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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.
Part of double diamond is going wide, so you you can just kind of try different concepts. But historically, it's been like two or three because you don't have as much time to, like, create, like, dozens of different concepts. But now with prototyping AI, Claude, being my tool of choice, you're able to go a bit wider. And so,
Nick:you know,
Tyler:what that looks like practically is within my prompt, I'll explicitly say like, let's try maybe 10 different variations of this concept. And it'll... I'll usually say like, within this prototype
Nick:And you're officially live. We're officially live exactly. I mean, this is just an experiment. Alright, Nick. So we are
Tyler:back at it again with a remix of Design Table Podcast. I'm excited for this one. This is off the back of our last episode talking about hard skills. And this episode, we're gonna get a bit into the weeds today. We're talking about depths and...
Tyler:Like, depths in terms of how deep you wanna go in terms of, like, working on a specific problem.
Nick:Yeah. And the range, you know, finding different kind of solutions. Yeah. And and this really happened because, you know, last episode, it really triggered me when you told me about, you know, the double diamond, you know, just being there and not what people say is not dying or anything. You know, I just had so many questions that I really want to learn from you because you are way more AI native than I am.
Nick:You know, I'm I'm much more skeptical. I use it all the time, but I'm I'm not as as as wow as some people are. You know, I'm I'm like, okay. It's kinda useful. But listening to you, it feels like I'm missing out on a few things.
Tyler:Well, they do call me the AI kid, so that's where I get it from.
Nick:I'm not sure if that's a if that's a joke or not.
Tyler:Absolutely a joke.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it makes me think about all sorts of crazy nicknames you can come up with for yourself as a designer. I did an interview once years ago where I had an...
Nick:I was interviewed by someone whose job title was user champion. He was the user champion of the the company. Wow.
Tyler:I guess he knew all the users' name, email addresses, all all this all this stuff, personal information, addresses, phone numbers.
Nick:He he he... That sounds scary. He he was not wearing a cape, by the way, which you might expect. Yeah. But I'm I'm I'm a bit too much...
Nick:Too down towards for it to to really find that cool. I just found it to be a bit silly. You know, I had trouble taking it serious. You probably are not surprised to hear that I didn't get a job because I was just so surprised and and and off my game because of all the silly names they gave to everyone there.
Tyler:I'll... I'm gonna think of a new one for you next episode. I wanna see if you if you stick with it. I have a couple ideas.
Nick:I have a
Tyler:couple suggestions for you next one.
Nick:I'm kind of concerned now. We'll we'll see. The best one someone called me is is a UX therapist.
Tyler:That's a good one. I was kinda proud of on brand.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is. Yeah.
Nick:So, anyway, all that, you know, little nonsense to the side, we're talking about range and depth Yes. Today. And this is, you know, inspired by a course I purchased a few months ago called Interface Crafts, which is... You know, I'm I'm not one to purchase a lot of, you know, educational resources, but this one just really hit me in the face. I was like, yeah.
Nick:I have to have this one. And it didn't disappoint. So, you know, even after ten, eleven years on the job, I learned a lot from it, and the range and depth really stuck with me. And then you were talking about double diamonds. I have, you know, the old school UX flow.
Nick:I think all of that really came together. So the range is what you is what you do when you go wide. You know, you have this problem to solve, but you don't know how to solve it yet. So you have to think of a way to to solve it. And I mean, you have your obvious, you know, the thing...
Nick:The solution everyone comes up with. Just have a form here. Just have a button there. But maybe there's a better solution, and you have to see if you can find it. So that's the range.
Nick:That's going wide. And you told me about being able to come up with, like, 20 different ideas. Like, that's a lot of range there. And I'm just curious how you do this. Like, what's your workflow like?
Nick:Like, really specific. Like, what tools do you use? Like, how do you make it happen? Is it literally in parallel? Or...
Nick:Like, I have more questions than I can ask. Please Yeah. Stop my rambling and educate me, please.
Tyler:You got it. I think something we did recently, which I think doubles the importance of doing this with both depth and range, is that we... At my company, we have, like, a a group we call Build, which is essentially just three... Let's... Basic designers, product managers, and engineers.
Tyler:And we sent it out a survey of, like, understanding, like, how can we better work together? Basically, double double clicking and what are the friction points that are being created when we're Right. When we're shipping and creating new things. And one point that was kind of... That I really kind of saw or one pattern rather was having...
