speaker-0: so we're here at the afternoon of day two config. And we're here with Alice of GoFundMe. your config been? ⁓

Dan: Welcome to AI and Design, where we explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the world of design. I'm Dan Safer and my co-host Nik Martelaro who's off this week. We are faculty at Carnegie Mellon's Human Computer Interaction Institute, the HCII. Each week we break down the latest AI developments, dive deep into topics that matter to designers.

speaker-0: Alright, I'm here Ryan Freitas on day two ⁓ ⁓ How's your config been? ⁓

speaker-1: It's been going great. I always love being in this space because so about

speaker-0: Hello, we we're here again two on config. ⁓ I'm here with Kim Lennox. Kim, how's your been? ⁓ are at the end of Config. ⁓ We did what was your What was your what was your config like? ⁓

speaker-1: Great. coming to for me is a combination of getting a a of the current state of tools and what's coming, ⁓ but also it's a high reunion, ⁓ it feels like, because so people in the industry that are here at one time, all designers, all a lot of like here up in the leadership collective, it's ⁓ a bunch of people who've been doing the same thing for as long as I have and longer and ⁓ getting a chance to of together once a year. ⁓ We did it. the event is community. it's a great opportunity to connect ⁓ folks that I've ⁓ not seen in long time and certainly not a surprise. Lots of talk about AI and so yeah it's been really interesting. I think been really interesting balance of both humanity and technology. Which I think has been really interesting. ⁓

speaker-0: We are here ⁓ at Config2026. here with Peter and James We just saw the ⁓ keynote ⁓ about an ago. So gentlemen, ⁓ impressions.

speaker-1: I love up with everybody. ⁓ three years that seems to be the biggest thing for me is ⁓ seeing all people that I used to work with and just catching up friends. ⁓

speaker-0: I'm Greg Petrov, I know how explain I am with these days, but ⁓ I guess I would say fractional ⁓ designer, part-time ⁓

speaker-1: big. Lots people I'd say that we were talking about that.

Dan: And talk with fascinating guests who are right at the intersection of these fields. Whether you're a designer working with AI or an AI practitioner interested in design, we're glad you're here.

speaker-0: I should also say your name. ⁓ Well there you go. You can say you can say your own name, yes.

speaker-1: I'm Emily Campbell.

speaker-0: What was the thing that you've heard or the buzz

speaker-1: ⁓ so you just came from the session downstairs that was ⁓ deep dive some of the stuff that they showed in the keynote. ⁓ Any surprises, ⁓ ⁓ bit of a ⁓ breakfast, right? of a grab bag of things that they showed. There wasn't like a strong overarching theme in the way that I think there had been in prior years. also it looked me they are really going after ⁓

speaker-0: there is definitely that ⁓ aspect of it.

speaker-1: takeaway was level of conversations, the level the contents. It's very high level. Found that to be really interesting. ⁓

speaker-0: What have you seen that's had that balance?

speaker-1: last I was overwhelmed. This year's a little less overwhelming, but downstairs it is insane how many young designers are here ⁓ and like just the size the of the thing. ⁓

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ since I have my notebook here and I all my notes, I'll give you some of my ⁓ like hot quotes. Okay. ⁓ Tao Connor talked ⁓ AI is like junk it seems in the And then you look back and you're like, mmm, ⁓ maybe I have that. And I thought that was really interesting. I think people seem to be ⁓ the chaos And feel like maybe year

speaker-0: High level in terms of ⁓ getting into detail. I think the thing that ⁓ liked about where Figma's going and I think what Dylan talked a little bit, although I don't think he did a good job of explaining it this morning, is an opportunity for people who have a design background and understand how to make things to actually be more strategically important because they can ⁓ do the whole thing now.

speaker-1: Not getting into as many details. I see a lot of seeds being planted. I'll put it that way. Uh-huh. ⁓ some of the talks that have stood out in that way. was one ⁓ with a content designer from Anthropic ⁓ about how as designers we're building these harnesses, we're the operating layer that the words, the the copy or the conversation.

speaker-0: downstairs is extremely overwhelming. ⁓ in that big room.

speaker-1: marketing communication brand design more. They talked about shaders for 15 minutes. They spent a lot on motion graphics and motion design because they are launching that capability. it just felt like were playing that up more than ⁓ design for product and user experience. Yes. Yeah, w that many people is ⁓ it's a lot. Like but think I mean but the idea that you would have an event for tens of thousands of designers when we were coming up is a completely different idea.

speaker-0: Tens of thousands of designers is

speaker-1: Maybe six months ago I like a lot of people were in this panic. ⁓ design was dead and what are we gonna do ⁓ and

speaker-0: Absolutely. Absolutely. What did you think about what they announced? ⁓

speaker-1: another one that I really liked was from Hector. He and I used to work together at Google. he's now at Amazon and he did an entire talk about ⁓ a new philosophy that he's been evangelizing called humorphism.

speaker-0: And I I've been working with ⁓ some small teams recently where we're trying to do this whole thing around a code model where the design and code are kind of connected to each other. and it's complicated at times. but the easier it gets, the more ⁓ empowered the is in product organization ⁓ because they can make faster ⁓ product can think ⁓ about products. And so I think

speaker-1: well, given that we are big fans and friends with Figma at JP Morgan Chase, we were very excited by what they were announcing. Obviously the focus on

speaker-0: Somebody here does have a design is dead hat I saw.

speaker-1: That ultimately gets experienced by people, that was interesting. So a little bit of that. There's another one I didn't make it to today, but a bunch of people were sending me some photos around evals. that was interesting. think that ⁓ the next year of kind of pulling at those threads, what does it mean to assess whether what we're doing ⁓ is moving us in direction we wanted to go?

