Chus: people will go to a website because they are really going to enjoy the experience there and not just because the information they need is there, because there are better ways to get the information that you need right now than just visiting a website.

Niklas: Hi and a huge welcome to you, my lovely listener. So glad you're here. Today you're joining me for a chat with Choos. Choose is a Barcelona based art director and UX UI designer with fifteen plus years across advertising startups, agency and enterprise. Choose, so nice to have you.

Chus: Hello Niklas, thanks for having me here. Super happy.

Niklas: you seem to have seen the whole world, like startup world, enterprise world, and you've built yourselves. maybe walk us through your history a bit that led you to this

Chus: Sure. Yeah, I studied originally, studying advertising and creativity. So I focused quite early in graphic design, but always through the world of advertising. And that made me get my first job in a small agency in Madrid. And that was, it was really a small agency, not a big famous one. So I learned there a lot about graphic design because we did a lot of... different adaptations of campaigns for different brands. I did a lot of brochures, did a lot of logos and brandings. And I can see, especially at that level, is like many different clients, lot of briefings that you have to finish very early. You have to finish always when it's in the briefing, so you cannot say, I would finish this tomorrow. Everyone that's been in agency knows that. That's like the golden rule. and that made it sometimes stressful and many times very funny because you ended up working in the agency with your colleagues till quite late at night and those colleagues many times became friends as well because you spent so much time with them and agencies is usually like a very crazy environment like everyone is playing music and trying to have fun and seeing a lot of inspirational projects from other places It's stressful and fun and definitely very different of other things I saw afterwards. So after a few years working in this agency I tried a different agency in Madrid as well that it was a bit more top level and I got I started to work with bigger brands and it was very cool and when I was working there I got the opportunity to move to Amsterdam to work in a UX UI or let's say mobile development company. and that was a huge change but I could do it because funny enough my last client in the agency it was a mobile company so I had to design some fake screens for the smartphones of that era to put them in the campaigns so they were not real apps but they had to look like real operative systems or apps in the posters that we were doing or in the brochures And thanks to that, I got the opportunity to start as an intern in a real app development company in the Netherlands. So that's how I did the first jump. And it was already a different because in agencies, I worked with some developers, but they were like maybe 10 % of the working of the full company. And I moved to the other position where we were only three designers and I don't know, 20 developers. So it was a huge change for me. but it was really good, I learned so much and I started to understand the developers in a different way. I started some basic web development in the university but I never really learned properly to write code. And I spent like three years working with these Android, iOS and web developers. So I still cannot code but I learned how they think and how it's possible or what can you ask them to... get answers that tell you if they could build this for real in the estimated time or not. So I got more into development in that. But yeah, that was a really long time ago. So after that I moved to a gaming company, which it was corporate, but for gaming, which is still quite crazy. Then I worked for some agencies, quite good ones in Amsterdam. And after that, after like seven years in Amsterdam, I moved to Barcelona, where I'm based now. And then is where I started to really work in a more officially, we could say more corporate, like corporate, corporate, first company I worked in Barcelona, was a German and British stocks company. So they have different trading platforms for professionals and also for people who is starting to learn to trade. And I stayed there for a few years till the company was closed in Europe, they moved to West Asia. some big changes in the company. After that I worked as a freelancer for some time, then I joined the design studio in Barcelona. It's called Nacar, it's a very cool studio, it's an industrial design, but they had a big part of digital and I became the lead of the digital and branding team. So I learned a lot as well from the industrial designer, but also from the junior designers that work in my team. It was a really good experience. And after that, I got the biggest corporate job I got in my career, that is the one I have now, that is in this company called National Netherlands, which is a Dutch insurance company and it's in 12 countries and it has a lot of employees and lot of clients. And the environment is completely different. people in this company is also really cool, but they are more focused than the agency ones, let's say, or the agency people is focused on creativity. And these people is focused on insurances and the last trends in insurance companies, they are into AI big time, but in a very different way that how probably people in agencies are focusing on it. So the vibe is different. It's more serious for sure, but the... It's as well really interesting. It's a big opportunity because I'm meeting people from many different countries. They really have some of them experience in the CERN in Switzerland. Other are really top engineers and they are building new tools to make the experience of the agents better or the clients. And it's more about instead of having a lot of different... projects from very different clients and get as crazy as possible, this is quite of the opposite. It's like laser focus on one thing and trying to build the best thing. And definitely it's helping me to grow and learn how to develop final products in a different way. It's quite a challenge to do in an agency because the limited resources they have or the scope of the projects of the agencies are not as big as these ones. So it's... quite a big change definitely. And well, as I said, I also work in startups like the development, mobile development company. It's something different as well. It's something in between maybe. And I cannot say to the other designers to not try one of the other because I think all can be really places to grow if you know where to focus. And also you need to know yourself. Maybe there are some type of corporates. you are not a good fit and in that case it's better not to try out. I know insurance is a good fit for me because it's not like also the most serious place that you have to go dress with a suit, two pieces suit to every meeting and people need to do a protocol just to talk with the top management. In my company the colleagues are quite close, it's quite close. casual as well. So it's a corporate environment that definitely I feel comfortable with and I think that's important to consider but otherwise I recommend I can recommend as much one thing or the other.