Tyler:Like, the engineering team was really looking or leaning or wanting to lean on the design team for making sure that we're covering all the different edge cases and error states, which historically, I guess, in my experience, I don't know, same for you, has always been something that we would lean on the engineering team for. It's like we have... We don't have the depth to follow the theme of, like, what is actually in the code. It's like we we navigate the web page or the app to kinda see what is the current state, and then we're basically designing relatively happy path. We try to, like, we try to do our best guess of, like, what is there could be...
Tyler:There's always an error state. There's always a... Something you have to check. Like, we we have a, like, pretty high level view of, like, what those different edge cases are. So
Nick:it's like
Tyler:there is a need for us to go deep and wide in benefit to our engineering partners. Mhmm. So, like, there's a... There's an insight there that they're looking for us to do exploration, not strictly happy path. Mhmm.
Tyler:So for me, when
Nick:I'm You can probably figure out, like, the the the obvious edge cases, like inputs too long, too little, wrong characters, timeouts, app crashes, user leaves, like, that kind of stuff. But then there are Yeah. Are also the the specific to your platform edge cases that only your platform has. You don't really know unless you're an expert. You know?
Nick:Do do you have an expert within the the team? Because I know, like, in in my main client, there's one developer who... Who's been with the company from day one, and he just knows, like, all the edge cases. If you have something ready, you just have to run it by him just and ask him, like, am I missing something? Because he knows.
Nick:Like, do you have someone like that?
Tyler:Yeah. There's generally, like, a team lead that has... So we have, like, a pod system. So, like, we have our app broken up in different pods or different verticals of the app. And there's usually a team lead who's really pretty knowledgeable on that specific vertical.
Tyler:So it's like if you send them, like, some kind of solution or they they can really, like like, off the top of their head, like, did you think about this? Like, this is not gonna work because this this component needs to be triggered at this location, but it takes, like, five minutes to propagate or whatever, like, the constraint is. So there we have we have those, and they're generally team leads. But, like, in general, all the engineers within a space usually have a decent knowledge of
Nick:Yeah.
Tyler:Of, like, what's underneath the hood.
Nick:And I imagine you getting more knowledgeable about it as well the longer you stay within the, you know, that local department or with your company because, you know, you learn by being there. Right?
Tyler:Exactly.
Nick:Yeah. Alright. So No. If I'm thinking about please.
Tyler:Yeah. So if I'm thinking about, like, my process, like, I spoke about last time, it's like, historically, we've been able to do, like, two or three different explorations on a concept just so that we're not just designing one thing. If you just... The problem with designing one solution and just pushing that forward is that you are not thinking about other potential or better solutions. So, like, part of double diamond is going wide so you you can just kind of try different concepts to see which one lands or which ones you can kind of merge together to make the ideal solution.
Tyler:But historically, it's been like two or three because, like, we we have timelines. You don't have as much time to, like, create, like, dozens of different concepts. But now with prototyping AI, Claude, being my tool of choice, you're able to go a bit wider in parallel. So Yeah. What that looks like practically is I will I will say, like, I wanna work on a concept.
Tyler:And then within my prompt, I'll explicitly say, like, let's try maybe 10 different variations of this concept. And it'll... I'll usually say, like, within this prototype, I wanna try 10 different directions, add, a toggle or or some kind of tab system at the top so I can toggle between like the 10 different experiences. So I can have one maybe HTML or one some... One kind of artifact that I can navigate to compare the different variations.
Tyler:Right. And then it'll go and build, and I'll do a bunch of waiting. But like, once it's done, I'm able, as you do, you can really tell when someone's really working is when they're not doing anything at all.
Nick:Yeah. Well, that's just by looking around the office or?
Tyler:Yeah. Exactly. It's like they've done... Depending what what you call working, like, the the thinking part, I think, is the the hardest part. It's like people talking together, like, what is the problem?
Tyler:And then there's, alright. Go. And there's a lot of, like, waiting till it completes.
Nick:Yeah. But Like, what do you what do you do in those minutes? You know? Because the context switching is very exhausting. Like, do you go on a coffee break or check your email?
Nick:Or Like, what what does that look
Tyler:like? Else, like, depending on how... Because I'll have, like, a notification, like, in my brow... In my computer, or I'll have a notification on my phone that something's ready or that I need to allow. It's asking me a question, should I allow, which is a bit annoying.