speaker-2: I think it's important to remember that they are still going Adobe, right? I mean Adobe is the incumbent suite in so many enterprises still. And if gonna after Adobe, you've gotta hit Adobe's major use cases. And those audiences, those markets are ⁓ Yep.

speaker-1: yeah yeah, exactly. Exactly. ⁓ I think that people just more ⁓ we've gotta ⁓ we're gonna make work ⁓ and ⁓ they're getting the ⁓ figuring it out. And especially the leadership, what I'm seeing is they're ⁓ digging deep and every single design that I've talked to ⁓ is MCP and interop is a big deal for us. ⁓ lot of the conversation lately has been around ⁓ in our experiments with all the different like ⁓ no one canonical stack. ⁓ being able to access and encode and build skills and have them available ⁓ ⁓ when they start talking about shipping to prod, we're a little less like ⁓ not there yet. We are a bank, we're federally regulated, we have all these security things in mind ⁓ and we've got engineers who say,

Dan: This week, ⁓ from config twenty twenty-six, ⁓ I talk with six leaders about they saw, what the vibe ⁓ and what the big themes were from this year's big design conference in Francisco. ⁓

speaker-1: And this idea of the fact that so much of the industry is designing for the tools not designing for humans. ⁓ so he gave a really, really interesting analogy around the you when you walk up to someone in a cubicle and you your head the cubicle because you want to connect with someone and if you make eye contact, all of a sudden ⁓

speaker-0: do we get user researchers involved in things like evals? Yeah. Like that that that just makes sense now. only a third of the time seem to be what I would consider the major competitor, which be other things Claude design that are going straight at them. ⁓ But I think right, we forget that outside of UX there is a huge of people that are and illustrators and and all those kinds of things. And Adobe has a lock on them. shows the story that creatives an opportunity to be more strategic in organizations and if if Figma kind pivots into that, then I think they'll be okay. Last year they a lot about product management and trying to help them. ⁓ The design community a little bit plummocked by that. ⁓ I understood why were trying to do that, but I think they're only viable ⁓

Dan: Last week, stick around for a lot of varying opinions and hot takes from Config 2026.

speaker-1: leading by example, the design work themselves. They might not have been in tools for years and they're in the tools now. Yeah. I'm seeing also Some bits and pieces of this, hey, we need this new vocabulary. We need a way to talk to these machines or instruct and guide these machines in a way that isn't simply go do this, hit send, and run my prompt. So we're not quite ready to about the specifics of what it looks like day-to-day. There's like this utility of what does this mean for me and my job and my role in my company that was missing. But I do think that ⁓ the people who were ready ⁓ start to explore at that slightly deeper layer, definitely some. Hang on a minute, we really need to run this through our process. ⁓ we worry less about like ⁓ close to metal are you? ⁓ something that I hear like all the time. we are going to get to that place, but we are not there yet. So I'm about the stuff that allows me to tell my teams, ⁓ you're gonna have access to these tools, you're gonna be able to use them anywhere, regardless of if you're using GitHub Copilot, if you're using Claude, if you're using any of the available things that are coming, if we're doing some like home built, homegrown stuff, ⁓ it's all be available. two people stand up and start having a conversation ⁓ and barrier ⁓ that there between the cubicle disappears. And ⁓ he shared animation ⁓ of an interface ⁓ and said, why aren't designing interfaces to be collaborative, ⁓ like it is ⁓ ⁓ human beings. so anyways, really enjoyed his

speaker-0: Yeah, I've I've heard the same thing where people are like, ⁓ I never even use Figma before or use any of these tools and now I'm using it make ⁓ quick prototypes. Yep. I pass those off to my team or to the execs and then my ⁓ team refines them. So is an interesting change.

Dan: Thanks for listening to AI and Design. We'll be back next week with more new guests, more AI, more design, more of what you crave. Stay cool out there.

speaker-0: path forward with all the new tools that are happening to be a place where people can explore and make and think and it magically becomes product. And easier than done. But what saw today in the and what we did the deep dive today showed a lot more about how the decisions a might make can be manifested in ⁓ production ready code. If they can break away some of those, it could be a strategy for them

speaker-2: open up their own market. Yes exactly. Beyond the audiences they're already

speaker-1: Exactly. Well right, if you've already got your design system in Figma, can you then capitalize that Interesting seeds being planted. really interesting is that we're still kind of melding this like capital D design as a everything everywhere, ⁓ it art, is it brand, is it product, is it now engineering? And I don't know that's a good or bad thing yet, ⁓ but it's definitely of it's it's blurring at the edges, and we're not really diving deep into what does that mean for this particular type of problem or this moment in ⁓ the journey or the ecosystem. I'm also seeing still huge contraction of design teams that to having ⁓ underlying fear of we next? And then design that been through it a while are just like, this is ⁓ Which we're really excited about.

speaker-0: did you hear anything more about skills? That was the one thing kinda got glossed over.

speaker-1: ⁓ I was at a I was at an event last night at Instagram and and Jessica Hische ⁓ Tickets. gosh. I walked in and and John Maeda was just standing right there in the front door. I yeah, I had really exciting conversation with him and panel was fantastic, but I to this quote out there because Jessica Hische I think there's a reason it gets glossed over is because they don't want to overpromise and under deliver. They want to be able to kind of get people excited about what they've got coming. I was enough to have some time with Dylan yesterday ⁓ and ⁓ can't tell you anything about what that conversation was about. Sure. But we did talk about skills ⁓ and we're talk more. and it's it's it is something that is I know that he Yuki and others ⁓ on the team were very excited about and very, very focused on

speaker-0: Yeah, it was was the highest. that being I still surprised that like, ⁓ s skills. We're gonna talk about that for 15 seconds. And that's a really cool thing.