Niklas: That's very interesting. And maybe we start with deep diving into one of the the topics you care about. And I I read like Make the Internet Weird Again. And that's kind of the opposite to the corporate world. Maybe you can restart on that side of the story and you can can walk us through it. What does it mean?

Chus: Yeah, yeah. Now I'm always thinking the one thing and the opposite. I think that's very common in creatives. And although I love my work in the environment, I've been already three years as well working as a freelancer on my free time, which is not too much. So that's why I choose very good projects. And I have this mission to make internet weird again, because I'm trying to do in my free time. really fun and highly interactive projects. And why is called like that? Well, I would like to know your opinion, Niklas, by the way, but I fully believe the Flash era, it was the most amazing internet era, like around 2004, 2005. I know, maybe it's because it's when I was young, that's why I like it. Everybody has nostalgia for... there when they were young, maybe not because they're itself, but because they were young by then. But if we really focus on the type of websites we were enjoying by then and the ones that they were common two or three years ago, I think we can say they were way more fun. They were more crazy. They were not... worried about many important things now because we didn't know about those. We are talking maybe about accessibility, which is very important, but I would give my thought on why I think we can stop obsessing so much at this point. But also, and it's something that I don't love, it's like this conversion obsession that everything has to be measured and everything, it's like a cheat code to make people... keep more attention using gray hats, let's call them gray hats, not black hats, but definitely it's like a bit from my point of view, an obsession of some patterns that they are all across many websites, not everywhere, but in many, many places. And they are making internet a bit flat, bit too minimalistic. I like minimalism design, but I don't think it needs to be everywhere. And thanks to AI, I believe that Well, thanks, because of AI, I believe, well, it's a fact people is not going to the website so much because they get their results in directly in Gemini or chat GPT or wherever. So I think people will go to a website because they are really going to enjoy the experience there and not just because the information they need is there, because there are better ways to get the information that you need right now than just visiting a website. which could be sad, but if we know how to play with that, it can be actually good for us. going to your point, sorry, I think I'm using way too many words to say I like to build websites like they were in the 2000s. And I'm fully focusing on my free time to create websites that are a bit crazy, a bit dumb, and you should have fun with them. And that's why I call this mission to make internet weird again. I hope it makes sense.

