Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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 have been trying hard to to not have to use Figma. So I've been trying every technique in the book over the last, like, month or so just to try to prompt my way to a nicely looking UI. And I can't, for the life of me, get that to work. Like like I'm prompting, like, the design system from Tailwind. You use this as a reference.
Tyler:Here's some screenshots. Like, doesn't it doesn't get it.
Nick:What's what's the idea behind you really trying to stay away from Figma? Why, basically? I think it's We're officially live. We're officially live. Exactly.
Nick:I mean, this is just an experiment.
Tyler:So, Nick, AI is all the buzz. There's updates every thirty seconds. I'm having a hard time keeping up. People are looking for strategies that kind of cope. At the end of this episode, what do we wanna have our listeners learn?
Nick:That's that's a great question. I think that they should learn that they should be very that they basically shouldn't listen to anyone. You know, don't fall for anything they find online and do your own research and, you know, and then decide what is what of all those announcements and updates and what is useful and what isn't.
Tyler:Agreed. Yeah. Because it can be overwhelming sometimes, if you're trying to keep up. There's a shiny new toy every thirty seconds. There's a technique that you have to use.
Tyler:They're all useful. But at a certain point, at least for me, it feels like you're you're just using a thing to use a thing, and, like, I feel like we should be more practical than that.
Nick:I think so. You know, for for me, the challenge is, you know, things just need to get done. You know, I have work to do. So I feel like I have limited time to really sit down and play with the new toys.
Tyler:Yeah. I think that's this I think that might be the strategy. That's what I'm realizing that, like, you can use all these tools, but, like, does it make sense practically from your day to day? I think that might be the sanity check. Like, I can I need to do a series of set of tasks that I do every day?
Tyler:Can AI be involved potentially? Does it need to? Does it make my job faster? And also on the other side, there's like, because it allows us to move so so much faster, there's a lot of more output to review. So it might be diminishing return.
Nick:Yeah. I mean, that's true. And and and and still, you know, like always, your clients don't care. You know? They they don't care if it's a you know, how you you have an idea they like and they ask you to build it.
Nick:They just want to see the thing being stable and well performing and ready like, you know, you agreed to do. You know, they don't care if it's it came to you in a dream in the shower or from a vibe coated or paper prototype thing or whatever, you know. But I think we designers, we are putting way too much emphasis on, you know, with this tool is better. You suck because you use this old tool, you know, like we discussed around portfolios. It's, yeah, it's it's it's who can shout the loudest about their tools to make you feel better, maybe, or less insecure.
Nick:I don't know. But I'm starting to ramble, and we're only a few minutes in into this episode. But yeah. So it was but that's that's what I'm saying. Like, you shouldn't really pay attention to the hype on social media, and you should really look at your workflow.
Nick:Like, what are you doing every day? Is there something you repeat every day that's annoying? You know, is the input and the output put more or less the same and related? If so, can you automate it? You know, but there's no one size fits all.
Nick:And and also, you know, big tools like Figma, they're not dying overnight. Also, another thing. I'm going to pause there because I feel like I am just, you know, I'm I'm shudding whatever comes up in in my mind. I need some some structure, man. Balance this episode, please.
Tyler:Yeah. I think it's like I I think there's a lot of I think there's what I'm what I'm thinking about is, like, there is you mentioned in the last episode, like, our industry changes and evolves rather quickly. Like, the It's an exciting field to be in, like not just design, just tech in general, just because things are changing. We have to new learn things and things evolve over time and our jobs evolve over time. However, for the last, like year and a half, it is, it is like three X in terms of, like, the evolving speed, if that's if that's a word or a term that we wanna use.
Tyler:Like, the jobs are flattening. Our roles are changing. And then there's a new tool every second that we think we need to learn. It's like, how do we navigate? How do we, like, one is like, don't pay attention.
Tyler:And then the other end is like, sometimes company like implement, we just need to be AI and AI first AI enabled. We need to use these new tools. Let's see if we can try to burn credits because it we look like we're we're in a innovative. There's a standard check results of, like, outside force that's kind of feeding, you know, things that we should or or shouldn't be doing.