speaker-1: Did they demo more the code layers? Yeah. Cause that's ⁓ thing that I'm the most interested in. Yes. Like, what the kind of details that they had ⁓ there? was it just like, hey, here's here's more about how this works? I don't remember them even saying the word but I might just not have been paying attention. par for the course. I've got another round of layoffs with ⁓ team ⁓ or ⁓ in the ⁓ course the last five years ⁓ they've through ⁓ three four different layoffs at a couple different companies. And there's course that ⁓ has to happen. the thing that wonder how this is going pan out, how many folks that are now looking for work ⁓ that have design ⁓ experience

speaker-0: It was the It was at the very end where Dylan was like, hey, yeah, we we have skills too. They're really cool. You'll like them. and it's like, wait. Can we talk more about that and less about ⁓ the shaders? I mean, I don't know. just feel like I I I fe the stuff that was really Well when the tool design, I think Figma really wants it to be, and now we're putting everything from motion design to product design to whatever the shaders are ⁓ into the is it too much? Is it ⁓ Yeah.

speaker-1: ⁓ is is she's just hilarious and such a s such a force. but she used the term prompt daddy. And was like, Okay, I love that. I wanna steal that. That's great. ⁓ and share that because ⁓ it's interesting, we designers are so visual and again there's many types of designers, right? Not just

speaker-0: Okay. That's that's good to know. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I was like

speaker-0: I would have liked them to actually open ⁓ a CLI ⁓ and look at the code it was generated. did not do that. I think there's probably a reason why 'cause they're probably not ⁓

speaker-1: You have to remember also that this conference is effectively marketing, so they have to give big marketing messages and it's gonna be digested as public information that affects, they're now public stock, ⁓ right? have to address the things that and other people have been saying, wait, are you paying attention to the enterprise? ⁓ Are you are you know what audience you chasing? How are you gonna with other established players? so the message that we get at config is not always the of what they've got in mind. ⁓ Also did not do that in the keynote either.

speaker-0: Interesting at least to me was the stuff that's like it's like not ready yet. Like all the all the stuff like the code layers I think was the thing where I'm like, ⁓ well that's ⁓ that's be a big for them if it makes things easy to move ⁓ the canvas and code, ⁓ that feels to like ⁓ powerful story they can tell, but seems that was not the story that they were interested in telling. ⁓ That's right. But they showed iteration, which I thought was pretty cool, like taking something that was of baked, ⁓ right? And had ⁓ and then saying, know, I don't really like this. It's not working for me. I'm gonna fork it. ⁓ So they forked code base. They showed the code base being forked in GitHub. Then they showed them taking it statically in Figma, doing some hand carving on it, going back.

speaker-1: are going to be able to get the jobs design ⁓ do they need to evolve into some other role? Yeah. know, I back and forth on this and it's not it's not specific to it's not specific to the cursor and Codex is trying to be the everything tool now. I think our relationship to our tools is just changing ⁓ for any number reasons we could talk about. But what I'm seeing is of the people who are ⁓ some of the conversations I'm having is with people ⁓ visual design or interaction design, there's content design, there's UX UX But what I thought is interesting with AI is so much of it is about the prompt. ⁓

speaker-0: I've definitely heard not but elsewhere talk about how they're moving more into like more P. M roles Yeah. Like are getting basically of design because it's so much that

speaker-1: And I think as it's become more multimodal, it's working better for me. but when it first started out I was like, golly, ⁓ I have the words for this. But I have a visual ⁓ or have, ⁓ something my head that I want to dictate. And so I think as as things have gotten multimodal, I feel like it's been much more of a good experience.

speaker-0: ⁓ talking to people that's been ⁓ a question like who do they have in mind? Because ⁓ it seemed Enterprise got the short shift this year. It seemed ⁓ UX got the short this year. ⁓ putting it back at the code base, then they showed the AI agent doing some iterations with them, adding some animations, doing work, show that going back into the code base. so they did show the ability or the connection between a code base and the design tool working. but I don't think they focused as much on like, here's the actual React code ⁓ sitting inside of

speaker-1: Yeah, and they showed Weave, basically Sort of have a really strong grasp of their own fundamentals and what they need out of their tools and how they want to leverage it. And all of a sudden I have access to all of these things, and I need my tools to connect my thinking across multiple touch points or connect my context, and I want to be able to be the owner and operator. And I think in that way something this big and large can be useful, or at least I know what parts are useful to me. And then on the other extreme, you have people who are sort of consuming design, the role of being a designer. it's very much an identity, and they haven't quite figured out Are they caring up more about marketers than they are about the individual product designers? We don't know. what I can say is the biggest trap that any tool can ⁓ evolve is having a point of view on who its core is. ⁓ Like who uses it day in, out as their as their bread and butter tool, their go-to. ⁓ Well we're finding, at least in experimentation with the tools, is last mile, you've gotta open up the you cannot prompt your way towards

speaker-0: what they used to do is not what they do. ⁓ Right. so that's an interesting thing. ⁓ That's interesting thing. But also mean the design rule is also like splintering and changing too. there's a lot of new flavors I think of design.

speaker-1: Node-based creation to ⁓ product or to design, which if you're with 3D tools and the tools that people in movie making use, right? You tend to use ⁓ these node-based tools. And ⁓ think that's super interesting. that should provide ⁓ opportunity for emergence and things out ⁓ and ⁓ just flexibility that.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think it's hard for people aren't necessarily writers, right? ⁓ And do you describe that you just do innately, right? Or that you're like, I've I've been doing this for twenty years. I don't know how to do it.