Niklas: Yeah, it's I think it's also something that has changed quite a bit in the the most recent time, right? So I think especially now with Gen AI, websites are becoming more the same. I'm not entirely sure if it's kind of because we had these design systems coming up by Google, for example, with Material UI or or the respective ones. Th there would there are a few at that came up, but I feel like websites started to use these design systems more. They started to build more on like the same libraries. So you will see the same same buttons and so on. And I think for B2B websites, probably it it's not that bad. Like if you put in the UI gets a little bit nicer, and it's always been more about the UX than the UI. But but what it really killed in It's probably true is all these like neon websites that we had like in 2005 or earlier when when the w internet was still quite quite new and people were just playing around with animations with this marquee tags and so on. I I'm actually wondering if this is not something that will kind of come back. I think Airbnb, they did a bit of a rebranding Not so long ago where they introduced new icons and new designs. What do you think about that?

Chus: Yeah, I have a conflicted opinion with Airbnb, be honest. Although their design, I agree with you, they've done something quite different. And I think, yeah, they are great at design and they are doing great as a company. I don't know if they are doing as good for the cities they are putting their tentacles over, but for sure the company is doing great. yeah, going to your question, I think there are... quite some designers and companies trying to build these funny interactions and funny internet again. I definitely, I'm not the only one and I love to see that. Right now I'm not going to remember the names but maybe I can send you some links later of some ex friends I have that they are building really crazy websites and some are lists of crazy websites. So you can see how this is a movement and there are many. companies and designers. I don't know if many, but there are a few for sure trying to do that. And I'm all in. I think there are big opportunities. Also Shopify do really different stuff sometimes. I don't know if you saw that dashboard they did. It was like a time machine dashboard, hyper realistic and 3D, everything animated one year ago, something like this. So yeah. And also you commented about these design systems. I agree. And I think... Also when Bootstrap started, many people joined the Bootstrap Vagon, which I did as well and I think it was really good. But the problem with Bootstrap is the same one that with the design system sometimes and also with the AI websites right now, that is that people take everything and use everything like it is out of the box. I think you can take, for example, Lovable. I love it. Sorry, it was not a joke. My point is, I use Logable a lot, but I never deliver a website with the Logable look and feel. I use Logable for the bytecode because I cannot code, but I would never use the visuals as they come out of the box because then they get this AI style. And people, I think, did a lot that with Bootstrap as well, and with some of these frameworks. And also the death of Flash, I think it was a big part of this. But if you take what you cannot do and use AI for that, you know you get a good product. But if you can add this extra flavor on the design, why not? That's what I try to do. So... That's my approach.

Niklas: I think with the AI websites there's a lot of Tailwind CSS actually. So this is a framework I think that that a lot of these I I'm not sure I think Lovable uses this as well. So if you kind of use it out of the box, it will come out in a similar style. It can be completely fine-tuned, but if you don't adjust the classes and kind of use the the system as it is, it you will end up with like similar similar designs and I yeah I'm a bit ambivalent actually on that topic because what I what I also think is that we are losing actually UX on applications so my my favorite example on that is my brokerage app that I use for trading stocks it was like they had an old application it was amazing it had a like special iPad app that it what that I really like. Like the way it worked when you went to charts, for example, when you wanted to see certain information, it was really well designed from a UX perspective. Like and then they did like a complete redesign. And I think what they actually did is optimize kind of their revenue versus my user experience. And now my user

Chus: Yeah

Niklas: experience is actually pretty bad. I use it for nothing but buying the stock actually. And I'm always annoyed because I have to to do two clicks more to change the order place where I buy the stocks. versus the old one where it was easier to do. it's kind of hidden. I think maybe they get paid by one of these order places. But but it's actually a good example where I feel like these modern modern or this renewal of the application and then the kind of want to. change things actually made it worse for me as a user. I think the first application that they designed, it was really thoughtfully designed from a UX. And the UI might have been like a few years older now and probably they had like maintenance was getting more difficult. But the reality was it actually was a really good piece of software that they had in the first place. I feel that we are like especially with these AI tools these days. I'm not one hundred percent sure if a lot of them aren't just mediocre. It's just so easy to build them. But that doesn't mean that the UX is great and the UI actually is that great.

