hi i will be starting work as ux/product designer for company that has app and site for bus / train travel routes finding purchasing tickets service.

I’m looking for help and materials how should I start? roadmaps, what to focus on, reaserches, biases etc my background is in visual design so I know little of ux experience - mostly knowledge from books courses.

help!

I’m ready to exit this “Hello World”, one more time I see a job posting including new grads and entry level candidates in their pools then waste their effort and hope to hire someone with experience. I’m so done with this 0 experience curse. I’ll just forever be underemployed.

Hey guys. Many so-called early-stage founders just dive straight into code because they want to ship something immediately, but then realize their product assumptions were way off. I was working on a discovery project that Beetroot did for a tech company called LowgrenIT, which is a perfect reminder of what a real product discovery phase should deliver.

They formed a dedicated team (a PM and UI/UX designers) on a per-project basis for a hard two-month deadline before anyone even opened a code repository.

So at the end of the 60 days the client had an exact blueprint of what they were building and how much it was going to cost and how long it was going to take and they were also able to validate the design with early stakeholders with the prototype. It feels like gambling your runway to bypass this step. How do you keep stakeholders engaged and patient through a long 2 month discovery phase when they’re anxious to see functional code?

i’m the sole product designer at a small, growing B2B company. we have a ton on our plate and no formal design system, just branding guidelines and my existing Figma files.

honestly i knew this exact scenario would come up eventually, i’ve seen it discussed a lot in design spaces lately. today it actually happened.

i found out today, by overhearing it, not being told directly, that a senior exec showed a developer an AI design tool and talked about wanting other non-design staff to start generating UI mockups and prototypes using my files.

his reasoning was that it would let developers explain how something works to me without using a whiteboard. so a developer would explain to me: the UX/UI designer how to do UI?

i wasn’t part of that conversation. i only know because i happened to overhear it.

he did mention it to me earlier in the morning which i didn’t push back on and instead floated hiring another designer to help with capacity, his response was that there’s no time to train someone in, but someone from sales could just start generating UI mockups for development instead.

this same exec generally doesn’t take my input on design process or much else, he’s a know it all and has been dealing with pushback from the CTO for meddling in development processes.

i’ve always kept mockups routed through me for consistency and quality control, and my manager has backed that before when a developer tried to weigh in on UI decisions without me. so there’s precedent that leadership supports me owning this. but this idea would route around all of that if it actually moves forward.

i’ve read through this subreddit to know that i’m not the first or the last to have dealt with something like this. how do you push back on “let’s just have people sketch stuff out with AI” without sounding like you’re just protecting your job over speed, especially on a small team where everyone’s already stretched thin? is this as big a deal as it feels, or is this actually a reasonable ask i should just find a way to accommodate?

I’m not sure I’m not the only and this is probably a recurring topic, but how do you feel about AI in everything as a product/ux designer?

I’ve been currently interviewing for new jobs as my contract with the previous company is ending, and every interview I have just feels so demotivating.

I used to love ux design and all the methodologies and principles, but it just feels like it all kind of lost meaning and we’re in this race of just being “AI-powered”.

Which brings me to considering switching careers but I dont know whats a good pivot - product management, or something very different?

Its a bit of a rant, but a long overdue one lol. Curious to hear what you all think

Hi, I am a senior UX strategist. I’ve worked in the field for a bit over a decade and I handle UX strategy to research to wireframes sometimes do high fidelity design work. I work for a busy and reputable web development agency. I’m also an accessibility specialist which my company doesn’t have great expertise in so I do feel I have a lot of value to bring but it’s not respected at all.

Since having my baby I left my full time role and I have been working part time as a contractor at an agency. I am losing my tolerance entirely for the culture here and am finding it to be really toxic. I honestly am so close to quitting but I know it’s probably not wise given the current work environment and that during my maternity leave I can’t really work. I am having a second baby in November. A few things:

- I have worked in agency my entire career so I am hardened by the typical issues however the culture here is becoming too much for even me
- UX gets hardly any budget and I often feel on an island by myself. It will be insane I look at the estimate and I have maybe 20 hours for very complex wireframes and then see the developer was somehow given 300.
- in order to get the bid the sales team will shirk on design and UX time and then it’s never course corrected and there is a culture of blame against the design team who are working in impossible constraints
- there’s a passive aggressive culture of blame. I’m constantly flagging and covering my butt in regards to needing more time however certain PMs will still point the finger at me and blame me for going over when I literally told them I was going to and they never told me to stop working
- the BAs have a toxic relationship with UX here I’m not treated with respect they withhold information, won’t collaborate and try to trip me up in meetings. Historically UX wasn’t a job here until maybe the past decade or so and BAs are threatened by us even though our roles are different and integrating the user is so important. They act like they know better and ignore the user research. I was literally flown to another city to do user testing and the BA fought me every step of the way in my report and didn’t want to implement the improvements in her tickets and acted like I was a thorn in their side for inquiring about the status, thousands of client dollars down the drain
- everyone is extremely busy but I feel like because UX comes first in these projects I’m ignored entirely until there’s an issue and even if I flagged it it becomes my fault. I don’t feel like a respected, valued member of the team even though I’m moving mountains and directing the entire UX of complex apps and websites with the most insanely low budgets it’s truly insane that the BA will spend even sometimes a hundred hours developing specs on MY WORK and I literally will get 20 it’s absolute insanity
- I just had a meeting today where the BA was being aggressive and withholding details I needed acting like I was being so annoying and in the same meeting the PM publically blamed me for going over on my hours when I literally have multiple receipts in writing even with my manager on then in slack outlining everything before I even used the time and I had been flagging these issues for months while she ignored me
- this is all done very passive aggressively by busy people who don’t want to take blame so it’s very difficult to point out in a direct manner because they do it under the radar and it’s making it so difficult to do my job or to remain respected in the company I feel like I’m constantly a scape goat. It’s hard to be like “I didn’t like it when you said X” because they do everything in a way that is passive and covert.

I know things like this can happen at agencies but I’m going on maternity leave in November and I don’t get any benefits or pay while I’m gone and I wanted to work as much as possible before I go however I’m getting so burned out by these dynamics. Half of me wants to quit but I know that is not smart. It will be tough with one income but we could definitely make it through. We own a few rental properties and live in one of the units. I don’t live in a HCOL area so I’m not making the big bucks doing this but it should cover the basics while I’m inbetween work but then my brain is thinking maybe it would be career suicide exiting at this time. My original plan was to go on this maternity leave and while I’m gone aggressively apply to new roles. The issue is I’m wanting out now and I’m feeling really impatient.

Has anyone experienced this with agency? Did you decide to stay? Also in this job market I feel like I have no options :(

My company gives each designer a Claude Pro ($25/month), so we all have limited tokens.

Another designer and I just started a new project and were still in the exploration phase, so we hadn’t even split the work yet. The plan was just to explore directions together first.

We were using my Claude account (he ran out of tokens from his other project!), so I put all the context into Claude AI first: PM requirements, existing design, design principles we recently agreed on, problems I think we need to address, etc. I like to brainstorm first before generating the prototype, so I want Claude to know what I think it needs to know before generating anything.
But he kept saying things like “I don’t think we need to give Claude that.” And I honestly I got a bit annoyed.

I realized we actually have very different workflows.
I usually brainstorm in Claude AI first, then move to Claude Design once it’s clear enough. Looks like he does everything in Claude Design.

I remember one time (on a different project he wasn’t involved in), he saw me talking to Claude AI before updating my prototype and said “You can just do it directly in Claude Design.”
I also saw him spend a lot of time refining his UI to look exactly like the design in Figma (that’s why he’s always running out of tokens!), while I usually stop once it’s good enough for discussion and validation. We still rebuild everything in Figma before handing it off to engineering anyway.

The thing is I don’t actually know if my workflow is more efficient. It just feels that way to me. Maybe I’m wrong.

So I’m curious:
- How do your teams align on using AI?
- If you think your teammate is using AI inefficiently, would you bring it up?
- How do you know if a workflow is actually inefficient and not just different?
- Has your team agreed on best practices, or does everyone just develop their own habits?

Thanks!

I'm developing a note-taking app and wanted a way for users to quickly understand where they are in a document, see its overall structure, and jump to another section.

Most apps solve this with a dedicated Table of Contents (TOC). But I found them not ideal because:

1. They need a dedicated section/panel and take up space.
2. The TOC is visually different from the document itself, so users have to mentally map each entry to the actual content.

So I implemented an 'Overview Mode'. When enabled, the content of the page gets simplified (showing only the titles) and by clicking on a content it will disable the mode and shows the actual content instantly without any jump or scrolling.

The idea is that, your eyes can see only one thing at the time. So instead of looking at something that looks visually different than what you're familiar with and takes up space when you don't need it, with a simple click (or even a keyboard shortcut), you can see the simplified version (overview/outlines) and vice versa.

The video shows an example. I'd like to know what you guys think about this approach.