Nick:Yeah. That's true. You know, now now that I'm I'm calmed down, you know, what I what I think is is very important is, you know, there there is useful stuff there. Also, what you're what you're saying, like, it's not all fluff, but when you say you said in the beginning, there's there's something new every thirty seconds, and it that is what it feels like. If you zoom out and you see the pattern, you know, if you can spot it, you know, then it makes sense to to pay attention.
Nick:So, for example, every thirty seconds, a new tool comes out that's trying to replace Figma, and they all have some sort of agent that's connected to code, and you're designing something. And under the hood, it's code, you know. So when everyone's doing it, you know, it probably makes sense to pay attention to it. And it probably means that it's going into that direction. But then your, you know, the level of paying attention becomes different.
Nick:You're not paying attention to individual tools, but you're just sitting back doing your job, waiting until one of those tools survives and wins from the other ones. And then you can take a look at the winner. I think that's a much healthier approach. You know, it saves you a lot of energy.
Tyler:Yeah. And I think there's something, I think there's something there. I had this I had this actually a a mentor session yesterday that put a bit more sanity in my brain. Like, I was being mentored. I had it meant like, I was looking for someone to mentor me.
Tyler:So it was diverse this time. So, like, a chief design officer at a at a at a company. And I was asking him, like, when you're looking over the things that have evolved over the last, like, year and a half or or two years with AI, like, what is, like, what is your strategy? How are you leading your team? Like, what is what has changed and, like, what's your strategy?
Tyler:And then this hits he said something that struck me. It's like, well, I think we're we're going back to the generalist skillset. It's like the roles are flattening and then it's just about being a team player. And it's just about contributing. Yeah.
Tyler:So I think there's something there. It's like, I don't think the tools matter. It's just how are you contributing to the success of the business that we're all kind of collectively working through and how that looks like may change. But, like, the the output from the individual is really just, we can we collaborate together? And regardless of if engineers are doing design work or PMs are doing engineering work, designers are doing engineering, like, regardless, like let's, we're looking to that generalist thing where like, we're just, we're, we're a construction work.
Tyler:We're construction workers looking to build this building. I don't care we don't care who's hammering in the nails and who's sawing the wood.
Nick:Yeah. The I mean, that it's it feels like it's going there, doesn't it? But and what I'm noticing also is that, if you are broadening your your role beyond the the borders of, well, what is your role? So let's say you're a designer who's going into code, for example, you need to learn a developer's mindset also. And when you do not do that yet, when you haven't succeeded yet, it's going to be very annoying for real developers.
Nick:You know, you're just coming in and and with your design hat on, you are trying to develop things because, you know, a developer, for example, is really thinking about shared components. If I change something here, it will affect something over there. And if I want to break those two things apart, I need to create a conditional or a second component or we need to split, and it's more maintenance work when we want to change something else in the future. You know, that kind of thinking, you know, code based hygiene, basically, that's something that comes naturally to a developer. A designer doesn't care about it at all because, well, I can just drag around this rectangle over here in Figma and it doesn't matter.
Nick:It's not connected at all. And suddenly they have to think about connected rectangles. That is something that takes a lot of time to learn. And I I don't hear people talk about that at all. You know, it's just like, yeah, I can just do this now.
Nick:You know, the lines are blurry. Lines are blurry, but but the the gap in in quality between a designer coding and the actual developer coding is also, you know, is is blurry, you know, quote, unquote blurry. So I think suddenly you have two mindsets. You have the designer's mindset, you have the developer's mindset, and you have to switch context. So I don't think that change in roles or the broadening of roles is as straightforward as most people are saying.
Tyler:No. I think it's yeah. There's a gap to be filled, like and also, like, if everyone's like, we've been running into it. Like, if everyone's creating a prototype, sometimes people wanna use it for sales. Sometimes they're like it gets blurry.
Tyler:Like, what is the source of truth? So, like, typically, you'd have, like, a PRD created, and then the designer does the Figma design, and then the developer does the coding, and then they create the prototype. And then we we know, like, what we should be focusing on. But since everyone is, like, creating their own prototype just to communicate their idea, it's like, then it becomes confusing to, like, each department, like, whose thing is the real thing? And then leadership, like, sees one piece.
Tyler:Like, is that the thing? Like, it's it looks like it's almost done, but it's it's not a developer's, prototype. It's a PM's prototype or a designer's prototype. It doesn't actually work. It it look it's masquerading as a thing that's actually working, but it but it's not.