Chus: Yeah, yeah, totally. It feels a bit like the previous bubble, at least for me, or even a bit like the NFT bubble considering it's a very different technology, obviously, but definitely there are a lot of companies doing AI things. And also companies that are not about AI, that they are implementing AI way too easy. I believe it would be an adjustment for sure. I don't think we'll have so many models in the future and so many different options and mini AI apps. But it tends to happen, think, not every time there is like a new big change in technology, everyone jumps or many people jumps on it. you have to really consider if you are doing a good use of it or you're getting a bit... just too crazy with the new trend. And it's very difficult. It looks like I have the answers, I don't. So I want to be clear about that. But definitely I agree with you that it's a tricky, tricky business.

Niklas: Yeah, I mean where AI is heading, I think that is that is a different story and it's super interesting. The truth is I cannot I cannot tell you. Like I have at this point in time, I I sincerely am not good at predicting the future anymore. What I there are a few things that I can predict. Like open weight models will continue to keep catch up to frontier models. I I believe that. I think we will see smaller, more intelligent models and we will see A lot more local local AI, I think. Like two years from now, you will probably be able to build software on your computer without anything external. Like what you're doing now in Lovable, you will be able to do that locally in a pr foreseeable amount of time. That's that's what I think. outside of that, I mean it it's very different. Like this one is really different to other things that where we had like bubbles exploding in a sense that these like large labs like OpenAI and Entropic, they are just making huge amounts of revenue. So this is not like it's very hard to s even if you would think they might be somehow overvalued or anything like it. I mean there's there's a really significant revenue number and really significant revenue grows against the current situation. So this is this is the ki what what I would call the the status quo and I I don't I don't know. I think the next twelve months will be really exciting to watch what's happening inside of it. I think it's a full speed rates. yeah. But it it also opens another door that is I think is really interesting. And the question there is, how much does it kill the craft? I mean, in in software engineering, and I've built a lot of software over my years. I've stopped writing code in a sense that I would write lines of code. Like it got went from I write it to I press tub to I do not write anything but prompts. And This is quite an interesting trajectory. What's happening like in the design space, in the craft space? Is it similar? What do you think is going to happen there?

Chus: Well, I want to say first time very bad as well as seeing the future, but definitely I can see some changes now. And it's a bit different than in your industry because I heard from my colleagues that it's huge in development. It's the biggest use case, I believe. But in design definitely also it's very, it has a big impact. And for me, I always have Firefly open at least. And it's more about also getting the right references, building some prompts based on those references. And I never deliver AI products, but I definitely create my own references based on the ones I choose, which I mean is like I spend also long time writing prompts and learning how to write prompts to get better prompts because... It's a matter of having a lot of different AI tools and I use ChatGPT to understand the basic structure of what I want or the recommendations of how to create the best specific type of images. Then I take those references and Twitch them as much as possible till I get more or less what I want. So I spent a long time, that before I was just with Figma or Illustrator or Photoshop and now I spend it on Firefly and... and GPT writing, which to you it means you are not coding, but to me it means a bit like I feel like I'm coding because I'm with a black screen and white text and talking with the machine and I feel like I'm writing code. I know it's not, but the experience is a bit like that, which is a bit weird for a designer as well.

Niklas: Yeah, I think I so I'm it is the biggest use case yet. I think what they are all like aiming at is building this like super assistant or personal assistant. I think we are seeing like early signs of that with Claude and I think that use case is a lot bigger, like full full computer use use case I mean now I can use Claude and it can also access my browser and do things in it for me and all this things. That's already getting really efficient. So I honestly believe that that use case is significantly larger. It's it's more like programmers just built the use case that they understood best first. And it will it also