Tyler:I wish we had the controls and just make it always allow. But I'll do something else, maybe start another project or write an email or whatever it is. I feel like... Yeah. These days, I don't feel like waiting is working, so I'll do something else to fill up the time.
Nick:Yeah. I do the same because you also don't have to be ready the second your response is ready. You know, you can check back five minutes later. Right? So you can mix and match your your projects, but also, you know, not too much because of your mental energy, you know, and doing two things at once, switching all the time is exhausting.
Tyler:Yes. So, like, then I'll have Mike. Like, the benefit there is just, like, I've gone wide. I'm able to... Number one, I'm not...
Tyler:We're not doing the old create this clickable spaghetti prototype in Figma anymore. We're like... Like, the reason why we can only do two or three of those concepts because, like, if you you create a screen, it's like... It's... That's one level.
Tyler:It's like what it looks like. But then you have to imagine what the interaction is. So then from there, you create, like, multiple screens to, like, map out the happy path, and then you stitch these spaghetti wires together to figure it out. But now it's... Everything's done.
Tyler:It's clickable. It's it's... You can keep it low fidelity just... And that also speeds up the execution time of your... Of Claude's prompts or it...
Tyler:It's creation of that artifact. And then I'm I'm able to kinda feel like 10 different experiences. And I'm able to kind of share the artifact to my team members, whether it's to engineering or products. Like, hey, what do you think about this? And this this can be done, like, on a call also.
Tyler:It's like, hey, we're talking about this problem. Let's just... I'll just, like, share my screen, and then it'll generate these different ideas, and we'll talk about something that's that's tangible and real, and people can see through their screens. And then we'll get feedback in real time. So, like, we're really, like, getting to leads.
Tyler:Why? Like, option seven. It's really great because it has this really nice, like, error state that we didn't think about. But that's like going wide. So it's like you can really kind of just quickly go wide conceptually.
Tyler:It doesn't have to be high fidelity, but you're kind of working on on massaging the solution.
Nick:Yeah. Can can I ask you two things about it before you Yeah. Before you move on? Yeah. You mentioned being able to to click and navigate between the different ideas.
Nick:Is did... Is that part of some sort of prompts templates you have lying around or a custom, like, tool you use? Or how do you get that navigation in place?
Tyler:Sometimes it... I do it, and sometimes it does it for me, which is interesting. Like Right. If I'm talking through if I'm talking through a different, like, a use case, and I'm talking about three different solutions, it'll bake in. It's like, would you like me to and then it'll ask me, would you like me to prototype this?
Tyler:I'm like, sure. Why not? Yeah. And I have, like, a I have, like, a prototyping skill, which I could use sometimes, but sometimes I don't need it. Like, in that prototyping skill, I have, like, the...
Tyler:I have baked in it, a a hook to GitHub to, like, anchor on, like, what exists and also, like, what aesthetically high level the app looks like so that it looks close to what we're building. But it doesn't really matter at that stage. Like, sometimes it creates it for me. Sometimes I ask it to. It's like, well, you talked about these three different use cases, and it adds, like, a checkbox or some kind of toggle to navigate you through the different
Nick:Yeah. And it it it probably builds memory around your interactions. Right? So it it probably knows that you and find... Finding it useful to have the navigation.
Nick:It starts to it. It's more likely for it to do it on its own the next time. Second question is, like, how do you make sure the different directions you're exploring in the range phase are different enough compared to to the other ones? Like, how do you prevent it from just giving you three different ways of showing a list, for example?
Tyler:I mean, sometimes it doesn't. Like, maybe there's no solution to that. I think it ends up going a bit more wider as you push each direction. Mhmm. So there's like...
Tyler:Maybe they're all similar, but there's something different or something unique about each experience, and then you wanna push one a bit further. Mhmm. So, like, maybe maybe they're closer together at the beginning, but, like, as you kind of notice great things about each, you kind of push it, and then it gets wider and wider in terms of, like, how different they become. So maybe not initially. Maybe there's some kind of, like, make sure they're different, whatever whatever the prompt is.
Tyler:But, like, there's
Nick:Okay.
Tyler:Usually something in there that you can push a bit further, which allows you to go wide.