Hey everyone. I know this community has strict rules against self-promotion, so I want to be completely upfront: I am the developer of a new iPad app (Figma alternative), but I am posting here specifically because I need professional UX critique on a custom interaction model I’ve built.

I’ll gladly provide a free license to anyone here willing to test it and tear my UX apart.

The UX Challenge: Desktop design tools (like Figma) are fundamentally built around mouse precision and hover states. Translating that paradigm to the iPad is incredibly tricky. Touch requires an entirely different way of interacting because you lose hover states for exposing secondary controls or tooltips. At the same time, the Apple Pencil does allow for hovering.

Building an interaction concept that accommodates both touch and the Apple Pencil so that designing on the go actually feels natural rather than compromised was my biggest hurdle when building Aether (a native vector design and prototyping tool for iPadOS).

Where I specifically need your feedback: Fitting pro features (auto-layout, components, desktop-class boolean operations) onto a tablet screen meant rethinking standard patterns. For example, navigating complex, nested layer hierarchies without a mouse is usually a nightmare. To solve this, I designed what I call a "magic pill" interaction: you can scroll through layers normally, but if you long-press and slide down on a layer, you seamlessly iterate through all the nodes on that specific level.

I would love for some UX/UI professionals to test the ergonomics of this workflow:

• Does the long-press and slide gesture feel natural, or is there a discoverability issue?
• How well does the app handle the context switch between using a finger (no hover) versus the Apple Pencil (hover)?
• Does the touch-first auto-layout interaction feel intuitive, or does it break established mental models you rely on?

If you have an iPad and want to give me some harsh, constructive feedback, please DM me and I will send you a free license.

If you just want to look at the screenshots to critique the UI visually, you can see it on the App Store here: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/aether-ui-design-for-ipad/id6782822737 - or website: aetherdesigner.com

Interested on what people's takes are on this post I saw on linkedin from a fairly prominent product influencer.

Now, I have always associated the double diamond to design and the description of the process of design...and therefore led by design. I understand that PMs are co-opting parts of the design process more and more, but it was particularly jarring seeing this laid out so rawly. wondered what others feel? Is it just the way things are now? Are Product Managers the new designers? what does that do for Product Designers, UX designers, UI designers...or is it just rage bait?

link to post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/edbiden_your-title-is-a-lagging-indicator-your-share-7485328541971267585-XQ6X/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACedPJMB4Uiq5v7TaivpstexjaLn5i8i3dw

Curious to hear about your experience, what the day to day is like, and ask some questions about the environment/culture

From concept to design and prototyping from scratch, I've been building an open-source home robotic assistant focused on being quiet, smooth, and easy to use.

Right now I'm testing voice control, remote operation, optional camera-based tracking, health monitoring integration, and a companion software system for configuration, video synchronization, and customizable button controls. The main capability is controlled linear motion at different speeds with around 2–3 kgf of force, making it useful for tasks that involve pushing, pulling, or moving something over a short distance.

It's still a work in progress, and both the hardware and software will be open source. I'd really appreciate your feedback, especially on the UX design, overall user experience, and features you'd expect from a system like this. Any suggestions are welcome.

i'm tired of seeing the same question come up on every UX-related subreddit 😭 at this point the ridiculousness of the title i wrote is what they sound like to me. am i wrong in wishing there was a way for mods to just automatically take down these posts? i simply don't see how they're contributing anything new to this community. or maybe this is just the reality of Reddit and I need to get off this platform.

we all know things are not normal right now, and it seems like the core answer will not change: no one really knows what will happen next. as someone majoring in this field in college rn (maybe i'm delusional and just scared of the truth), the fact is i genuinely really like this field, so i'm going to keep grinding for 1-2 more years and see if i can land a job post-grad.

I’m the first and only Product Designer at a ~30-person B2B SaaS startup. We have about 12 engineers, one PM, and a BA who writes the tickets. I’ve been here about a year, and the company had never worked with a dedicated designer before.

We’ve made a lot of progress. Engineering is using Dev Mode now, I work with them much more directly, and collaboration has improved a lot.

The part I’m still struggling with is handoff and version control.

Our process is very iterative, but also pretty messy. The PM runs the show and is reluctant to lock decisions, so requirements often keep changing after tickets are written and sometimes after development has started. He also has separate conversations with Engineering that I’m not always included in, so changes sometimes filter back to me later or not everyone is working from the same information.

The biggest issue is that I’ll think a ticket is ready, link the final mockups, and then the PM comes back with more changes after previously indicating it was good to go.