Chus: next

Niklas: hit the early adopters, so that got big. I I honestly think that everything else will be hit the same way. It just takes longer. I I don't like I I'm not certain that that that will not happen. I think it will happen the same way in design. And what I what I feel is it's actually very interesting because I didn't touch these like like these details anymore. I still know them. But it will be a very different world I think for the people growing up with all of the technology and that's will be will be really interesting. When you look at like the corporate world and corporates are extremely, I would say, reluctant to change, especially like regulated industries like insurance and so on. What do you think will be the effect on like the corporate

Chus: It's a very good question. And indeed, they are highly regulated, for example, the type of company I work with, but they are also always seeing changes in the markets and seeing changes in other countries. So for example, I know they are looking to China and seeing how a country that doesn't have the same regulations that we have in Europe is implementing things in the insurance company through AI. and they are really studying how we can apply that in a way that it still keeps the regulations. And in the end, it's a service industry. And I think AI for services, it's huge as well. As you said, the development is maybe the biggest use case at this right now, but this won't be the last one for sure. And in services, it looks like it will be huge. And we are working, for example, how we can create like really good tools for B2B, like for people who work with us, how we can make their work easier because it's not an easy job what they have. So the matter that, for example, you can do now a search bar in any website that it's AI driven and it gets all the data that this user needs of the company, it made a big change and we are working on this type of things that they would be definitely able to have a big impact without taking any regulation or taking any big risk at this point. I'm not saying it could be risky. I'm saying what I see is like there are many, many solutions that can be implemented and would be implemented very soon that they already offer a huge improvement in service. Imagine, for example, the agents of insurance, all the data they need to connect for the clients and they have to keep a conversation with the client and at same time keep all these notes of what they have to do super quickly once the call is finished or even during the call they have to do all these connections between the different products or the different dates of the products and these type of things can be way easier done with AI. and we are working a lot on this type of new apps, for example. I don't want to say too much yet because some are not launched and would be quite cool. But definitely we are focusing on improving the service.

Niklas: When you're building yourself like with Lovable for example, I think it's really interesting to see it from a design perspective. How do you approach like something you would build and how do you interact with users to to make something special?

