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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.
I was working with a PM, and she had a similar just someone that thought, like, why are you writing a PRD? That's my job. That's what I that's mainly what I do. I'm like, that's mainly what you do? I was taken aback.
Tyler:That's your value. It's it's it's writing this this Notion document. It seems like very surface level. It's like, if I Yeah. If I remove your PRD writing abilities, what what additional value do you add?
Tyler:It's gotta be there's more to it, and I and I know there's more to it.
Nick:Well, that sounds like a fun exercise. Like, if if I would take away your Figma work, Tyler, like, what? Left left left left. And you're officially live. We're officially live.
Nick:Exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. Tyler, I'm curious about something. How many how many people are in the department that you are working at? How many of those people are designers, like, in the official job title?
Nick:And how many of them feel like they are designers?
Tyler:Well, where I'm sitting, we use a pod system. So there's usually one designer per pod. So a pod would be like a sector of the app. In total, we're about, like, seven designers total. Right.
Tyler:And to their later question, everyone thinks they're they're designer. Well, everyone has an opinion on design, I should say.
Nick:Yeah. Right. Yes. I I mean, that's that's interesting right there. And and the reason I'm asking is because I see so many people online in in different communities, you know, design related communities express a concern about, you know, like you say, people having an opinion on quote unquote their work.
Nick:Not sure why, but also it's something I feel from time to time as well. So I felt like this would be a good, you know, design therapy, help me survive the summer type session where we can talk about, you know, why people feel that way and why I feel that way and maybe even you feel that way. That's why I'm always coming to you as my design therapist, basically.
Tyler:I'll put my therapist hat on. I don't I don't think like, I I understand the sentiment. I I I'm trying to yeah. I see that as well. Like, people are concerned with other departments or other people doing what they consider design work, Which I'm like, I had a conversation with someone recently or a Zoom call interview where they had said something funny.
Tyler:He's like, you know, you're you're in the minority in that opinion. Right? And it was I was talking about, I don't really care where an where an idea comes from because and I don't care if anyone else uses my tool, if someone uses a Figma or a whiteboarding tool. Like, the tools don't in the end of the day, they don't make you the designer. It's like, it's the brain behind it, which is which is the differentiator.
Tyler:It's it was never the I come up with an idea or someone someone is using part of my process. It's like, it's the the brain it's the design thinking hat we put on that separates us as a designer versus, someone jumping in and using a tool or come on someone coming in and and feeding you an idea. I just don't think that's the the moat is always, like, your your mind, like, how you think as a designer.
Nick:Alright. And what is the actual moat within the thinking? So what is that something like just being good at design theory, like colors and psychology? Or, like, what did what did you mean there?
Tyler:I mean, it's a combination of things. So it's like, yes, it's the the craft part. So, like, tip like, typically, we're very good at, like, the visual and, like, the history of of of, I guess, art and design and, like, how do you lay things out. And then that bridges into, like, human psychology. Like, what is what is the user thinking?
Tyler:How do we deploy different strategies to get the user across the finish line or to use a feature or to solve a problem? Like, that like, those combination of those two skills are are unique to, like, our department, let's say. If you're trying to think like a PM person, like, or project a product manager, their their hat is a bit different. It's very business oriented. It's how do we increase revenue?
Tyler:Like, how do we strive forward? There's a different hat that they wear. And then engineer, it's like, how do we how do we get this backlog clean or move these tickets to done? It's like, how can we get things how do we reduce scope to get things across the finish line? Like, it's it's a different hat that we wear.
Tyler:And, yes, I'm seeing a lot of, like, the roles kind of flatten, kind of you can see it clearly, like, the bridging of the gap between design and engineering, design and PM work. But, like, at the end, like, at first principles, what we do still makes us unique.
Nick:Right. So and but why do you think people then still feel that concern? Like I said, that people might let let I mean, let's let's zoom out and and look at an example. So let's say APM comes to you and they already have some sort of five coded prototype. Like, hey.
Nick:This is this is the direction I think we should be going into. Like, what do you think?