An engineer recently told me it can be hard to tell what is actually approved and what has changed since the last version. Version history helps, and I’m using Figma’s Ready for Dev feature, but I feel like I need a clearer system on my side.

I have limited influence over the broader process, so I’m mostly trying to keep my side of the street as clean as possible.

How do other teams handle this? Do you require explicit PM approval before marking something ready for dev?

How do you communicate changes after development has started?

For what it’s worth I report directly to the PM and our working relationship is strained, so I’m trying to protect myself and give Engineering more clarity without introducing a formal approval process that would feel out of place or provoke him bc he is already resistant to pressure from me.

Thank you!

I have been working as an in-house product designer for 3 years, and I've recently received an interview at a consulting firm as an experience designer.

Keen to know what are the key differences between the both, what skillsets become more important, and what are interviewers looking for? I know communication and stakeholder alignment is probably more important because you're managing clients now, but would love to hear more beyond that, as well as how does collaboration with clients look like :)

What design agents do you like using? Share your link!

slider to go into meta ai inconveniently placed right where the thump swipes to go back. ignore my chats lol. mods if this is against sub rules lmk what the right flair is please

This design system makes a lot of sacrifice in terms of performance and accessibility, but besides the visual aspect and convergence with VisionOS, what design problems does it solve or want to solve exactly, from previous design systems?

Recently I've been into UI/UX, UX portion is okay for me, I also know the UI guidelines (Material UI), but still struggling with Design Systems, I've watched a number of videos and read articles, but most of them seems to be too advanced.
I've had defined my primitives/base colors, just need help for alias.

What alias structure I need to maintain??

Please suggest me some resources, tips which can help me make simple design systems (I've a satisfactory design system for spacing, layout, typography). I'm struggling with color pallete.

Many of my external colleagues are sending, 5 minutes after every meeting, a detailed email explaining what has been said and what to do next: what software are they using?

Is there one, that you are using right now, and that you found complete in its functionalities?

iOS, using Google search on safari. Not sure if everyone else is also seeing this.

When you decide you no longer want to type in a new search and want to go back to the results, you used to be able to dismiss the search suggestions by pressing a left chevron next to the search bar. They changed it to a + icon to add attachments to search with Gemini. Now there’s no way to go back to the results.

Pressuring the checkmark to finish typing and hide the keyboard just keeps you on that page. You’re forced to type in a new search or press search again which might shuffle the results.

The only way to go back now is to use the browser’s control to go back which is not natural because if I remember correctly the search suggestions WASN’T considered a separate page so pressing back actually took you back to the page you visited before the search results. I’d expect most people to be used to this but now when you tap on the search bar and see suggestions, it’s actually considered a new page so pressing back on the browser control is the only way to go back to search results now. And that takes 2 taps, one to dismiss the keyboard, and then the back button instead of just having a back button next to the search bar which dismisses the keyboard, gets rid of the search suggestions, and goes back to the search results all at once.

This is insane. Is it just me? How did this get approved? That back button has been there for years and I’m so used to pressing on it that it was second nature and I didn’t even notice that it used to be there until I pressed it out of habit and ended up seeing a bottom sheet to upload files.

Sorry, this is a bit long.

TL/DR: I think a member of SLT may have either commissioned or fabricated a review of my work and passed it along to the CEO without involving me or my manager.

For reference, I'm just barely an intermediate level designer with more experience in content design than UI.

I'm also the sole member of my tech start-up's UX team, working alongside a graphic designer and digital marketing specialist. My title is Specialist, but I'm the only one making decisions about the website.

A large part of my job involves stakeholder management. In particular one member of SLT absolutely *hates* the website and has something negative to say about everything I produce. He's obviously much higher than me in terms of rank, but in a completely different department and country, so he doesn't usually get involved beyond setting expectations and final reviews.

I try to take his feedback with grace and implement it where it makes sense, but most of the time he's overruled by the other 5 members of SLT who almost always disagree with him. At a certain point I'm too low on the food chain and have to just let them fight it out and go with the majority opinion.

He recently sent an anonymous research report and review of our website to the CEO, who passed it along to me. This report was both highly critical, and mirrored almost exactly his previous criticisms. When I asked about the author, he said it was from one of our existing clients.

I can see the author of the report in the document properties, and when I reached out to him for more information, he replied saying this was a self-contained piece of consultancy work and that he was told it would remain anonymous, and that any further review work would be contract based.

He doesn't appear to actually work for this client, although possibly he did their website as a contract.

