing I also do is in Claude, they have there's like this schedule feature where you can schedule actions in different parts of the week or once a day, once a week, etcetera. And I have my my daily run of like basically, I have it scrape all my Slack interactions or Jira tasks, and then it basically gives me a summary of what happened yesterday, what are the things that I missed. Maybe I didn't reply to a Slack message quick enough. It gives me a link to it. So I'm able to kind of catch up on things that I've missed.
Tyler:And then I I have one at the end of the week where it's like, give me a recap of all the things that I've done, and what what should I be thinking about for the next week.
Nick:Yep. Yep. I think that's really smart, especially the forgetting, like, reminding you that you forgot something. I think that's really cool. Like, do you have something in place to to prevent it from getting too wordy?
Nick:Because I I feel like these these summary things, they get really, like like, multiple paragraphs of something that should have been one paragraph. But I feel like that's, like, a prompting thing. I can I can I can fix that? It's what it feels like.
Tyler:No. It's pretty it's pretty, like, straightforward. It's not overly robust. Like, the output that I have created is basically an HTML that I can open up in a browser, and it gives it has a cute little little graph of, like, the spikes. It gives me, like, at the top a graph of, like if I have a lot of meetings, it shows me, like, where my focus time might be, and then it just gives me bullet list.
Tyler:Things that you completed followed by things that need your attention. Yeah. No longer than, like, maybe one or two sentences per point, and then it just links me to the specific whether it's it'll link me specific to the Slack chat, or it'll link me to the Confluence or or Jira or or Notion ticket. It's pretty straightforward, so I'm not too confused of what I have to do next.
Nick:Okay. Well, that that's good. That's good. Yeah. Because that's that's the risk I'm noticing.
Nick:It's like, I get all these notifications in Slack of, you know, the thing I just mentioned. Transcript is ready and here's the score and here's the potential for what you can do with it. Mhmm. At some point when I'm busy, I just keep skipping it. I'm like, yeah, whatever, whatever.
Nick:And now we're basically just increasing the level of like overheads that we have, like all the extra work documents, paragraphs, and ideas, but there's still only so much time you have and focus and attention for you to execute on something. You know? So Yeah. It's it's I'll tell you one thing. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. Go ahead. Tell you
Tyler:one thing that I have built into it. If there is a design task that needs my attention, it'll I have an action button. Like, for for the ones that are, like, opening my attention, if it if it requires a design solution, I have a button that that appears, and then it'll create a prompt based on the context that it's been given, and it'll it'll have a vibe coding prompt. Like here, would you like to try the solution? Click this button.
Tyler:It'll load the prompt and collide, and then I can go run, and it'll create me a solution. So, like, for example, there's a feature we didn't think about this error state, and this error state is gonna block the shipping of this feature. It'll it'll run a scan on, like, GitHub, like, what is the current edge case so I have contacts. And then what is the what was the back and forth in a in a in a Slack chain? And then it'll Yeah.
Tyler:Kind of load that up, and then you can kind of hit run.
Nick:Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, how great is it this this day and age at the way? You can just build something and then you use it and you figure out, like, wait a minute. This and that isn't really working yet.
Nick:And then you improve the thing, and now we all have our own little flows that really help us. Isn't that great? I mean yeah.
Tyler:And it just like this doubles down on, like, the strength of, like, your your not the execution ability, but, like, the brain of a UX designer. Like, we can create all these things, but it's just about, like, your assessment of the problem and what is the right solution.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, I think I think it's very challenging with the like, what you're saying, like, being able to zoom out and really look objectively at your week and be able to to pinpoint things where you're like, this thing, it could we could do this way better or automated or efficient or, like, being able to spot the opportunity there is is that requires some practice, I think. Like, if you're really fresh out of school, it will probably take a while for you to to get an eye for that, I think.
Tyler:Yeah. It's like reps at anything. And, like like, something to be aware of, like, for someone fresh out of school, like, you still have to do the reps to to learn. I I always like, I'm a broken record on this, but, like, you have to learn the rules to break the rules. And that's just, like, a point to you have to learn what are the different steps that you have to take to do a job.
Tyler:And when you learn them well enough, you know when to skip it. Like, for example, when you need actually need to do user research, the usability testing, or where you can skip it because you know it's a typical flow that's been defined and you don't wanna deviate. Whether it's like a checkout that's pretty like, these are the steps that are needed. But once you learn the rules, you'll know how to break them or or at least skirt by them.
Nick:Yeah. More on that in the in the second. I think in the second episode, like, when we're talking we're going to talk about design hard skills. I have so many questions for you already just based on your last five sentences. Looking forward to that, by the way.