Tyler:Like, awesome.
Nick:Yeah. Do you think it makes it sounds to me like you're listening to your reaction that you are more like, hey. That saves me a lot of work. I can now do the fun part? Or
Tyler:Well, because like that Vaikuda thing is just a conversation piece. Like, as part of our process, we have discovery, wireframing, and then we're showing something to the PM. Like Mhmm. It's the same exercise. It's not here is the solution.
Tyler:Let's like when's the last time you said, here's a design, and they said, well, okay. Let me just implement it. There's there's a conversation that happens. Like, yeah. Like, present a design.
Tyler:We talk about it. Is this the right solution? Yes or no? If not, let's discuss how to make it so. Yeah.
Tyler:And then if we switch the roles, that PM comes, like, here I have a solution. Like, your your job as a designer is to assess the feasibility of of that solution, also if that solution actually works. So it's it's it's the start of a conversation, not the light in the sand. This is what we're doing. That that that that's never happened in the reverse.
Nick:I think people might be concerned that back in back in the day being last year, this wasn't the case. So they moved from nothing to something, and then they are afraid that the something at some point becomes good enough that it will be a finished thing. Right? If that straight line bias, like this line keeps moving up into this direction that it's going into now, so I have to resist, I think. So people thinking.
Tyler:Yeah. I don't think you need to resist. I like there there's there's still a sanity check layer that we have to do as as each part of, the department. But, like, as a designer, there's just, a sanity check. Like, yes, we can build stuff and the things automate, but, like, the front end of where the discovery work is the most important part.
Tyler:Like, does this solution work? Let's validate it. Let's check the edge case. It's not like here's a solution. I imagine if you're the PM suggesting a solution, you've probably haven't looked through all the different edge cases that from a UX point of view and all the different edge cases from the engineering point of view.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, that's one of the favorite things that's happening around me currently is that, yeah, sure, nondesigners are trying to design just as designers are trying to code. But I get a lot of lot more requests of people saying like, I've made this thing, but I'm not sure if it's good. Can you work on it? And then at the same time, when I'm starting in code for a project, at the end, I'm like, I think this is good enough, but I don't know.
Nick:So then I go to the actual skilled person, the developer, and I'm telling them like, hey, this is what I made. Can you make sure it's good? Because I don't know, you know. So I think in the end, you will always need someone who who does know, you know, if it's a designer or developer or a marketer or salesperson or whatever, you'll end like, if you're a smart person, you'll end up asking someone with skills to sanity check your work.
Tyler:Yeah. And that's like a clear insight into like the moat that I was talking like, that's clear. Like, I I don't know. I don't know what I don't know, and I need the person with the expert hat to to validate. Okay.
Tyler:I'm they're we're bleeding into the other skill sets, but like, I don't know. I just I just I'm able to do the thing. I just don't know if the thing is right.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. In my mind, it's right. Like, I think it's good, but then I submitted for PR for review, and I get so many comments back. You know?
Nick:And I'm learning, so I'm getting better. Mhmm. So it really does show you the difference between a basic person, me in this case, like, hey. Well, I think I think this is good. And then a skilled person saying, nope.
Nick:Wait a minute. You didn't do these 10 things.
Tyler:Yeah. And that's as as partially a a caveat or a result of, like, the AI tools we're using that sounds so confident. It's like Mhmm. Yeah, that sounds great. Do it.
Tyler:You build it and then but it doesn't challenge it doesn't challenge the the solution that you've kind of brought it. Like Yeah. I have this idea for this thing. This is how I wanna build it. It's like, oh, that's a great idea.
Tyler:You should do that. But, like, it's it's gonna it it sounds confident because it just wants you to feel good and be positive for that's how it's been programmed, I guess.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, that's that's like, we we talked about prompting a while back, but then, you know, you should probably include some sort of scoring metric in in addition to your question. Like, is this a good idea? Score one to five based on these metrics. Go.
Nick:And then it's more likely that they'll give you a one or a two out of five instead of just saying, yeah. Yeah. Nice. Go for it, my friend.