Nick:I mean, you're you're probably also fine tuning the the the prototyping skill you have. You know, whenever you notice something re... Doesn't really work or something works really well, imagine you update the the MD file to make sure it does or doesn't do that thing anymore the next time.
Tyler:Yeah. Or if there's something that I liked, I'll be like, base... If I'm done a session, it's like, if I... And then also if I remember to do it, I'd be like, after the... I really liked this.
Tyler:Something that I would do for the next time is tweak this, not do do more of this, do less of this, update the skill, and it's better for the next time for for sure. Yeah.
Nick:So it does feel like there's a a margin for error there. Like, it does things sometimes, but it doesn't do it all the time. So I imagine the the the output, the quality, or the usefulness of what you get that first run, it differs from, you know, problem to problem what you're working on.
Tyler:A 100%.
Nick:Yeah. And so what what happens if it... Know, you get your first result and it doesn't really feel like it's the foundation you want to build on? Like, do you start from scratch or try to, you know, in the same chat, you know, have it do it again? Like, what's what's the the the fix there for you?
Tyler:Yeah. I I mean, if it misses the mark, I think that's fine. I think there's nothing wrong about it landing in the wrong place. It just pushes to, like, another episode that you kind of... You had a great point was, it doesn't matter.
Tyler:It's just about shooting things against the wall. Like, a bad idea will push you towards a good idea.
Nick:That's true. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. And what does it look like in practice?
Nick:Because I know now... I now know what you're saying about, you know, the... Being able to navigate between ideas and use... At some point, you start to pick ideas and work on them. But what tools are you in at this stage of your your process?
Tyler:I'm in... So I'm in pure cloud in this... Through that entire
Nick:Cloud desktop. Like, just the literal Cloud desktop.
Tyler:So they're... Like, first, I have to decide whether this... How, like, collaborative am I being with this specific project? Is this... I guess, two decisions.
Tyler:Is this is this something that requires validation across a lot of different stakeholders? If no, then I'll I'll maybe start with a, like, a local prototype. Is this something that eventually I need to... Or I have to quickly show my team that I might go to Figma Make, which I am not a fan of. But what is great is that you can quickly get to a shareable thing.
Tyler:Claude too, but it's it's... I guess there's... It doesn't really matter. I think we're at a stage where it doesn't really matter. But I'm thinking about if I'm creating a true prototype on my computer, which means, like, there is a starting point and it's, like, some kind of VIT environment where it's, like, it's storing some information, not just a a traditional one page HTML.
Tyler:It's like a... An experience that has multiple steps. You generally wanna create it in a way way that's scalable. So it turns into like a very robust prototype that you can kind of really push. And again, this is after you've gone wide and then you've narrowed in.
Tyler:Okay. Maybe I'm gonna do version b, which is an aggregation of the best parts from version f and g. And then this is what I wanna push for.
Nick: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. Right. Right. So, And that that means at a point, you go from range to going deep.
Nick:Right? Yes. The second part of of our of our concept of working. I see a lot of people saying this is the moment you go into Figma to fine tune. Like, are you at that stage, or is there something before?
Tyler:No. So I think something that I wanna mention ahead of this is, like, we talked about it last time, but something that I never skip that I do before I even jump into a prototype is like a journey map or a a workflow map of, like, what is current state? What is edge cases? So that, like, I know high level that I'm... Eventually, I'm gonna have to think about, like, some of these parts.
Tyler:Like, I'm... Like, the the drawback about prototyping, like, you can go happy path. But if I start... If I know that at the beginning, I'm gonna have to address some of these concerns or some of these Yeah. Error states, I'm baking that into the prototype.
Nick:Right. Right. Okay. So that's still clodding. Just make it...
Nick:Turn it into a FURB.
Tyler:Yeah. Like, I've... Well, the... I still do actually in FigJam. I do my journey maps or user flows in in FigJam, to be frank.
Tyler:Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, FigJam is... I I...
Nick:There was a time I used FigJam all the time, but currently, I'm I'm not really using it anymore. I'm not sure why, but sounds like it's a relative big part of the the workflow you're describing now. At school, I shoot the dust off my my Figma... Sorry, my FigJam usage. I mean, to some extent, there
Tyler:are very it's for a collaboration, like, workshopping, and then user use... Well, I mean, it's a big one. It's... I still use one.
Nick:Okay. It's it's good a good reminder for me to... Hey. Pick it up again. Okay.
