I found an interesting way to think about smart home interfaces.

Most people spend months choosing devices.

But I think the interface layer is even more important.

I turned one real r/smarthome question into a complete architecture.

Curious whether you agree.

I’m a peanut bar manufacturer based in Pune. Most of my current customer base consists of small local shops, but I’m looking to scale up.

I haven’t been able to find a good designer who offers affordable rates and fresh, modern design ideas.

Any recommendations or leads would be awesome!

How much responsibility contract packaging firms usually take when it comes to dieline setup?

Any experiences contract packaging firm for dieline setup? What separates a great experience from an average one?

I've been building a home robotic assistant with a goal of keeping it quiet, smooth, and simple to use. I plan to make both the hardware and software open source.

I'm currently experimenting with voice control, remote operation, health monitoring integration, and optional camera tracking.

It's still a work in progress, and I'd love to hear what features or improvements you'd find most useful.

I'm curious to see how experienced designers are actually working today—not just which AI tools they're using.

A few questions:

• What's your end-to-end workflow from receiving a task to handing it off to developers?
• At which stages do you use AI (research, UX, wireframes, UI, content, design systems, documentation, handoff, etc.)?
• Which AI tools are part of your daily workflow (ChatGPT, Claude, Figma AI, Cursor, Lovable, v0, or others)?
• What tasks do you still prefer to do manually?
• What's one workflow improvement that has saved you the most time?

I'm less interested in prompts and more interested in the thinking process and how everything fits together.

Would love to learn from real-world workflows.

Hey, I'm a final year Product Design student and next year I have to spend the whole year designing a product!

Do you have any, literally any wild product ideas you'd like to see made into a reality? If so chuck them in the comments or send me a DM.

I'll be spending the whole year on it so it will likely be one of the best pieces of design work I'll ever do.

Don't be afraid of loosing your cool idea, who are we kidding here it's not on the top of your to do list. If it becomes successful I'll cut you in, so this is a pretty risk free way of having an idea made real.

Any help would be hugely appreciated I have no clue what I wanna make!

Tldr: product ideas for me to design please.

I’ve been using AI for brainstorming, writing UX copy, and exploring ideas.
It definitely saves time, but I still rely on my own judgment for the final design.
How are you using AI in your workflow?

When you finish a design, simply ask these questions as one prompt:

"What did I miss?"
"What can we do to improve the customer experience?"
"What interactions or features could be confusing or made better with what you understand about this project?"

This is a practice I have followed on several projects now, and it has been wildly successful. Almost every single recommendation was implemented. Do you use something similar? What has been your experience?

What are the soft skills you need in product design that no one talks about ?

What is actually the hardest thing in your day-to-day ?

Hey everyone,

I recently finished building my portfolio after spending the last few months learning UI/UX and Product Design. Before I start applying for internships and junior roles, I'd really appreciate some honest feedback from experienced designers.

Portfolio: https://sahilhalbe.framer.website/

Thanks in advance!

Keen to hear what people in product feel about ai. Here's my perspective from someone in product:

I'm in product design in AUS (8+ years now), and here's my exprience:

Situation: TLDR; PMs creating an ERP on a house of ai-design-debt cards

• PMs and POs use ai in my current role to create prototypes for features, test with users every week and ship those prototypes by asked devs to slap on an open source design system.
• I'm using claude and cursor to do the same, but have noticed several gaps that seem irrelavant to someone at a PM level that will eventually cascade (already is) into larget issues. For instace interaction states, usability (espeically new users), non-existent design structure, high-information-density interfaces (because who cares about progressive disclosure), and so on.
• Hunderds of AI documentation of "research" everywhere, information dense and zero substance - this is not an exaggeration. Employees are expected to reference it.

How I feel:

• Rather optimisitc about the fact that these ai artefacts are going to catch up to everyone in about 2 years time and there will be a clean-up hiring stage.

So, what's everyone's situation, feelings and just thoughts really.

This is really really cool ..........looking! It came across on my youtube feed and im veeeery skepticsl that i would be happy after i bought this.

Hi everyone,

I’m studying product design and have a background in technical product design, with around five years of CAD experience. CAD is my strongest skill, especially modeling surfaces, meshes, and finding quick technical solutions. I’m currently starting to learn Blender, but I’m still a beginner there.

My drawing skills are not very strong yet, so I often use references, Pinterest, moodboards, and lately also AI to explore ideas.

For one project, I used AI to generate different design directions for a coffee machine. One idea had proportions and a form language I liked. I then used a rough AI-generated 3D model as a starting point and completely rebuilt everything myself in CAD. The final product went through many iterations and is now a clean, functional design with proper surfaces and transitions. It barely looks like the AI version anymore.

So my question is:

Where do you draw the line between using AI as inspiration and relying on AI too much?
Is it acceptable to use AI as a rough starting point, similar to Pinterest or moodboards, as long as the final design is properly developed and modeled by yourself?

I know AI combines existing references, but design is often based on inspiration from existing things anyway. I’m curious how other designers see this.