This report cites research and includes graphs, but doesn't provide any information on methodology, screening, participants' profiles etc. Some of the graphs aren't even labeled, and the recommendations directly contradict the findings in some places.

For example, over 90% of participants correctly judged what our product does, but the review suggests a complete overhaul of our content to make it easier to understand. The report first acknowledges that our target audience is highly technical, then suggests we change our tone to appeal more to non-technical users.

It mixes research results with what appear to be his personal opinions without distinguishing between them.

There's other weird errors. Qualitative research being displayed as percentages etc. Two of the 4 comparison examples are websites the author himself designed, but were presented as non-competetive best practice examples.

The most glaring issue is that he references our hover-based mega menu being an issue on touch screen devices, but our website obviously doesn't show the mega menu on mobile or tablet, it shows the mobile optimized hamburger. I happen to know the SLT member uses a chrome book, and this is something he's referenced in the past as a touch screen problem, but it seems weird the reviewer would either have not looked at the mobile site, or would also be working from a chrome book. So my guess it that was feedback the SLT member asked him to include.

It's overall riddled with bizarre errors, but this person also appears to have 10 years more experience than I do, and has completed some massive projects.

I still don't know if this review was commissioned, or if he sent it as an attempt to be hired. Any questions I've asked are ignored.

I'm stuck with how to respond. If one particular staff member is commissioning research about my work without involving me, that seems like a weird situation to try and navigate.

At the very least, if this report was paid for I feel like I should be able to access the raw data, or have more information about the methodology so I can cross-reference it against my own data.

If he did it free in the hopes of getting a job, that's fine, but then why was it given to the CEO instead of me or my manager who could actually make decisions about that?

It's difficult to take my own emotions out of this because it's been two years of feilding this one SLT member's constant criticisms, and at a certain point it starts to feel like bullying.

But I'd like to stay professional and objective if I can. Should I just ignore the whole thing?

I feel like since design is visible, It receives a lot of feedback from all ends. Obviously, as a young designer I can’t answer everything business related as I don’t have that much experience in the company or the field. There is lots of politics from senior management in my company too. My team is decent and encouraging but I am still young and the only designer. I also get praised but the negative aspects like politics and very very high level business questions, I am not able to handle. there is lots of politics around what gets developed too as AI is here and random slop is being generated and pushed, it adding way more pressure on me to complete the job faster as our team is competing too!(I hate AI to my core)

How do I stop taking all this personally?

Edit: To add some more context, a few questions were asked more about business related which obviously I would never have known because it was very specific info that only a business leader would know about and I am very hard on my self so I took not knowing the info personally. I obviously am not on that level of thinking yet so those questions didn’t come to mind either. Design critiques I can still take well, it’s these types of things that I take more personally. Also, I feel that I am doing so much work regarding research, and then designing and receiving feedback from every corner as I am the main designer working on lots of critical projects that I feel overwhelmed. Like I am being blamed for all the issues without empathy for my workload. My team is appreciative, it’s about the other teams I work with and their senior stakeholders specifically not users.

Has anyone here completed a live remote design exercise as part of a product design interview? A company I’m interviewing with invited me to do one for the next round (45–60 minutes), and this is the first time I’ve ever been asked to do one.

I’ve been a product designer for about 9 years, and this seems like a newer interview format. What was your experience like? Any tips or horror stories would be appreciated.

I’m looking for a reality check from people who have worked in UX or web design for a while.

I’ve been with the same company for about five years. During that time, multiple people left and their work was never backfilled, so I’ve gradually taken on a much broader role than when I was hired.

Today I do a mix of UX work, UI design, frontend implementation (HTML/CSS/JS), graphics, updating Razor page architecture, A/B testing from setup through monitoring, UX audits, and a constant stream of production requests. I spend a lot of my time implementing small but urgent website updates, which makes it difficult to work on more strategic initiatives.

I’ve asked several times over the years about a promotion or title change (for example, to something like Senior Web Designer or UI/UX Designer), but nothing has happened. My performance reviews have been solid, and leadership has said I’m an important contributor, but my responsibilities have continued to grow much faster than my title or compensation. After my previous UX manager left, the role was filled by someone from outside the UX/web discipline. Since then, I haven’t had a manager with a design background who can really mentor or advocate for my career progression.

Recently I’ve realized I’m feeling increasingly resentful and disconnected from the work. I still do my job well, but it’s become difficult to stay motivated because I don’t feel like there’s a realistic path forward internally.

For those who have experienced this, at what point did you decide it was time to start looking elsewhere?