Nick:So all of that is clear. Now so you have a few ideas with promise. You have your flows from FigJam. All of that is in your backpack. And what happens next?
Tyler:Then I'm going then I'm going, yes, now we're going to the depth part of of the experience. One thing I like doing, which is always part of my workflow is I have a GitHub connector in Claude.
Nick:Okay. What does it do just for for our audience to to know and learn about it?
Tyler:So instead of actually... So what GitHub does is basically we have... Like, the the developers are working off of a branch, which is like a a version of the production code. And what GitHub Connector allows me to do or us to do is to connect directly into that repo, which is like, what what exists beyond just the surface level screens? Like, what are the different...
Tyler:Well, like, what do we have access to the entire app, which means I can ask any question whatsoever. And it's additionally beneficial because we work on a SaaS product that's for b to b. And historically, there's a lot of, like, unique experiences that are only turned on for certain enterprises. So, like, in general, there's, like, the core experience, but then each enterprise requires something unique that's special to them.
Nick:Right.
Tyler:Which, like, heightens the amount of use in edge cases we have to think about because the the app morphs depending on which enterprise is using it.
Nick:Right. Right.
Tyler:So, like, I'm... What I'm doing now is... Okay. I've... I have a high level direction of, like, where I wanna go deep on.
Tyler:Now I ask it, check against... Check the current experience against GitHub, the the the the actual app itself, and check for any deviations from, like, what is actually true. So, like, I'm going wide. I'm going I'm going dream world, but, like, let's bring let's bring us down to Earth and see how things actually work.
Nick:Yeah. So is is that as, like, a sanity check to just to see if the thing... The direction you're enthusiastic about, if it even makes sense to further explore it?
Tyler:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Tyler:Because, like, you're... I'm also thinking about timeline and scope. And I can get a... Like, I can just lean on an engineering partner to, like, understand, but, like, I can also ask it, like, I'm trying to... We're trying to deliver this in two weeks.
Tyler:What's a version of this that's achievable Right. Based on your scan of what of what components exist in the in in the app today.
Nick:Yeah. That's probably a smart thing too. You you want to find out something not being achievable on day one, in hour one, instead of, you know, day 10 with all the resources spent.
Tyler:Yeah. Exactly. And then from there, it's just about, like, going going deep just means like, okay. Now we have the experience. Now tell me all the different edge cases that I have to think about when I'm hitting this screen, this screen, and this screen.
Tyler:And that goes back to, like, my earlier point that, like, during that questionnaire understanding, like, what are the friction points that the engineering team is feeling. Now I can truly understand. I can get access to all these education that I should be thinking about, and I can design them ahead of time so that... Well, since you've got... Like, what we're trying to remove is a bunch of those low level conversations that we're having with the engineering team about, oh, what did you think about the error state?
Tyler:Well, no. I didn't. But now now we're thinking about all of it, and now we can go deeper in terms of, like... To, like, the more meaty conversations that are more valuable.
Nick:Right. Yeah. It's the developer version of what the wit designers always hear. Like, why is this blue? How about green?
Nick:You know? The... And then every designer is, like, hands in their hair, like, no. That's not important now. Let's zoom out.
Nick:Mhmm. But still the the the common question that derails the whole conversation. Yeah. So, I mean, that sounds smart to me, but no, like, no real Figma yet. No.
Nick:Right? Like, we're... You're still with GitHub, Cloud, and FigJam. Those... That's your stack currently.
Nick:So so far is what I mean.
Tyler:Yeah. So... And then, like, it'll go as deep, like, to where, like, then you'll have a version that, like, you can share, and then you have set... You can have something that you can actually share across, like, the team, and also something you can use to validate with, like, customers. Like, this is the new feature we got when our usability or user test this thing.
Tyler:And then you can iterate and then update the experience. The great thing is that it looks like the final version. It's just... It's it's not... It's loosely following, like, the design system and loose...
Tyler:And also even though you're using GitHub, it's loosely following the code base as well. Right.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's close enough that you probably tackle 90% of the the things that would knock you out normally. Yep. And that's, you know, safe enough for you to to con...
Nick:Confidently spend your time, you know, building a prototype, I mentioned.
Tyler:Yep. Now if we're itching towards where the Figma the Figma lands.
Nick:I I... I'm getting more and more concerned that you are going to surprise me by saying And that's that. No Figma.