speaker-1: Well I I think about the dot com boom, we all different hats and we were just to solve problems. We were just trying to ⁓ ship stuff people would use. we didn't have defined roles. We didn't have ⁓ degrees in ⁓ interaction or any those things. And

speaker-0: your favorite, dev tool. Right. but, it it interesting. other thing that they showed is they showed a bunch of AI iterations where they asked really simple questions. And they're like, hey, I'm curious I add this to this, what would it look ⁓ and so it was really a little bit like a baking show because some the transforms took a little while. ⁓ Right. ⁓ huh. So they would do that.

speaker-1: out how they fit within that identity of themselves and their careers or again which part of it they feel ⁓ most to or most motivated by, expert in. and I think it can be very overwhelming because now you have another thing to learn and my job becomes learning the tool and as opposed to doing the thing through the tool. And that's I do ⁓ wonder how that's going to out for ⁓ the next generation. ⁓ a four pixel move that's gotta come down 20 dips. Nope, that's gotta be manually and what we just need to preserve is the baseline of functionality. ⁓ Okay, cool, you that? Great. Now juice it. how is MCP working? How are skills being integrated? how close can we get this into the are we stopping at proto or are we actually evolving beyond that? I know you're comfortable IDE, I got a lot designers who aren't we haven't seen in product design. ⁓ again just was like here's a thing, here's a product, it'll be soon. ⁓ Like there was story, there was no ⁓ overarching theme. It felt like here's a set of things we've been working on this past year that we are communicating today. but yeah, I feel like a big theme I've been seeing a lot of the talks is judgment and craft ⁓ and design leaders as and ⁓

speaker-0: and then move on to showing you something else and then come back ⁓ then a couple of times they're like, ⁓ it's not done yet. ⁓ my pre baked cupcake for you to take a look at it. ⁓ yeah, shaping the tools is an interesting thing and we've seen lot of that here in the last two days. You know, being able to make own plugins and s you know, I mean, ⁓ when the past have you been able to ever talk to your tool? Yeah. that's been like a a or like mythology or, that kind of thing ⁓ in the past and now like

speaker-1: We're back to that. feel like in last fifteen years design leadership career ladders and and ways of being. You knew you were content or you were a UX designer or you were product there was all these different specific roles, ⁓ those all go away. And right now it's ⁓ what's the problem you Here. Right? where are we meeting halfway? ⁓ what are dangers of everyone becoming a solo player instead of a collaborator? The siloing is actually really scary me because the best work I've done in my career has been in is group. ⁓ At least it was w it was a working demo. It was a deciding what is good or at least making the call what is good. So ⁓ think that was that's been a general theme across many of the talks. ⁓

speaker-0: was a working demo. It wasn't hand weighty, yeah, that's right. And so I think if they can lean into that, I I think that's their salvation. Because if they don't, we're gonna see people working in Claude design or other tools that are just in the code. For sure, any thoughts what Figma launched Right. it seems like they're definitely continued to lean into that. I mean that seems to be I mean that's what Figma built on, right? And they're the canvas is collaborative space. ⁓ can talk to Figma and have it make stuff for you or things to help you make things. ⁓

speaker-1: Right, exactly. And that's was my my thing viewing the keynote was I was like, ⁓ this is this like it was ⁓ tilted lot more towards brand marketing motion ⁓ less the kind of code design which see as being their ⁓ biggest competitor right I've very much a believer in the blurring of lines between design and code. And ironically brought up John I he's a pioneer. He's the one that coined the term computational designer. And I was following his stuff in nineteen ninety eight when ⁓ need to solve for your business. you can code it, ⁓ can design it, you do whatever you want. And you don't have to be just designer. can be an engineer. anybody can create this. ⁓ And that feels very ⁓ boom me ⁓ of anybody can do anything. that's Have you found yourself yelling at your tools yet?

speaker-0: it's an interesting concept, but it seems like ⁓ gimmick.

speaker-1: Which I love. And I think that we are seeing obvious maturation of both the tool and the company happening in real time, right? Like we are seeing them taking seriously the feedback that they've gotten, ⁓ the nudges they get from the market, the nudges they get from clients. we happen to be one of them. and for a ⁓ bank, ⁓ we're a pretty large design team. so we them inputs, ⁓ they give us we talk to them about what seeing, they tell us what they're seeing. It's amazing.

speaker-0: ⁓ I yell at Claude all the time for ignoring my direct instructions. ⁓ I really am how many times do I have to tell you this is like a five year old. ⁓ How many times do have to tell you not to use these words? Or how many times do I have to tell you that doesn't go with that? All those things. ⁓

speaker-2: to point, ⁓ if there's a constituency out there ⁓ for whom this is comfortable and familiar ⁓ way to do their this might a way to them into the fold, you know, and and to give them some ⁓ familiar hooks and get them into ecosystem as well. ⁓

speaker-0: Right, I was talking to James Garrett a little earlier and he was

speaker-1: He was tinkering around and making all this cool stuff, building and coding ⁓ very thing ⁓ was the Right. So he he he'd been doing it forever. So ⁓ it's because now it's like ⁓ it the new black. It's it's thing. But ⁓ again, he a pioneer.

speaker-0: That's right, that's our Achilles heels for production companies. And I also saw, they're definitely going after Adobe space. ⁓ I mean the motion is after effects, you know, the

speaker-1: I'll tell you what I'm waiting for.