Tyler:So that's something to navigate. And, like, to hark back to your point, like, the developer knows how it should be scalable and coded properly, so using shareable components. So, yes, like, these tools are helpful, but, like, there's a PR check or sanity check that each that developer in this case would would need to put their Snap on.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. True. And and, I mean, what you're saying about your prototypes being all over the place, that's challenging if you are, you know, more or less the one whose job description it is to make the prototypes. Like you are designing, you are the one you know, the reason you're there partially is because you can make prototypes, But then everyone else is making prototypes, and then that is, you know, mentally, again, it's challenging because what's my worth if everyone can make a prototype?
Nick:So I see a lot of people struggling with that. You know, I see a lot of content online where people are saying, you know, it it because of this whole AI wave that we're in or on, it's just not fun anymore. You know? What what would you say to what would you say to that to people feeling it's less fun or even no fun because of AI to be a designer?
Tyler:I don't think like, I don't think it's like I said, it's not fun anymore. Like like, what was fun? Like, it was the Figma stuff that we were doing, or is it creating a thing? What is the fun part? Like, we have Yeah.
Tyler:I think it's it's still fun. I think what what it is, it's more overwhelming. It's the the, like, what we're like, our careers, like, trajectory. It looks very fuzzy right now. It's like our to my earlier point, like, jobs are changing.
Tyler:Things are getting flattened. It's like, it's very it's very uncertain times. It's like, I do I used to do this thing and it's changing, and then I'm unsure what I what I'm going to be doing six months or a year down the line. In the immediate time, I have all these tools, but, like, am I using the right tools? So I think it's just about, like, getting your footing.
Tyler:It's like, what is like, I'm still, we're still doing our job. We're still contributing. It's just like, there's a lot of outside noise that makes it very fuzzy and adds a bit of, or moves a bit of clarity, I think, which is like what people are kind of double clicking on. I think it's not less fun. It's just like there's there's probably it's probably more fun.
Tyler:It's just like too much fun. But I think you're just getting overstimulated.
Nick:Yeah. So that maybe yeah. That makes sense. It's it's you need to take a step back. You know?
Nick:It's it's not fun as perhaps just to label people are putting on their, you know, them being forced to make changes. You know? This is not what I've learned in school. Oh, shit. I have to relearn.
Nick:Well, that's not fun. Well, you know, I'm a bit in between. I think it's a lot of fun because I'm doing so much more than I did before. I'm learning all the time, making something better or bigger or more efficient. Perhaps using AI, you know, that motivates me a lot.
Nick:You know, I really enjoyed the building. But at the same time, I also fear for us losing our crafts. You know, the the painter being in front of the the canvas, really painting and thinking things through and and having a skill. That's what we do in Figma or in Photoshop or Sketch or, you know, Illustrator or whatever. You know, it's it's just you sitting down for an afternoon, building something, designing something that looks fantastic.
Nick:And it's it's just you're so motivated and and happy you're looking at it. You're like, wow. I made this thing happen, you know, by myself. All this hard work plus sweat and tears. I did this thing.
Nick:And now you just, you know, you you put it all in this black box with a prompt and it poops something out. You know, there's a bit of a disconnect there, I imagine. And that's something I I feel sometimes, you know, when in addition to the happiness and it's being more fun. But I do not want to ignore that part because it is there. And I'm curious what you think.
Nick:Like, do you have that feeling at all?
Tyler:I just don't think I have been trying hard to to not, like, have to use Figma. So I've been trying every technique in the book over the last, like, like, month or so just to try to prop my way to a nicely looking UI, and I can't, for the life of me, get that to work. It's like like I'm prompting, like, use the design system from Tailwind. You use this as a reference. Here's some screenshots.
Tyler:Like, it doesn't it doesn't get it, the same way. As soon a point, I'm like, I'm I'm it's it's everything's starting to look vibe coated. And I think the only solution is to jump into Figma and actually kind of manicure things. Yeah. Because there's there's such a disconnect between, like, what does it design is too abstract for AI, I think, at today's stage to understand what what we're looking to get at.