Tyler:No. So from there, now you've you've you've you've gotten deep enough where, like, you've you have a majority of... I'd say maybe like 60% of the screens. Like you've... I've I've...
Tyler:At this point, I've demoed it to the engineering team. They have they have their their points. But now you have to truly create like the Figma handoff document. And how that looks like is I basically take screenshots of all the screens. Or you can generate a prompt that kind of generate all the screens of all the different parts so that you can take those screenshots, throw them into Figma.
Tyler:And then I use the Figma agent to translate those screens into design system ready files.
Nick:Right. And that means using the right components and colors and tokens and all this stuff Yep. Already present and known by developers just so you... You're all speaking the same language.
Tyler:Yeah. And, like, if I'm getting more, like, granular, I'm basically grabbing screens. We have a bank of screens that exist in Figma that are design system appropriate. If you wanna go quicker, can just grab one of those screens. But if we're updating a screen's experiences or adding a new module, you can basically just, like, leveraging this, take the...
Tyler:Translate this screenshot into this Figma Figma board and update it. And then I can do it with a bunch of the different screens so that I'm now translating them and up... And and translating basically a prototype via screenshot into into Figma.
Nick:I mean, that is... It sounds... It it does sound impressive to me. Like, you're going wider than you were able to do before AI, and it's very connected to the design system, which I know is the dream of many designer developer collaboration. And in reality, often the problem because things are outdated in one place, either in code or...
Nick:Or probably not in code, but mostly in Figma. It's either outdated in Figma and or the code isn't doing the thing we signed and agreed on in Figma.
Tyler:Yeah. 100%. And, like, once it's there, now, like, once you lay it out and, like, the... Whether you do it in, like, different sections or however you create it. But we do it in, like...
Tyler:Or I do it rather. And it's like, here are the different users that are... That we're supporting, and then I I create a page per per user and then the flows that support it. And then once it's there, then I'll have another round of developers go through the individual screens. There's Right.
Tyler:So there's like a second set of feedback that they'll give me. It's like, okay. Now that I see it all laid out, did we think about this? How does this actually work? And then we'll get more into the into the edges of edge cases.
Nick:Right.
Tyler:And then that's where everything lands.
Nick:Cool. And then at that stage that you are, like, collaborating a lot, like different people, different views. They're all clicking through and and making notes. And it's really the the fun, high energy collaboration part, I imagine. Yeah.
Nick:I mean, that sounds great. You know, it's it's something I can, you know, probably do better. Mhmm. You know, I I I do create prototypes, but only when I feel like it helps a discussion. So when we're stuck, like, you know, stakeholders and developers and myself stuck on a problem where we have, like, two solutions and and both have pros and cons, and we don't really know.
Nick:Like, having both ready as a prototype and being able to be able to click through, that really makes the difference because only then you will find if something feels intuitive or not, you know, compares to aesthetic mock up. So for me, it starts really late, and then it's only like a support tool. It's much less integrated compared to what you just described this episode. Mhmm.
Tyler:I think... And I'll I'll... Like, what I'll mention is that, like, that that is bare high level, but it, like, when... If you're, like, if if you're reusing existing components, that's how generally how it looks like. But if you're creating a new component that doesn't exist, basically, you're inventing things when you're prompting the experience.
Tyler:There's a lot of, like, pixel pushing that happens once that translation is done. So it's like if I've created a new component, but it doesn't exist, it was really high level, That's where you can really get... You push a bit, making sure that the layout's correct. Basically, it's like fine tuning because you've... It's invented a thing and you have nothing to anchor it on versus if you're...
Tyler:You have now the design system and then you're kind of massaging things, that's where you can get into like creating new iconography, new icons, illustrations, whatever it is to support the experience. Like, that stuff still happens. Right. The the high level flow really supports anchoring off something that currently exists. Yeah.
Tyler:So you get to a thing, but then there's still that craft bit that's that's fair... Like, more than useful.
Nick:Right. Yeah. I mean, there... There's also always the risk if you have a starting point. You know, the current thing we have is that we, by nature, want to improve the existing thing.
Nick:It's it's very challenging to take a step back and consider the thing to be broken and fully start from scratch, you know, mentally, but also scope and budget wise. And, you know, that could be a problem because maybe there's just a limit to how far the current design can be stretched. You know? So that's something I ran into at least. Like, we had this really big moment of motivation when one of the developers came with a completely new solution to a problem we've been working on for weeks.