Tyler:But I think I I like to to to circle back to, like, the the person's or, like, the fear there, it's like it's like the fear seems to be like, here's a solution. Now I just have to do it. Like, I'm just in execution mode, and I'm not doing the full the full cycle of, like, what I do as a designer when Yeah. I think the problem that I'm I'm seeing in in that question is that, like, part of what you should be doing is pushing back. It's like, it's not like you shouldn't be a yes man or else that removes your value.
Tyler:Like, if you're just saying yes, I'll just make it pretty, then that's what you're gonna be doing. But if you're not using the other quivers in your sheath, to use an old timey term, like, you're Mhmm. You're you're leaving something to take like, part of your job is to push back when ideas are wrong or or are not well. Like
Nick:I think so. I mean, that's challenging, especially if you're, like, a junior to mid level designer. Like, I I don't think you've ever done any of that because in school, you've just learned to design, you know, in tools. And in school, most people just tell you what to do and and and yes. And here's a bit of feedback and keep working on it.
Nick:But then in real life, you're suddenly hit with your first no, even if the no makes sense or not, you know. It could be a sucky manager. Who knows? So I I think people I agree with you. Like, that's probably part of it, a big part of it, but they're also not at fault.
Nick:Like, I'm all I I always almost almost want to say, poor designer. Nobody taught you this. Yeah. I mean
Tyler:and if we were to put like, it's fair. And also also if we played that out and then they they designed the thing that they were told to do because they couldn't say no. Like, a good opportunity is to watch how that thing that was shipped did. Yeah. Like, did it do well?
Tyler:Like, did it like, it could be like, oh, perfect. It that was the solution. But if it Mhmm. Most likely fails, like, keep your eye on it and and understand why it failed. So for the next so for the next time someone says, hey, I have a solution.
Tyler:It's like, hey, no. Actually, the last time you pushed something because it had x, it failed. So I'm gonna take a a second to look at your solution because I wanna help this company succeed. Yeah. And there's your like, your That's true.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, sometimes people just are managers are stubborn. Right? Because, like like, we have our insecurities as designers. I mean, this whole topic of this recording is, you know, feeling insecure that people might take our job.
Nick:I think it's healthy and and perhaps a good plan to keep in mind that developers and managers and people who appear to be your enemy, if no even though they are not, they probably have their own insecurities. 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. Also about AI or hey, this designer can now write a Jira ticket. I thought that it was my job, you know, so and you're not the only one being insecure.
Tyler:No. I and I see that across I see that across departments. I remember I was working at a I I think it was my last job that I was at. I was working with a PM and she had a similar just someone I thought, like, why are you writing PMs? That's that's that's most of my job.
Tyler:Why why are why are you writing it sorry. Why are you writing a PRD? That's my job. That's what I that's mainly what I do. I'm like, that's mainly what you do.
Tyler:And I was like, I was taken aback. It's like, this is you write a PR that's your value. It's it's it's writing this this Notion document. It seems like very surface level. It's like, if I Yeah.
Tyler:If I remove your PRD writing abilities, what what additional value do you add? It's gotta be there's more to it, and I and I know there's more to it. It's just it's funny how everyone is, to your point, is a bit secure insecure about, like, the things that they think they own.
Nick:Well, that sounds like a fun exercise. Like, if if I would take away your Figma work, Tyler, like, what's left?
Tyler:Everything else? That's if I'd if I couldn't use Figma anymore actually, I would love to not use Figma anymore. I love love to do voice to prompt my way to success, but, like, there's a lot of different things. There's a marketing strategy. There's product strategy.
Tyler:There's looking at analytics, there's customer success. There's like a there's a whole slew of things that are the puzzle pieces to make a a product or a company work. Like Yeah. I can I can definitely help out without using Figma?
Nick:Yeah. Well, of course, you know, I mean, Figma, I went to Figma because it's it's still the most commonly used design tool. And a little bit of a side note, I'm very curious about that UX tools survey that they do every year, just to see if the number of or the market share of Figma is going down or not, or if it's just social media itself. It might. It might.