speaker-0: saying that the the period of stability of roles actually a pretty short time period. there's been more periods in ⁓ design where things have unstable and less and more everyone kinda does everything. And we have this kind of mindset that was like over the you know for ten years things were kind of stable ⁓ and now they weren't but ⁓ most design it was never that

speaker-1: I'm waiting to see what the machine is seeing. I'm waiting to be in this area of the tool or having it produce something else I was working on yesterday ⁓ be able to say, well, where is this coming from? What are you anchoring on? What piece of my context or my my ecosystem that you have access to? What are you what are you pulling into? I want to be able to see what it sees ⁓ think that is the thing that I'm missing from any of these creative tools is ⁓ from that operational ⁓ Is ⁓ it's it's way too ⁓ yeah, I mean some of the Photoshop -y kind of stuff.

speaker-0: Yeah, they've been a very responsive company for sure. Absolutely. The exactly the the imaging stuff, the creative tool.

speaker-1: I'm also interested in just other paradigms, right? It's in trying to introduce I think a new paradigm potentially for product in UX design in terms of how do you assemble the and logic a that ⁓ yeah it's just a different mode for building. see where that and if it that's an appropriate paradigm for ⁓ this type of

speaker-0: Thirty years later we can all do it. Yeah.

speaker-1: it's an interesting strategy that they're still trying to ⁓ away a Adobe even as Anthropic trying to eat away at them. ⁓ Can all do it. It's now accessible to everyone and we all have superpowers. ⁓ Designers ⁓ have AI augmentation in the coding realm and I ⁓ coders and developers now they have AI ⁓ to sketch and design and so like all lines are blurring. so code layers to me was really cool. obviously that was the first thing that they announced and it's always had some version of chaos, some version of unknown, lack career architecture and and that okay ⁓ because if were interesting problems, ⁓ it doesn't matter your title is, it doesn't matter where you fit into org, as long as you're ⁓ building ⁓ interesting things.

speaker-0: I'm helping a startup right now and we vibe coded an entire new experience. we use Figma Make for part of it, we use Claude for part of it. and

speaker-1: Opaque. I can't control it. we now have these ideas of like bringing your skills with you, bringing your connectors. I think we're starting to get into that ⁓ and we're still early. And the fact that we're putting all of this into production and centering our industry, our jobs, our roles, our identities around these things that we still haven't quite figured out even how to how to read and direct them can certainly be dangerous. But that's what I'm I'm hoping Is when do we start to move to platform ⁓ as opposed to product? Give me access to data, let me sort of operationalize.

speaker-2: I think that kind of paradigm shift is ⁓ the that seeing, to the extent that there is a pattern there, is that they are actively trying to change way that people think about their tool ⁓ and how it is used. maybe all of the paradigms fit and not of them ⁓

speaker-1: have zero knowledge of their market strategy is. Right. But if I were ⁓ sitting on a couch with when we were talking about what's the future look like, ⁓ we would know that in to gain market share they're gonna have to go after some of the incumbents in places where they have not been traditionally comfortable. ⁓ Right. Or where, ⁓ we're product design tool. but can you do more? Can you extend? Can you ⁓ I mean we go back to our startup days, like it's the thought that like ⁓ okay, well we focus on this one but there are adjacencies.

speaker-0: ⁓ I wanna see of that.

speaker-1: I yeah, I've already asked like are we can we get act now I wanna play Exactly. ⁓ the idea of all of it being right on the canvas, ⁓ ⁓ to me is really ⁓ really cool 'cause been very

speaker-0: the reality is ⁓ there's still fine that you might need to do and a drawing tool helpful. ⁓ The challenge is that design just added that, right? So the fact that you can actually change vectors and move stuff now, it's sort of like if you're in design, that might be game over for them for some teams. ⁓ Right, we wanna get that now. as long as there is a whatever it's called, ⁓ I think what people fear is there are just roles period.

speaker-1: It for myself, team. ⁓ decentralized or compartmentalized. ⁓ You have to go to this tool to do this and that tool to do that. And then you gotta bring it all together. And now it's so much easier to do it all in one place. ⁓

speaker-0: Right, getting access to both kind of the

speaker-1: I I do think there's going to be fewer roles. hundred percent. There not a for big teams. Just hands down, we don't need big teams anymore.

speaker-2: makes sense from my vantage point, but

speaker-1: the thing that they to be leaning super heavily into is the canvas. ⁓ Yeah. which is great, mean owns space.

speaker-0: That like middle layer, like the workbench layer that you kinda can get when you're working with the API, but not as often at the tool level. ⁓ I some of my students ⁓ last worked things like showing when you prompt, what are the things it's based on your prompt. ⁓ And you're able to say like no no no no no, actually prioritize downplay that. So stuff like that could ⁓

speaker-2: Bringing it back to the focus of your podcast. Looking at it through the lens of the work that I'm doing in AI transformation, what I is that like everybody is very curious about what the new workspace is going to look like. And ⁓ as work from person with a prompt

speaker-0: Right. that's what I think that they are just taking swings at it seems like Canva ⁓ and ⁓ and Adobe rights. that are like on the edge of what I would consider product design. ⁓ Ha ha.

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. What they're trying to claw their way into or Claude their way into, no pun intended, is to get into that coding And meanwhile, ⁓ it feels like Claude and Google are trying to get into the Canvas and working that direction.

speaker-0: It's funny 'cause I know some people would have ⁓ told that well, you know 'cause I'm like, ⁓ what what's this fig what's who's Figma motion for? Like they're like, well we have ⁓ a specialist on team that that's all they do is motion. And I'm like, wow, okay. ⁓ that's incredible to that you that luxury. ⁓ I think is a luxury.

speaker-1: I it and 20 years ago or maybe 15 years ago, we would have embraced that to say like, wouldn't it be awesome if you could empower via tool, if it was clean, if it wasn't a ⁓ mess, if it wasn't a junk drawer filled with stuff, it was well organized, good taxonomy, good nav.

speaker-2: to a team clustered around a canvas, Figma sees an opportunity for the canvas to become that new workspace, not just where the visual work happens, but also where the code work happens. That's what the code layers piece is.