Chus: Yeah, this is really my passion, so if I talk too much, please feel free to cut and some questions when it's needed, but it depends of course every project. But I always try to start with an idea that I feel passionate about myself, but also I think people can get interested in it. And maybe I can tell you with an example of one of the last projects I built. I saw a guy, I forgot his name, sorry, but it's in my post, in my ex, that he said he was customizing folders for the operative system with weird textures like flurry texture or marble or wood texture in the folders. So he created with AI folders that look like they were made out of concrete, plastic, whatever. And I thought, well, this is interesting. It's kind of like in the 90s, we used to customize our desktops more. So what I started is to... see if I want to build a website. Well, first I see the feasibility and the viability of the project. I thought how far I can go with this type of thing. I can get really crazy folders for myself. And then I started to play with Firefly and Chagypti and created super strange folders and hyper realistic. Like for example, a folder that looked like an ashtray full of cigarette butts and full of ash and really nasty. or a folder that looked like a meat tray from a supermarket, but really realistic with the water, small drops and the plastic texture and everything. So I checked the viability of the thing, I saw, yes, this is something I can build visually at least. And I posted it in X, I mentioned the original creator of the idea, and I saw it had quite some good feedback compared with other posts that I had before. So I thought, okay, this is interesting and it's something I can build. That's like the first thing. And then when I see that clicks, that's like the source, the idea. I see with ChatGPT, which is the tech stack that probably makes sense to use in lovable. So before opening lovable, I go to ChatGPT and I explain the idea I have and I ask for suggestions for this type of workshop. Like I wanted to do a gallery where you can see all the different folders I created in an infinite canvas with a zoom and it has a mini e-commerce that you can get 5 folders for free for yourself but those 5 folders you choose them from the 140 I created. So I did a big set of folders, you can buy all of them for $9 or you can get 5 for free. The funny thing is that instead of giving you the 5 I want, you can pick the 5 you want. of them, any of them. So I asked Chadgpd, which was the best tech stack to build something like this. And I usually do that a couple of times asking for alternatives. And then I spend some time seeing all these alternatives, trying to understand the basics of how this development work. And once I get that basic idea is when I start to create with lovable. I always start with a plan mode. I don't go to build first. And I try to go first with a overview of the project and then with small pieces. So I try to give as much context as possible at first. So it doesn't start to build something super crazy. And I also try to time frame it. So I said, I want to create this site that is a gallery, but it's also e-commerce with a free disk, with a zoom, so you can overview in the different sizes, the icons, et cetera, and start building the... basics and don't add yet any functionality to buy, don't add any visual, add placeholders because I would upload them. So I do something like super basic and I prompt that into LabOber. Sometimes I try it a couple of times because I see it feels not really lightweight or the experience looks strange. So I don't usually, I don't always go with the first attempt. But when I get something that it looks decent, UXY, then is when I start to really get into it. I start to ask Lovable to develop specific functionalities in small prompts, I start to upload my own digital work that in the case of the folder spread I did in advance but sometimes I do in parallel. That's how I work. It's also very important to limit Lovable. So for example, my portfolio is an operative system that looks like a retro 90s kind of thing with Mega Drive, big Macintosh, I don't know. And it was very important in that project to tell Lovable to stop adding stupid emojis and fonts that they were not part of my original design system. And because I was learning by then, I didn't do that at first. And it's something I learned super quickly that you have to limit and say, because AI, at least Lovable and I may... Maybe Gemini... Well, I guess other AI web building tools have the same issue that they tend to use some libraries sometimes. And it's important to avoid those unless you really want them. So for me, being a designer is being intentional always. So everything can work if it's on purpose. A comic sans can work if it makes sense with the project. Emojis can work. for some specific projects, but if you don't want them, need to say it really as soon as possible. Don't use this type of font, only use the fonts I recommended, only use the icons I'm uploading and they are in this folder, this type of thing. Yeah, those are the basics I would say.

Niklas: That that's really interesting. It's really interesting. I think I have one last question for this podcast and that would be for somebody now starting out and they want to design something really nice and maybe special that catches the eye of the user, what should they do?

Chus: Yeah, I would love to know that. That's a golden question for sure. If you are not a real designer, like you haven't studied design per se, but you know how to build things, I would recommend that person to really start with the basics. Sometimes for me, I go to chat.gpt and ask about the design movements of the previous cycle. and I try to learn from them. I don't want to get too philosophical, but my point is, if you really want to do a nice website, you have to think what do you mean with nice and ask which type of design movement or designer used to do what you are considering nice and learn why they did it like that. Learn a bit about the philosophy of the design you want to do. And once you get like the basics, you can start to ask AI or learn by yourself about about the specific color patterns, about the scale options. Like maybe when you said you want to do something nice, you mean something very storytelling driven. Then maybe it's interesting that you start to learn about typography and websites that have a big typography and they are very typography driven. And then you learn about designers that did this type of work, the best fonts to do this type of work, which you can ask GPD what of this very good story. tele-driven websites have in common, what can I learn from that and apply it to my own project? And then is when you can start to build. So what I meant is the same also, try to learn yourself as much context as possible of what you want to build. So for me, it's the same with the code, no? Since I'm not a developer, when I want to build something nice, I just for myself, what I mean with nice? It means that it has a lot of animations, so it means it has a lot of movement and the user is can walk around. So if I mean the second option, then I have to start to learn like how you can build a web browser experience where it works like a doom and the user is working around. And then I see a lot of different people doing that. And I said like, which is the easiest to apply and why is this one better or not? So for me, it's always like trying to learn as much as the surrounding area as possible. In my case, it's code. And if you want to learn about design, about design.

Niklas: Thank you so much, Juice. This was a really interesting episode and to you my lovely listener, see you next time.

Chus: Thank you, it was super cool.