Tyler:Yeah. So you can get to a prototype. Yes. But to get to a polished, shiny, nice product, like you need to manicure, zoom to, like, 200 x to the round corners and letters, like, typography spacing to get it correctly. Like, the easy part is the connect, connect, Claude or, or cursor to the Figma MCP and then translate the design.
Tyler:But the actual design work I, for the light, I've been trying hard, but like, can't, you can't skip that step. It's it's the step that that determines the quality of the product. And Mhmm. Like, you need to kind of push pixels. That's still very important.
Nick:Yeah. What what's what's the idea behind you really trying to stay away from Figma? Why, basically?
Tyler:I think it's I think it's just, like, it's maybe a late maybe just me being lazy or just me being very excited to Mhmm. Bring something to, like, to life and make it work. Like, I really like like, if I'm looking at, like, when I design something and then I implement it, I I'm very excited about it being live. So that it's maybe me just over indexing. I'm like, I don't know.
Tyler:Me just see the thing actually working and it's in production. But what I've noticed is that, like, I just can't skip that design phase because it's super important.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, try and explain something visual and text only. You know? Very specific Yeah.
Nick:In the details where you say, well, the top left corner slightly to the right below it, there's something there. It's it's gray, but not really gray. You know, it is it's so hard to explain. Let me tell you something that you will like a lot. It's really special.
Tyler:Oh.
Nick:I I vibe coded a thing today.
Tyler:Oh, snap. Here we go. You've not just dipped your toes. You you've stepped into the water. I like it.
Tyler:Tell me why.
Nick:Yeah. I I I tripped and fell. No. But I I I really did it. Yeah.
Nick:I I felt like I I couldn't stay behind. You know, I I had to see for myself. I actually did it twice. One thing was very practical, and I'm not sure if it counts as vibe coded because I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It was about a table of contents sticky on a page, you know, on scroll that it stays.
Nick:But then also at some point, you know, imagine it being to the left of your screen. All the content is to the right of it, the second column. But at some point you hit a full width section with a different background color. So the table of content has to go through it because it's sticky. And it's not just, you know, it's it's it's contrast wise.
Nick:It's a big difference. So you weren't you were not able to see the table of content anymore while scrolling through the docs section. I had it in Figma. Like, this is the starting point. This is what it looks like mid scroll.
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. But I I felt like it wouldn't really sell that way. Like, here's two static images of what something looks like on the move, you know, static versus on the move. It didn't really fit.
Nick:So I used Cloud Code to design just an empty page with just a table of contents, the section headers, and then that full width dark section to really, you know, to to send over a file to someone like your click around or, well, scroll around just to show you interactively what the thing that I had in mind looked like. So is that five coding, or was I the the wrong way around because I already knew what I wanted to do? I just needed a way to show it.
Tyler:Yeah. I think you're I think you're on it. You five coded. You did it. Tip your toes.
Nick:Yeah. It's official. Nice. Well, that's good. Yeah.
Nick:That's good. Yeah. I mean, that's I
Tyler:think it's like the vibe coding is just like, it's a useful tool to to explore ideas. Yeah. I I don't think it was ever meant to I don't think it ever meant I mean, we're getting to the point where you can vibe code most things. But, like, I think the initial, like, idea was to just try and explore, different variations or just, like, put your idea from paper to this.
Nick:Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Nothing wrong with it. For me, it's I think I'm I'm overly obsessing about the label, you know, fibing, like we discussed.
Nick:Yeah.
Tyler:So I'm curious, like, how do you feel? Like, what's have you changed? Has has Nick transformed after your first Vibe Code experience? Is this something you're gonna do more of?
Nick:I think so. You know, I think in in in this sense, in this way, it makes a lot of sense to to do it. You know, when you because Figma my either my Figma skills are limited. I don't think so. Like, I'm I'm not a 10 out of 10 Figma magician, but, you know, good enough to be able to draw and visualize anything I want.
Nick:But that interactivity, I just felt like I'm not going to do that in Figma with the prototyping that they have there. So it was helpful, and the stakeholder was very happy and impressed to see it. Yeah. That's very cool, that table of content. Let me let's let's just do it on the entire site.
Nick:So they said. So, you know, that's good. It means more work for me, you know, more invoices to be sent. So I'm very happy, and I still feel like myself because it feels like five coding is to me, it's like, here's this idea. Just give me something.