Nick:But I'm you know, I don't I don't mind too much, but I'm curious. So oh, but that's that's a bit of a side note. So I said Figma, but I meant, like, actual UI design. Like, if you take all of that away. I mean, I think for a designer, there's a lot left still.
Nick:Of
Tyler:course. It's like, yeah, there's there's there's there's we don't just do oh, if I look at, like, my day to day, like, the UI part maybe, like, 20%. Like, there's the discovery. There's the looking at the analytics and seeing where the where we're bleeding revenue. There's running user sessions.
Tyler:There's there's coming up with, like, growth hack strategies. There's, like, so much involved. It's, like, outside of the pixel pushing part. Like, the the pixel pushing part is, like, the yes. It's the skill that that's becoming more and more important now.
Tyler:It's the reason why Airbnb was so successful. They the differentiator was designed, not the technology.
Nick:But Mhmm.
Tyler:Yes. Yeah. To your point. I'm curious what what when you think about the removal of Figma, like, what are you kind of laying into? Like, where do you see your your value outside of that that thing or pixel pushing realm?
Nick:I think one of my best skills next to it is is more in the facilitation role, workshopping, getting people unstuck, and getting the ideas out of your head onto paper, you know, from from unstructured to structured is something I really enjoy doing. And Yeah. That I think works really well also. So I that would be my answer.
Tyler:Yeah. And, like, to that point, like, something that you really enjoy, that the the ideas are not coming from you in that example, that you are facilitating others, other people to collaborate and come up with a collective idea. Mhmm. So it doesn't have like, to that point, it doesn't have to be your special thing that you're pushing forward. It's like, it's the back and forth that matters.
Tyler:It doesn't matter who had the initial idea. It's the it's the massaging of it into like the perfect thing or like the MPP or the MLP till it becomes something that's good enough to ship.
Nick:Yeah. I think that's one of the strangest feelings that I have as a designer that I'm not sure if many people get it, but it's let's say you have that scenario that we just talked about. We have the whole team has some sort of idea of a cool feature, then they know more or less what it is, but it's hard to put into words. You come up with the first idea, wireframe, vibe, code, a sketch, doesn't matter, something visual. And then they tell you, no, that's not it.
Nick:But I think it's this thing. So then your idea can go into the trash can. Like it's not a good, well, quote unquote good idea, but it did help unlock someone else to come up with this idea. I've had to happen that some people then told me like, yes. Sorry.
Nick:Sorry that you had to put in all that effort for nothing. And then I'm like, what do you mean? I think my quick sketch got us all unstuck towards the idea that we ended up with in the end. Yeah. So it served its purpose.
Nick:And I don't care that it's not me. Like, I'm not an artist with my signature in the bottom right corner of the art piece. You know? And so I I I think that's important. And that and that's strangely enough that feels good.
Nick:Like, I don't have the pride like it has to be me, but being the enabler is what felt good.
Tyler:That's very smart. That's right. Yeah. I wouldn't have thought it that way. Yeah.
Tyler:It doesn't matter if your idea was the one chosen. It it moved everyone in the right direction.
Nick:Yeah. If I didn't do the thing, they would have been stuck for a while longer, maybe forever.
Tyler:Yeah. I mean, that's part of why you put ideas at the wall because it ideas can also point you in the it's not it could be like, we're not gonna be doing this, so let's do less of this and more of something else.
Nick:Yeah. It's what I do for most coaching with designers. They usually focus like on a tiny detail on their portfolio websites, or they feel overwhelmed by this perfectly sculptured super senior level designers portfolio. Mhmm. And then they take forever to get it get it done if they ever get it done.
Nick:But then if I tell them, like, just put out the Lego bricks in front of you. Just make sure you have everything there even though it's super ugly. Just in black and white, have it there in Webflow or Framer or Figma or whatever. And then once you have it there, it's so much easier to start dragging things around and seeing taking a step back and seeing what it looks like if it makes sense or not. That's basically the same thing.
Nick:You design something crappy on purpose to unlock yourself or your team. Yeah. It's a good one.
