What's in today's newsletter?

1. 3 reminders for AI-first designers
2. Designers + Researchers are AI anxious
3. Separate text, objects, & backgrounds from any image
4. Portfolios are now interactive
5. How to thrive as an introverted designer

Got 5 mins? Need your input →

Every designer is now expected to use AI.

AI for this
AI for that

But be careful...

Are we actually talking about how AI and design work together?

The nuances
The trade-offs
The “I don’t fucking know to be honest”

I’m having these conversations with myself. Out loud. Like a weirdo.

3 things I reckon designers need to watch:

1. The beautiful wrong thing

I’ve seen AI build gorgeous interfaces with the right direction.

It'll tell you what features to build.
Not what products to build.

We can out-design AI for now. But what about when we can't?

Our job stays rooted in knowing people. Their fears. Their frustrations. The trust issues AI will never feel.

A beautiful, useless thing is still useless.

2. Saying no

Give AI a prompt, it suggests 5 features. Ask it to improve something, it adds 3 sections. AI thinks more is better.

(kinda sounds like a PM. Lol)

Your job is to be the adult who calls out this bullshit. And cuts.

Ask yourself, do we really need:

• Customization
• Dark mode (maybe)
• More dashboard widgets
• "Smart" recommendations

People are in your software to complete a task (jobs-to-be-done, hello!). Features are just a way to get there.

Every extra step is one more reason to rage-quit.

In a world where I can generate anything in seconds, the most valuable decision is usually a "no".

The no's need to be louder than ever.

3. So what?

Everyone's shipping products with AI.

But how many people know if their work is more or less impactful?

• Trust: Do users believe what AI tells them?
• Completion: Did they actually finish the task?
• Recovery: When AI screws up, can users fix it?
• Hallucination: When AI makes stuff up, what happens?

Define what success looks like before you ship.

If it doesn’t help, why bother? (oh yeh, company valuations $$$ 🙄)

Notice the thread running through all 3: knowing your users, saying no, measuring what actually matters.

That's judgment.
And judgment is still yours.

That's the job now. Deciding what deserves to exist.

AI is a tool. You're the designer.

The tool does what you tell it. But only if you know what to tell it.

Good luck out there 🫡

10 UX fundamentals to regardless of AI? Full guide →​

A big thanks to our friends at Optimal for sponsoring this issue.

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So what's went down last week?

The going ons, happenings & shenanigans you might have missed ↓

Designers and researchers are at the epicenter of AI anxiety.

No way, surely not us? Right?

​Lenny Rachitsky's survey found that designers and researchers are the most negative across nearly every measure of how they feel about their careers.

Amongst user researchers, 51% are “anxious about my job security,” and are the most likely to fear “losing my job to AI”.

Among designers, 63% feel “overwhelmed by the pace of change” and 61% feel “tired,” the highest of any role. And designers are the most likely to feel the comp squeeze (61% selected “expected to do more for the same compensation”).

Designers report the worst-rated managers in the survey. We saw this trend in last year's survey, but it's gotten even worse a year later.

​Read the full report →​

If you're feeling negative, you're not the only one, take comfort in that, and that's why more than ever, we need community (and hopefully this group chat).

Magnific Auto Layers converts images into editable layers.

So you can fix just one part of an image without recreating the whole thing. Which means separates text, objects & backgrounds, from any image. Use it for screenshots, cool ads, a good meme, whatever.

Time for remixing things you found online! Try it here →​

The new type of portfolio: The Interactive Portfolio. Juan Gomez Vara built an interactive game-like portfolio experience.

You walk around the map, talking to different cute characters, and they tell you about Juan. How awesome!

I'm seeing more and more designs vibecoding their ideas to life. Not only that, they're making a part of their portfolio. Could this be the most compelling way to impress recruiters and hiring managers?

I think so. I'm definitely impressed.

Pretending to be an extrovert all day is exhausting. But what if your company only rewards these kind of folks.

How do you get promoted?
How do you get more recognition?
How do you become un-fire-able?

All while being your introverted self at work.

That's why I chatting to Tim Yeo about how introverts can thrive in tech without faking it at work.

Come hang on LinkedIn or YouTube.

As always, spam the chat if you're joining the convo!

That's it for today.

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What would make you open this every single week? Terrible ideas, hurtful feedback, whacky suggestions, I wanna hear them all. Help me make this dope in this 5 minute survey →

Speak soon 💛
— Chris
​rectangles.fm​