speaker-0: ⁓ One thing that I really ⁓ thought was interesting was being able to see like exploded view of Sure, and I I do think the one thing that my mind a little bit about their position that might help them is I the role of product and design are merging. I've been talking about this with lot of people lately where my thinking is who does AI support better? be really interesting.

speaker-1: Well that's how we teach, it's how we manage, you know, we observe. We're not always doing, we're not always correcting. We come in, we observe, we let people see what we're seeing, we create the vocabulary, we anchor it on what, well, this is the reference I was using. Maybe you're using a different reference, but are you doing it intentionally or are you doing it arbitrarily? ⁓ I think it's that arbitrariness still that's that's embedded in all of these systems that means no matter where you are in the journey, no matter how senior you are, or how experienced you are, or how curious you are, this is the word we were. ready access to the kinds of things that like I'm a solo player inside of a small organization and I've got to produce both marketing materials and I've got to build the website and I'm gonna automate this as much as possible and I'm gonna use like as many agents as I can lay my hands on and I've got tokens for. Like they empower the smaller designers who have to wear a lot of hats, we've talking a lot about what the future looks like and who's gonna be okay and maybe who's got a little bit of a threat or anxiety at them right now. And I think with Weave Two you get a visual right, the reason you have that paradigm ⁓ so that non-coders can do ⁓ code things with branching and and you know, the conditionals and logic in a visual way that you're hooking things up. was talking to someone else here ⁓ how

speaker-0: the prototypes. that was one of my favorite things because that's always been for me be like, well here's the prototype and it's hard to comment on pieces of it as it's moving. ⁓ Yeah. And so being able to see all the error states and like that, that was a piece I dug. ⁓

speaker-1: Well, but the skill set that a motion designer has, don't think can be right now ⁓ into ⁓ that role yet commoditized. At the quality motion graphics needs to be done. Right. ⁓ And so think safe for a little while. ⁓

speaker-0: Now, right? So of product leaders use AI to write PRDs and requirements documents, etc. ⁓ those are templated documents that can be trained and taught to a designer, so a designer can write a PRD now pretty ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. I I love the fact that they really thought through both, what I DI FM and DIY ⁓ do it for me or it yourself. if you wanna go down the route ⁓ and prompt away ⁓

speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Right.

speaker-1: Playing with a moment ago. Right. you know, I can only be as curious as I can see. And think ⁓ that's right now from from this layer. ⁓ their design team is just embracing Claude CLI now. I think a lot of designers and maybe not just designers would still like a visual mode for building ⁓ as opposed continuing to work the terminal. I think the kids are gonna be alright. ⁓ ⁓ think that anyone who's day to day using the tools is gonna be ⁓ just

speaker-0: That I feel comfortable in asking or know how to ask, right? That is that is another thing that come up in here. It's like, well, I sometimes I forget that I can actually ask the tool how to help me to use the tool. which is also something that we never were able to do. I'm like, I'm trying to do this thing, please help me. I mean you used to have to go to a help menu and

speaker-1: Right.

speaker-0: are some skills like that yes that are very hard to replicate because so much of it is feel, right? ⁓ product person who has really strong discernment about what a great looking product is and how it should work a little harder ⁓ they don't necessarily know how to ask with language the right questions to get actually good outcomes. They vibe code and they can make something that looks pixel accurate, ⁓ but it great? ⁓ There's good question there. I don't know. Right. And so in my mind like who benefits more from tooling right now? ⁓ Actually I think designers ⁓

speaker-1: Or if you wanna go into the tools, I thought the generative plugins were cool. Yeah. You know, again, how do we scale ourselves? Like that's a big i ⁓ another theme. ⁓ How are we scaling ourselves? 'Cause ⁓ just like the skills and the and the various It's it's the it's the taste, it's the craft, it's and so to people that wanna stay in it, hone craft. ⁓ Have opinion and an that you care about ⁓ and you can And you also have to I more visual design ⁓ for those of us that came through the systems design, ⁓ we need to have

speaker-0: I think that was part of the story here and what were trying to lean into, they're like, ⁓ well you can do this on the campus, you can do this on the campus, you can do this on the ⁓ and the kind and the collaboration aspect, which is what they basically built the entire company around. ⁓ Alright, that's a good place to end. thanks for talking with us. ⁓

speaker-1: Thanks Dan. Great to see you.

speaker-0: Yeah, did you see anything more about the skills? I've been asking people 'cause ⁓ know Dylan mentioned it and then it was like ⁓ want more.

speaker-2: Exactly. Yeah.

speaker-1: I wild. I don't even look at docs anymore. I say go to the docs, tell me what they say, tell me how to figure this out. ⁓ it's that last step of then don't just do it, but what did you see? What can I learn from sending you out on this loop? So at least I'm a party in my own experience. I'm not just sort of ⁓ circumstantial to ⁓

speaker-0: was interesting. I I was also like wow do I wanna scroll through people's AI chats about certain things? I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure. I need a filter on that. Be able to collapse some of those ⁓ conversations.

speaker-1: I haven't. ⁓ am very interested in digging into that a bit more myself. the motion, a lot of the that are happening ⁓ with ⁓ Figma weave ⁓ seems to be, ⁓ quite ⁓

speaker-0: 'Cause we can start to doing their jobs if we're willing to do it. we have to lean in ⁓ become more willing to own that space ⁓ be more strategic. and I personally think that ⁓ designers can make faster than product people can think. ⁓ So we the thing, they think to make. And you know, you know, the idea of a requirements document with features to me just seems like

speaker-1: opinions about the aesthetics in ways that we used to just rely on our visual design team or the design system. can feed a design system into any of these tools and not necessarily to make it what want. It's not going to the design system. I mean I I guess on that front, you know, all still figuring this shit out, man. ⁓ no one knows. No one knows.