Nick:But now it was the other way around. Like, I have this thing. I know it's cool. You know? Make it clickable for me.
Nick:So I felt more in control and less fibing. So, yeah, that it feels like a good middle ground for me for sure. But then today, I did the full vibe code. I did the full version, you know, for something else where I just had this idea, and I noticed within myself I was putting it off because I was stuck. Like, I I didn't really know what to do.
Nick:And and I did I took a page from your playbook. You know, I I described, you know, in context first prompt what I wanted to do. And then the second prompt was, you know, this is what we've talked about. Here's a transcript for a meeting. Give me five concepts, you know?
Nick:And there's a positive thing and a negative thing that happened to me there. The negative thing for me was that all five ideas were terrible.
Tyler:So I
Nick:didn't like anything I saw at all, which made me realize this thing that I'm working on is for for a paying client, and we've been talking about it for months. And it's just impossible to put months of working together, a year of working together into the context of a single prompt. They just you don't remember everything and you cannot put everything into a prompt. So the output being terrible is as much on me as it is on Claude, you know, because I didn't explain everything. So that's the negative side.
Nick:But the very positive side is that me looking at it made me realize like, snap, it shouldn't be this. It should be this thing. And now I have my own idea. So it helped me get unstuck, which is basically just, you know, you going out on the street, you know, you go for coffee somewhere, you bring your your challenge with you, and a random person says, how about this? And you say, no, you're not a desire.
Nick:This sucks. Wait a minute. You know, it's like you're I'm not sure if you've seen Doctor House on TV, but he's talking to random people. And then at some point, he's like, oh, you know, big eyes. And he's like and he just storms out the room because he's he has his idea.
Nick:You know? And that's what happened that's what happening with, with vibe coding. So, yeah, that's the positive thing. You know, negative being, you know, terrible output, positive. I have my idea.
Tyler:Yeah. And it's also I've circled back to, like, your idea of a couple episodes ago, we talked about, like, being a meeting facilitator. And you had mentioned that, like, some like, the benefit of just shooting ideas at the wall, like, even terrible ideas push you away from bad ideas to get to better ones. Yeah. Yeah.
Tyler:So it sounds like you just you just did that to yourself.
Nick:Yes. Yes. Yes. So I'm you know, the bottom line is that I'm quite positive. It's easier than I thought because, you know, I I have granola, so I transcribe most of my meetings.
Nick:So, you know, I have my own thoughts, my own notes, but I can also put in, like, two or three transcripts from meetings to give more context. I was also concerned about how shareable it is, but I put in the prompt that I just want a single HTML file, everything in line so that I can just send over a single file. You only have to double click, you know. So and it's mostly throwaway stuff to help move yourself to help yourself move forward. So I don't feel threatened.
Nick:Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm more positive about what five coding is, but I still hate the name. You know, I'm really o c about it.
Tyler:Yeah. I'll come up with another name, but I think it's useful. I think the transcript workflow, I find it super useful. I use it all the time. And Yeah.
Tyler:I I downloaded granola yesterday, so I'll have to ask you later, like, how you use it because Mhmm. I think the connotation now is that people don't like robots in their room. So if you have a transcript, that doesn't have to invite a a robot into the room and make everyone awkward, the better. Yeah. But like transcript driven designer development, I think it's I've been using a lot.
Tyler:I've been getting really good success. There's been a lot less hallucinations.
Nick:Yes.
Tyler:And like the strategy I deploy there is that like, is, I'd say I'm working on a project and then we have a meeting, I'm demoing what it looks like I'm taking, and there's a bunch of feedback. I'm just taking that transcript, loading it into chat GPT and it's like, okay, Here are the things that I need to tackle or update. Number one, I don't forget what I have the list of things that I update. But let's tackle this piece by piece, and then I'll have ChatGPT based on some back and forth. Give me a prompt to give a cursor to create the thing.
Tyler:And then Yeah. It does that that flow seems to be working really well, and it's not that there's a lot less hallucination because it has a bit of context also. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:I mean, basically, the whole transcript, you know, let's say it's a sixty minute meeting. It's it's basically your whole prompt. You know? And, you know, if you imagine that in size compared to what you can put in yourself from what you remember, it's just so much bigger. There's so much more context.