Tyler:I'm curious what so this feeling of, like, this ownership thing, like, a lot is, like, shifting this year. Mhmm. Like, Figma might be one of them, but I but I digress. Like, do you think, like, we will retain the the designer that we are what we consider design or the designer today? How do we imagine that's gonna gonna shift?
Tyler:And then with that, like, what is the, like, what should you be thinking, like, to protect, I guess, your sanity, for lack of a better word, to like, I I'm still doing my job, but it does it may not look like what design was traditionally looking like.
Nick:Mhmm. Yeah. I think it's probably a bit of character
Tyler:as well. You know, when
Nick:you get angry about something, it's usually because of your traits. And maybe when you have certain traits, you're more likely to become a designer. I don't know. But that's that's one of the directions I've been thinking about. I actually don't think the design designer's role zoomed out changes too much.
Nick:You know, a designer figures out what's going on, you know, what the what the problem is and explores all sorts of potential fixes for that. And then in the end, they polish something that they think works best. That used to be manual. And you would draw something, sketch something out, Figma, Photoshop, Sketch, any of the tools that we've had or are still using. AI can just assist you in a way a calculator can assist you doing math, basically.
Nick:So I think it's more about tool changes and less so about the philosophy of design, you know, fixing a problem, finding the right solution. Side note, and then I'll stop rambling, but back in the day, designers were coding. And then at some point, they weren't anymore. And so what people are saying, like, we're moving into this super cool new normal of designers who code. Then I'm like, well, that used to be the case back in the day.
Tyler:So it
Nick:feels to me like more like we're going full circle.
Tyler:Yeah. I feel that also, like going back into coding and it feels like the hark back on Figma again. We do been leveraging a lot of Figma make lately. So as Figma just has the ability to to have its own prompting tool that can vibe code a thing, but it's anchored on, like, the design system. And I just felt my myself this week, like, what am I doing?
Tyler:Why am I when am I building this extensive prototype when it feels like I'm actually coding a final product? And then once this prototype is done, I have to do that design dev handoff. Why am I not just jumping straight into code for the prototype?
Nick:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's an interesting question. Like, why didn't you? Did you find an answer to that question?
Tyler:I think it was just like a I think it's just the shiny new I think it's like anything. Like, you you use a tool for a certain purpose, and then we think it's like like it's a hammer. Like, everything's everything's a nail. So, like, it's like, oh, we created this prototype as a communication tool. Like, initially, it was, let me just quick prototype sanity check solution so I can click around versus, like, stitch a Figma prototype together with a bunch of squiggly lines across my Figma board.
Tyler:But now I have something that I can that I can click around, and then you keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and then it resembles an entire SaaS app. So I think it's just, like, losing sight of what its purpose was, but then discovering that, like, the bridge between, like, fully fledged out Figma make and prototype issue could have just essentially just built it in code. Yeah. So I think that's what I'm thinking about now, and that's probably where I'm probably gonna live next. I'm just gonna prototype something in a sandbox in the code base versus, like, wasting any time at Figma Make.
Nick:Yeah. I I have so many questions.
Tyler:Yes. Go for it.
Nick:About all about all of this, it happened to me recently. New clients came to me and they said, like, well, we have this Figma Make thing, like I said before, but I'm not sure if it's good. Like, can you go Figma Make to high fidelity? And I'm like, yeah. Sure.
Nick:Of course. They made a copy from Figma Make towards Figma Design, the Figma as we know it. Looking at it, it's an auto layout spaghetti. Just one layer of text is inside of an auto layout, which it doesn't really have to be. And then the padding and the margins, and it's it's all fractional fractional numbers.
Nick:So instead of 16, it's 15.99. So I'm wondering, just as a quick sanity check, is that the technology just not being there yet, and it will be fixed in a new update? Or did my client not really use the design system well enough? Or is it a skill issue for them or is it a tool issue? Do you
Tyler:know probably I think it's probably an input issue. So it's like it's probably them hacking away, like, going iteration by iteration, like, them nudging things until it gets into that fraction. So the prompt might not have been use a 10 column layout for this for this Right. SaaS app. Right.