speaker-0: Yeah, I've almost put instructions most of my things like ⁓ only this when I tell you it's okay to do it. because yeah, I feel like ⁓ it's either not mine I'm too concerned about it being wrong. Yeah. a artifact of a really broken process. I wondering who that's for. ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah, process has been broken for a very long time.

speaker-0: ⁓ one of the things they was all about ⁓ being able to your plugins. Right. I'm isn't that ⁓ skill? Like, can't I now just make a skill that I could ⁓ do and that's ⁓ basically a plug in? Or is the ⁓ that the plugins have ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah. No, it's I mean this whole idea of a harness, husband grew up on a horse farm and talked about that. He's a Luddite and I love it. It's so wonderful. I'm just it's I need it in my life. And we've about breaking a horse. ⁓

speaker-0: So so don't do that, right? So so build product teams that have who are switch hitters. Let product vibe code, let design write PRDs, ⁓ Focus people on those skills. if I were, a young designer now, I would be focusing my attention and energy on the structure, business problems, and design skills.

speaker-1: ⁓ we a ⁓ ⁓ really amazing ⁓ motion ⁓ designer, visual designer our and we wish we could clone him and ⁓ what's cool is been sending, all these texts to my boss and

speaker-0: some have that of down to a science, Yeah, it's not quite there yet, although I don't know. Feels like that stuff is getting closer every day,

speaker-1: And when you break a horse, you don't simply put a saddle on it. You have to study it. It has to break you. You have to learn it. And the relationship of a rider to their horse becomes very personal and very intimate ⁓ because it's from you being to be somewhat humble to this thing you can't fully control, but also earning its trust. Now, obviously that's very different than with a machine, but there's something about the ability to let go of your ego to put data in to try enough turns and enough.

speaker-0: different sliders and stuff that I can really manipulate at that level.

speaker-1: I it is, it is, I agree.

speaker-2: Yeah, I don't know ⁓ enough about how they've executed it technically yet, but my sense is that a plug-in is going to afford you kind richer access to Figma's plumbing to be to do more sophisticated things ⁓ that hopefully be less error prone ⁓ using your Claude to the job done.

speaker-1: know ⁓ my god I just did this so much faster than I used to and my my husband's like ⁓ my god so interestingly like as I was sitting there I was thinking is this going to replace motion designers and the answer no ⁓ it's going to amplify and already talking about ooh how we have ⁓ Matt ⁓ ⁓ create all these skills ⁓ for himself that again he can scale himself across our entire world

speaker-0: coding part you're gonna get help and assistance along the way and you know the back end infrastructure you don't need to know there'll be engineers who can support you on that. You know the full stack stuff that doesn't go away. And there gonna be systems that do some of that already too. Like there are platforms now that do full stack stuff. ⁓ Anyway, ⁓ my ⁓ heard the word curiosity mentioned ⁓ lot many times in the last forty-eight ⁓

speaker-1: cycles to see how it works, how it works for you, how it doesn't work, but then ultimately have that agency and that autonomy to go, this is what I need and this is how I want to conduct it. There is something and harmonious about that melding I like to explore. But ⁓ you to be intentional. ⁓ goes to the craft, the taste, the curiosity, the ability discern, not just that what any of tools is ⁓ 100% accurate. ⁓ got come in solve the problems. the curiosity piece to me is if you show up

speaker-0: Yeah, and I and I guess the thing that the plugins actually still get you is that direct manipulation. Yeah. Like so you can so be it without having to type type type or you no not that, a little bit more like this. So which which I'm know I'm a big fan of

speaker-1: All right, thank you, Greg. ⁓ that's what I've heard so far. I not an expert ⁓ at design. I'm hoping ⁓ with the things that have been ⁓ launched that I could fake it till I make ⁓ it ⁓

speaker-0: Right, there was a movement a number of years ago to talk about literally ⁓ the centaur thing of person and horse, ⁓ Exactly, But the fear is we become the horse ⁓ and that now AI is the ⁓ controlling part, ⁓ I think can happen. I have heard people worry that they're like, ⁓ my god, no, we've given motion design tools to everyone. Now everything's gonna be crazy.

speaker-1: Never get away from Windows icons menus and pointers.

speaker-2: I'm I'm with you on that one. I'm with you on one

speaker-1: and follow a predictable pattern, you're going to be innovating. And so coming to a problem ⁓ with ⁓ helps ⁓ solve problem. And so to me the curiosity I think is definitely key. ⁓ Yeah. We are cyber ex

speaker-0: I mean we spent a long time developing that.

speaker-1: if you do t ⁓ too much anything, ⁓ I ⁓ all emphasis is emphasis. If you do too of motion, ⁓ everyone's going to be dizzy nauseous. ⁓ Right. So also don't wanna do that. ⁓ Right. It works and it it works for a reason.

speaker-2: Right. I do think this this is another example

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-2: People embracing AI as a means of people the power to create their own tools for their own needs. And custom ⁓ is a that we're seeing broadly across ⁓ design organizations people are spinning up these one-off things to do one little job for them that gets the job done.