Nick:You know, cool thing about granola is if you have the the the pro or the plus or need, well, the the paid version, you can connect it to things like Zapier. So let's say you have some sort of recurring meeting. You can then have like once the meeting is over, you can have it go through Zapier to Slack or linear or anything and do something with it even more automated. So let's say you have a, you know, a weekly review, you know, from the team about work, you know, like sprint review or whatever. You can automate it to send have it send to do items to your inbox or into linear, for And what I'm using it for is when I when I do a a role play interview with with someone I'm coaching, you know, it's transcribing the interview.
Nick:And then we together we can look back at the answers the person gave. We can really look at, hey, you know, you gave like 10 paragraphs of an answer here, and I was almost sleeping by that time. You know? Here's a better one paragraph answer, you know? So it's it's super useful.
Nick:Like, I think transcribing and being able to have it start workflows either manually or automatically for me, like, that's like a top three unlock by AI. And that really makes it fun for me. Yeah. Because I really enjoy building workflows and and and making things better. So it's yeah.
Nick:Just to fully circle back to that that thing people are saying online, like, that makes it fun for me.
Tyler:I'm curious. Last thing on granola. Does it because it doesn't join the meeting. Right? No.
Tyler:It just does it and then how does it deal with, like, multiple participants in a room? Does it how does it label each participant? It's like person one, person two, and then you?
Nick:It last time I checked, it doesn't really. It just says you and them. Okay. So that That's what it
Tyler:could be more than okay. So them is just everyone else.
Nick:Yeah. Because I'm I'm not transcribing this because, you know, a transistor does so for us. And but if I but I have it open. Really cool is when you join a meeting, it says, hey. Meeting detectives.
Nick:You know? Start transcribing. So that's really nice. I have I have one open here from last Thursday when I was talking to, you know, multiple people at the same time. And I can see the the transcript if I can I can find it because now, you know, of course oh, there we go?
Nick:Yeah. It it it I don't think it really takes, you know, roles at different people. You know, it's just you and them. That's what I'm seeing now. Yeah.
Nick:So that could be better, you know, But I don't know. I think transistor does so. Like, you have to it it knows when you or myself is talking.
Tyler:Okay. Very cool. Yeah. I I downloaded it yesterday. I haven't got it working.
Nick:But Yeah.
Tyler:First thing.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very cool. It's it's very useful for me. And, you know, what I'm also going to do when you talk about transcribing is to make the episode detail pages of our website better is because it knows when you are talking, it knows when I am talking to each page.
Nick:It now just has the description that we also have on the YouTube video, but I'm also going to put in to go to have the the transcript go into the Zapier, and then it goes into Claude, and I ask it to take out the main view of you and of me. Like, what does Tyler think about this topic? How would he answer the question? And then the same for me. And then I'm going to put that on the page of the episode.
Tyler:Oh, very cool.
Nick:You know? So, you know, so this episode is about, you know, does AI make things fun or less fun? Well, tighter things and then a nice, you know, quote on the page. Click here to listen for more, you know? And that's that's all because of transcriptions.
Nick:So I I think that's that's very cool. Yeah. I'm a big fan of of of voice to text as you might have noticed.
Tyler:Yeah. Well, I think that, like because context is the most like, the prompt or the input is the most important part, and transcript seems like the the most amount of context that you should be like, it's it's the perfect amount of context because it's
Nick:Yeah.
Tyler:Literally people's thoughts transcribed to to to, you know, Word doc.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. True. Yeah. And and and, you know, it, I'm I'm very used to it now.
Nick:Like, I I don't you know, when I join a meeting and you see a third person, which is just an avatar of the the notetaker, I feel invaded almost, you know, but granola, you don't notice, and I'm okay with it. You know, we we we are being listened to and and transcribed and everything, you know, all the time. So I know it's it's getting normal. You know, it's getting accepted for, you know I mean, this is recorded also like what we're saying now, and I don't feel like I have to hold myself back at all. You know, we are just, you know, two people talking.
Nick:Anyway, we are we're we're we're we're going to really deep into granola and and transcribing. You know? One thing maybe as, you know, related, but still, you know, something that makes the job less fun is AI bloat. You know, there's just so much, you know, like you said, there's something new every 30. But also, I feel like a generated email or generated summary is way longer and bigger and using more big words than when you would do the same thing manually.