Nick:So this this idea of the baby tracker, it works also for books you find on your website or anything, basically. And I think it's really important for you for you you being to our audience to know for your portfolio building, for example. I I recently noticed that the underline that appears when I hover a text link on my website, it extended beyond the text itself. It turns out it was because the display mode wasn't set to block, so it took up the whole width, you know, technical story. But I noticed that.
Nick:And with this setup I had, it was really easy to do to just open a CloudSheet and tell them, like, oh, my website, I noticed this and this and this. It should be that the the underline should be equal size to the width of the text link. Mhmm. You know? And then it it it fixes it.
Nick:I review in the browser. I agree with it. I click commit. I click sync, and twelve seconds later, it's on the website. You know?
Nick:It's just really easy that way. So I I I think it's it's useful for people to know, like, what that setup is like, like, just in in four or five minutes.
Tyler:That's a good one, especially for like, if you're if you want it, like, the the age old problem of designers not updating their portfolio or case studies. Like Yeah. Using the benefit I found is that using these tools, it is essentially just tracking your every move. Like, well, the the moves that you give it. But, like, if you're if you're using the tool on the job, then it has context of what you've done that week or, like, or or for a specific project.
Tyler:So you can essentially just quickly prompt it. What did I do for this project? And then you have all the context to build the case study. It's just about packaging it nicely.
Nick:Yeah. That's yeah. That's that's true. And also, like, if we have so much discussion about, like, should we use this or that tool, or should we just code our websites ourselves? If you are going the let's just build it on our own way, like, this setup will really help you, you know, because it's all, like, AI assisted.
Nick:And it seems to be the trend today. Like, more more people are leaving Framer and Webflow and WordPress just to build their own thing. So a few things you need. You need hosting. So I have you know, I I pay €50 a year just for a server and the domain and an email address.
Nick:I have a free GitHub account, Visual Studio Code, and Claude on the Max plan. That's what I have. Nice. So that's that's up to a €100 or $100 a month. But most people, if if it's only building your own website for you, like Claude Pro is probably enough, which is like $20 a month.
Nick:So that's really you know, if you're an entry level designer without a job yet, I I can imagine that, like, Cloud Max is, you know, beyond your budget. So Cloud Pro plus hosting, that's like $25 a month. I mentioned that's that's way more doable. So the way this is set up is Visual Studio Code. It looks at the folder on my computer where I host my website.
Nick:Cloth is Cloth Code is connected to it, and I have a deploy file that's connected to a GitHub action. And now it's getting a a bit technical, but what it's doing is whenever I commit, so I make a change, the deploy script runs, and it looks at GitHub and GitHub, picks up the changes, and puts it on my hosting server. You know, it's that that's basically how it works. I didn't know this before. You know, Claude explained it to me.
Nick:It even set it up for me. Mhmm. So you can prompt your way towards it and ask it for step by step guides how to set it up on the GitHub website. And just having that ready and and in place, it's it's such a such a such an improvement for my my workflow. Know?
Tyler:A 100%.
Nick:Yeah. Tell the thing you want to do, click commit. It syncs to our website. You know, it's just a five minutes fix instead of an hour.
Tyler:Yeah. It's a prompt and go. It's such a shame. Don't have a similar setup.
Nick:Yeah. Prompt and go. Yeah.
Tyler:It's a Vercel to GitHub. Sorry. It's a GitHub to Vercel launch. Vercel is where I host my website as well. I think it's super cheap.
Tyler:It's like I I converted my WordPress website to HTML, and then I don't have to pay the the monthly hosting fee that was ridiculous just for a a WordPress website. And now I don't have to go through a UI to do a website update. It's just a quick claw prompt way to exactly do your point.
Nick:Yep. Yep. Yeah. So, you know, you should really have that that in place. And, well, yeah, I mean, that's basically all I have to say about it.
Nick:I'm just very, very happy with it. Like, all the social media posts about game changer this, game changer that, like, it's it's it's a big nothing burger, I think, in most cases. But having this in place, AI assisted and and AI applied, like, I that's the one thing that's really helpful for me. Amazing.
Tyler:Yeah. Yes. I couldn't agree more.
Nick:Yeah. So let's say that's that's episode one out of 10, how to set up your, you know, environment, how to understand data on a project, and be prototype ready prompt and go, as you said it.
Tyler:Love it. I love I love this series. It's been really good juicy nuggets here.
Nick:Yeah. For sure. So, you know, next episode is going to be a regular one, but make sure you subscribe for episode number two, which will come in a few weeks where we are going to talk about, you know, how to practice and improve your actual design hard skills. You know, how to create something that makes your clients go, wow. When can I pay you?
Tyler:If that isn't a hook, I love it. 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 time.