speaker-1: I think there's a

speaker-0: Alright, well great. else you heard or exciting? ⁓

speaker-1: There's just a need to be conscious and self-aware and ⁓ you know we talk about like mindfulness and mindlessness and the more mindful we are about well why am I making this decision and why am I letting this machine do this thing for me, whether it's this AI thing or you know, telling me what parts of the algorithm to pay attention to, should I follow? Why should I care about this person's opinion? Why should I care about ⁓ or not this person likes my opinion? I think we just we we allow ourselves to become so so mindless. ⁓

speaker-0: And now there's so many ways that you can solve a problem or create your own tools to solve the problems. I mean it's ⁓ me that's what's that's what's been amazing is like well okay ⁓ gonna make my own plug-in. wow,

speaker-1: I'll end with my ⁓ friend Hector's qu final quote which is let's make humans more human. that's because you're curious. Right. You're taking that I wanna solve through ⁓ I'll create my plugin or and if you just say it doesn't exist or this ⁓ tool I'm is to use ⁓ and you don't bring your to evolving it and fixing it and it, ⁓ then ⁓ you're not gonna get results you want. ⁓

speaker-0: Okay. ⁓

speaker-1: In the age of AI, let's keep the center of humanity at our hearts. Ellen, you could see something like we've, know, extending that with workflow ⁓ with with plugins, which were these custom tools, right? maybe that's part the vision theoretically you could do it all here on the on this one canvas. It would be good if they had communicated I I don't know I don't know if that's ⁓

speaker-0: Okay. Alice, thank you so much for coming the ⁓ AI Design Pod.

speaker-1: in our work, in our consumption right now, in order to make these tools work well, ⁓ have to be intentional. You have to be mindful about how you use them. We're gonna hit a natural break. The question is what happens when we hit that wall? What are the business incentives and all of that? But I do think there's a ⁓ there's an moment of like this empowerment and connecting them together and having your skills and your context and now it's just ⁓ having that to dip below the surface. Yeah, thanks for having me.

speaker-2: Yeah, they're not

speaker-1: Telling us what they see as the as the future and and maybe they're just hesitant to stake those claims.

speaker-0: Right. 'Cause when they did stake those claims two years ago, didn't really pan out. And I didn't hear of this in any of the talks, one of the of of being at a tools conference is it's a tools conference. And so it it is about ⁓ working and using with the tools ⁓ and less about considering the the implications of what happens when you the tool or you use it in this way and I didn't hear a lot about that. ⁓

speaker-2: They're placing a range of bets. Yeah. They're they're trying to see which of these things fire out there. ⁓ And they'll reinvest accordingly. ⁓ Thank you, Dan.

speaker-1: Thank you, Dan.

speaker-0: Thanks ⁓ chatting with us here on the AI and design podcast.

speaker-1: Our pleasure. feel like I saw seeds of it. ⁓ observing that most valuable of this conference is the conversations happening off stage or in the ⁓ in the commons and in the coffee shops around and there is definitely ⁓ a an energy of trying to make sense of all and like let it be a tools conference and you have sponsors and you have, some of the topics

speaker-0: Alright Kim, ⁓ thanks chatting with us here at AI and Design Pod.

speaker-1: Thanks, Dan. I was sort of confused on on why they were here, but some of them were also really interesting and and like yesterday the talk before the panel was somebody who's doing motion design ⁓ and in order to build their Bezier curves would go out and actually record them physically doing the action that they wanted to model and that connection between the physical and the digital and ⁓ creating the for yourself to be able to to others of I'm not just saying, ⁓ I'm gonna make this bouncy. You're saying, here is the actual motion. And I think about like Pixar's rules animation how why why do I care about this little lamp that's just crushed the letter I that's so sad that it's done that and it's so cute and it's lifted its head? That that sort of personification ⁓ of these ⁓ inanimate objects. There's something about ⁓ way that you connect that emotionally, and what does that look like to connect that into our work and to our craft? Like, I think that's that was really. substantive and there was definitely some gems here I think were ⁓ available but it's just the the vastness and the moment of such ambiguity and trying to own the narrative I think you're always gonna get that at these large conferences. ⁓

speaker-0: Well and I think this is a particular of uncertainty. ⁓ I talked to Kim earlier, she was like, Yeah, this conference seemed to be ⁓ a about how to grapple with the chaos of the moment that we're in. Although that ⁓ necessarily addressed on stage because it was like, Well we're the answer to that chaos. ⁓

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: But off stage a lot of the conversations have been about how we doing this? ⁓ you doing this? I'm well here's how we're doing this. ⁓ ⁓ are you doing this? Well I'm

speaker-1: Sure I want my tools to tell me to navigate the unknown. ⁓ create the space to have those conversations is nice. But I do think that yeah, it's it's anybody who thinks they have the answers right now is probably somewhere in between accurate and overconfident, which is fine. Sure. we've gone through these transformations before. What I'm noticing is that The places where people are meeting uncertainty right now has less to do with the tools. The tools are just sort of there, but it's, what does this mean for our process or for the younger people? What does it mean for my value, my identity? Am I a designer or design engineer? Does it matter? Do I need to claim one or the other? And ⁓ what I want to be a brand designer? What if I want to be a content designer? Do I have to go build everything into agents? ⁓ I think there's some pieces this in the content, but but particularly in the conversations offline of that there is essential value in craft. But we can't just kind of use the word, ⁓ I'm doing craft, I'm using taste. We have to name it. We have to name like what does our craft look like as the world around us changes and as our material changes. And what are those immutable qualities or fundamentals? I hope where this ⁓ how many are here right now? ⁓ It's massive. It's

speaker-0: It's massive. I I think twenty thousand maybe?

speaker-1: Co thousands of people are going to leave this and go back to their respective companies and countries and communities. I hope that ⁓ of them come back with those questions ⁓ well what this mean for me? And what do I do with this information? And what do I do with these tools? I think that'll be where hopefully the next year takes us. Fingers crossed. ⁓

speaker-0: Fingers crossed. a good good note to end on. All right. Emily, thanks for coming on and Design Pod.

speaker-1: Super fun. Thanks having me. that was fun.