Nick:You know, this this very long email could have been a bullet point list, you know. So I think that's that's annoying. That makes it less fun, you know. Or when someone replies to you to your email or your message in Slack when it's it's obviously a generated thing, it makes me feel like you don't care, you know. So there are things more in the interaction and communication with people where I feel like AI is, you know, it's it's demotivating.
Tyler:No. I get it. Yeah. I get the same thing when I can tell and do so AI tells. I'm, like, disconnected.
Tyler:Oh, well, this person didn't write it. It's just like things that kinda put together. Like, that I think we're going back to that human connection that we need. So, like, when we need things that have spelling mistakes, errors that feel human. Yeah.
Tyler:Maybe there's a solve for that. Maybe like two people who record themselves every week, take those transcripts and created, an AI to kind of replicate their voice. Maybe that's a good way to go. Yeah. To the average person.
Tyler:I think Yeah. We need a bit of that. I can tell that this person wrote it, and they really care.
Nick:Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And so that, you know, I made a decision a while back to like, every communication I do is, you know, handwritten or hand you know, well, on a keyboard, but it's it's written by me. Yeah.
Nick:Because I value the communication part a lot. So that's for social media posts, but also emails or Slack messages because just because you can use AI to do to do things slightly quicker. It doesn't mean you have to for everything.
Tyler:With great power.
Nick:Yeah. And now people will go into the comments and be like, well, you you just hate AI. You're an old dinosaur, you know? But I'm like, well, no. You know, it's I use AI all the time, but not for literally everything I do.
Nick:You know, you can think for yourself and decide where to use it and and to what degree. Yeah. Rant over. No.
Tyler:I think it's fair because there's a negative consequence that you might just lose yourself. So, like, if AI is doing everything, what are you doing? And you'll probably there's a point where you might lose track of, like, what you said. If you're applying to every email with AI and you're messaging people on Slack at AI, like, do you remember those conversations or just you're a monkey cranking out words to people?
Nick:Yeah.
Tyler:And you're losing context and memory of, the conversations that are happening.
Nick:Yeah. Very true. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, again, you know, it's it's it's a mixed thing.
Nick:But overall, I'm very positive on AI. I think it makes work more fun mostly.
Tyler:Yeah. I think so. I think it makes it fun. It's just it's just AI blow conversation, but also, like, use it when you when it's necessary. If it's useful for the two, it was like, when you have a hammer, everything's a nail.
Tyler:Just make sure that you're using it purposely.
Nick:Yeah. I think so. You know, I'm maybe as a as a a finisher for this episode, quick fire question. Are you afraid for the future of your role because of AI? Will it take over?
Tyler:I don't think it will. I am I think I'm pretty confident that AI cannot design things. There's there's a reason why we call it AI slop because it it always looks Yep. Like so.
Nick:Yeah. How about you? I agree. I'm I'm confident 90% of the time that AI is and will remain a tool and that there will be enough work for us because we are better, and it makes us better. That's what I'm thinking.
Tyler:Yeah. Plus, like, just with all this AI slop, then use a designer to fix it. So Yeah. We're just creating That's is being created.
Nick:Yeah. Truly. Oh, yes. For sure. Yeah.
Nick:I I have more and more people reaching out to me like, generated this thing, but it doesn't work. I don't know why. It's it's just, you know, there's something about it. Can you help us? You know?
Nick:It used to be zero out of 10 projects, but now it's like one or two out of 10 projects where they start that way. So, yeah, I'm positive. I think it's it's it's great and it will stay great for
Tyler:Good. Nice. No fears. Stay positive, people.
Nick:Yeah. Think for yourself. Yeah. Yeah.
Tyler:Alright. That's another episode in the bag.
Nick:Yeah. Great episode. By the way, if you're stuck second guessing your work or trying to figure out your next move, drop a question in the comments or leave a review. We might actually feature you in one of our future episodes.
Tyler:And if you got any value from this episode, hit subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps more than you think.
Nick:You can can find everything else, resources, articles, and more at designtablepodcast.com.
Tyler:Thanks for being here.
Nick:See you next