Tyler:It's just to make me this screen based on a sketch. Right. So it's it's it's probably the the consequence of a bad prompt or a a series of bad prompts.
Nick:Yeah. Or let's let's call it a design prototype made by a nondesigner, basically, like that because it's not like they're doing it wrong. It's just that they weren't aware that a 10 column grid is a thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:And I mean, if they were aware of all of that, they probably wouldn't have need me in the end. So I don't mind. And I enjoy the work, you know, building and cleaning the stuff up. Yeah. Okay.
Nick:So that's that's one thing. What I'm thinking about in terms of just going into code directly Mhmm. I think that it's just much harder to collaborate that way because you send a Figma link, you can just go in, you see each other's name and cursor, and you can click and drag things around. But if I create a branch on the code base and I have to do the work, make sure it actually works, no errors, publish, share. I have to get someone in a call or they are going to look at it async, you know.
Nick:So collaboration is just way harder. I I think if you would have a Figma, you know, their way of collaborating in code Mhmm. Which is you probably need something visual to do it, you know, that would be super cool. So that's something that holds me back from doing a feature in code directly.
Tyler:Yeah. That's her
Nick:annoyance to to get it shared and and collaborate on this. But if it's a small thing, you know, UI fix or putting in a search bar in a setting screen is what I've been doing today. Like, I'll load into code because I know it's straightforward enough that the the comment will be the number of comments will be low.
Tyler:Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. That's a gap I wasn't thinking about, like, the collaboration piece. Like, it's gonna be on your local environment.
Tyler:How do you share it?
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can share it. Like I said, this is more like the the ease of sharing is is, yeah, way harder.
Tyler:Yeah. Something but also, like, on that Figma Make point, there's something I've been thinking about this week is that, like, maybe a version of this looks like creating a prototype in Figma Make as like a Mhmm. Let's test the concept quickly with users and see if we're good to go. And then leveraging that Figma make to create the PRD and to create the PRD MD file that you hand over to developers. So it's anchored on the user flow and, like, the logic, which fixes a bunch of things.
Tyler:So, like, people were are are so obsessed with how fast Anthropic is releasing features, like, every eight days. But that's just the consequence of them being, like, the validation layer just living within their product. Because every their API first, they're just getting the signals of what to build next. But maybe Figma make maybe the bridge where you can quickly create a thing, validate it, and then boom, we have the logic set in this in this thing that we can extract business information and also, like, technical implementation.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So fun thing is that we're now talking about designers in code, and then we start this conversation with designers being angry that someone else is doing their job.
Nick:And we don't even mind talking about doing part of a developer's job.
Tyler:Right. How would they feel?
Nick:Yeah. So, yeah, what I mean, maybe that's just a thing that maybe everyone in tech has a bit of an existential crisis. Like, who am I? What is my job? Well, maybe the best thing to do is just to enjoy and explore.
Tyler:Yeah. I think if you I think at end of the day, if you just think of it higher than think a level, like, higher than where, like, your job title is, it's like, what what are you trying to do at the end of the day? It's to it's to make a company succeed or to help the company help their their users fix a problem. That's and it that's what it is. Like, the shape and form of the of the execution may look different from day to day, but, like, that's that's the North Star.
Tyler:That's what we're doing at the end of the day, regardless of the so. Where you are in the chain of events to to to fix it.
Nick:Yeah. I think so. I think so. There's way more to discuss there, but I think is this is probably enough to give a thought for food. Is that what I say?
Nick:Just to let people think about it a bit more.
Tyler:Yep. Food for thought.
Nick:Food for thought. Food for thought.
Tyler:Let's do it in that one. Did
Nick:Yeah. You can see that it's not my first language. I think in Dutch, we say it the other way around. And if it's really silly, we can cut it out, but I also don't mind it staying in.
Tyler:So I'm leaving it in.
Nick:There you go. There you go. It's authentic. It's real. And we make mistakes.
Nick:Alright?
Tyler:Till next time. 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.