Nick:You know, we were going too too much in circles trying to improve what we already had. Yeah. So I so I I think that's a risk. That's something for you to be aware of. Yeah.
Nick:You know, in that situation. Do not lean too much on the thing that's already there. We're trying to replace it with a reason.
Tyler:100%. Yeah. And it's not a perfect system. Like, it's... We're always trying to find ways to make it better.
Tyler:Like, there's... Like, back to the exercise. Like, under... Understanding what you like about it, what you wanna what we wanna start doing, but, like, also the things that it's not good at is something that you... We we always have to think about.
Tyler:Like, what can it not do well? Like Yeah. At the end of the day, like, we are the the validators behind it. So, like, we have to be involved.
Nick:Yeah. Because that's true. That's true. Yeah. I mean, know, even like an artist, like a painter, he's still there in the room.
Nick:So last episode, we suggested our listeners to design a hero section Yep. With a few constraints. So let's say they have something or they have some sort of idea, and they want you to apply today's lesson. You know? Try and and have 20 ideas first before committing to something, they can probably step by step follow the things you talked about today.
Nick:Right? Like Yes. Pro... Probably a good example of something to to, you know, have 20 ideas about.
Tyler:Yep. And then you're still landing on... Like, it's good because you're exploring. You're going wide, and then the the craft part or the death part is is still in Figma where you're really getting into the... Like, narrowing on that one solution, the death part.
Nick:How long does that take a face at that coming up with 20 ideas and going... Getting to a stage of being able to pick out a few potential winners? Like, are we talking days or hours? Or
Tyler:Depends what it is. It's like how large the feature is, how large the thing you're building is. Like, you can you can do that in... And also the urgency. So, like, for example, like, if it's a a hot fix or a bug that appears and or it's something that's holding up a feature from shipping.
Tyler:Yeah. May... You may have twenty minutes to an hour to kind of come up with a solution.
Nick:Yeah. You can still go watch. Dimension.
Tyler:Yeah. So, like, you have an error state you need to kinda push out because you didn't think about this edge case. Like, you can go, well, let me figure out a solution. Let me try these different ideas, validate with the team, come
Nick:back. Right. Yeah. So it can be really quick if you have to. Okay.
Nick:Yes. That's interesting. Alright. Any specific things? Any closing remarks for people who are about to try it out, or have have we touched on everything?
Tyler:I would... Yeah. I I would say that it's not... I'm not trying to be prescriptive here. I think it is a workflow that works currently in an ever evolving way.
Tyler:So I'd... I I suggest trying it out, see what you like about it, and then tweak and change what does what does or doesn't fit.
Nick:Okay. Well, us know. You know, comment or email because with a combined twenty seven years of experience, you know, we're still learning. Right? So Yep.
Nick:You learn the most by collaborating. So share your work. We'll let us know... We will let you know our feedback and, you know, maybe even mention this in a future episode. Yeah.
Nick:Alright. How about a quick teaser for the next episode?
Tyler:Okay.
Nick:Because I have I have something silly lined up that I... I'm not sure if you know because I came up with it recently. Okay. So I read this book about constraints, and I think it's really useful to have constraints. It really forces you to think about new ideas.
Nick:So I came up with a constraint for next week's episode. We are not allowed to talk about or even mention anything AI related in next episodes.
Tyler:Deal. Can we... They can't just say the word or just the concept as a whole?
Nick:Just just nothing. Like, we were talking about, like... By... It it feels almost like by nature today that we are talking about AI, or at some point, the conversation will end up Right. Talking about Claude or or prototyping or AI or, you know, I always talk about social media gurus just being stupid.
Nick:You know? So what if we do not talk about any of that for an episode? Just see where we end up at. Deal. You know?
Nick:Is there anything else? Like, are there design trends flying under the radar that just do not get the light of day because all we talk about is Opus five point five point one or point 5.5 or whatever being out? You know? It's a have a real design episode. I think that would be a cool experiment for us to see what see what happens.
Tyler:I'm keeping the try.
Nick:Nice. And then, you know, the week after, we'll probably do part four or part part five of
Tyler:this new
Nick:series. Yeah. Let's have this little experiment in between. Perfect. Nice.
Nick:I hope to see you all then.
Tyler:See you then. 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
Nick:here. See you next time.