📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT
Results Are In: Join The State of AI in UX and Product Design Webinar
- We’ve just closed our second State of AI in UX and Product Design survey, and our findings offer a more nuanced picture of how AI is showing up in designers’ day-to-day work and reshaping what it means to be a designer today.
- Our survey report, coming soon, reflects an industry in active transition and highlights how designers are adopting AI tools in practice, where they’re seeing value, and where uncertainty and friction still exist.
- Join our upcoming panel discussion on Tuesday, January 13th at 12pm ET, where we’ll walk through the data, compare the latest numbers with those from 2024, and discuss what it all means for designers and their careers. Register now to attend the event.
Staying Sharp in the Age of AI
- UX leader Ken Olewiler explores a growing tension in design: as AI accelerates creation, designers risk losing the cognitive struggle that builds intuition, judgment, and craft, what he calls “creative atrophy.”
- Drawing on neuroscience and decades of UX practice, Olewiler urges designers to avoid outsourcing every difficult task and do the warm-up (sketching, framing, and reasoning) before letting machines lift the weight. “In an era of infinite generation, making becomes cheap, but taste becomes priceless. You are no longer just a creator. You are a curator.”
- Our UI Mastery Certification program, returning on January 9th, is built to help experienced designers polish their UI judgment and curate more effectively, and there are just a few seats left. Apply now.
Beyond the Interface: Building the Foundations Products Depend On
- Product leader Kateryna Korotieieva explores the role of platform product management, explaining that it isn’t just PM with APIs, but a fundamentally different discipline, one focused on building ecosystems that enable other teams, products, and developers to succeed.
- For product designers, this lens is increasingly relevant: platform work often means designing APIs, workflows, documentation, and systems that other designers and developers build on. It’s where clarity, consistency, and long-term thinking matter more than polished screens.
- “Platform product management isn’t glamorous in the traditional sense, but your impact is deeper and longer-lasting than almost any other kind of product work.”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
With a background in human resources and a B.S. in Psychology from UC Irvine, Leyna Dao transitioned into UX to scale the kind of impact she was already making one-on-one, now designing thoughtful experiences that serve thousands at once. In her United Airlines redesign, Leyna tackles the stress and opacity of flight booking head-on, streamlining pricing transparency and check-in flows for both frequent and occasional travelers. Through user research and competitive analysis, she transforms a complex, multi-step process into a clearer, more confident journey—proving how small interaction-level improvements can significantly increase trust. Her project PickyPal showcases her ability to design for emotional as well as functional needs. Built for caregivers navigating picky eating and dietary restrictions, the mobile app simplifies meal planning with personalized recipes and smart grocery lists. The result is a warm, approachable experience that reduces daily friction and turns a common source of stress into something more manageable and even joyful. Across her work, Leyna blends behavioral insight with clean, intuitive design, demonstrating how empathy-driven UX can meaningfully improve everyday systems.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
- Adobe Announces Partnership with Runway
- 8 Ways to Build Allies as a Designer
- Figma’s Updated Crop Tool Simplifies Image Editing
- 3 Google Labs Tools for Product Design
"I see design as a matter of solving problems; art as a matter of inventing them." — Karl Gerstner, graphic designer
🧪 FROM THE LAB
UI Mastery Certification (Launches 1/9): Sharpen your UI judgment, gain visual clarity, and develop the system thinking needed to go from “good” design to great. Join our live info session on Tuesday, January 6th at 1pm ET.
Prototyping in Figma (Launching 1/9): Learn the techniques to create high-fidelity, functional prototypes in Figma. Learn more at our live info session on Tuesday, January 6th at 2pm ET.
AI for Visual Design (Launching 1/9): Harness AI tools, prompt crafting, and dynamic imagery to transform how you design. Join our live info session on Thursday, January 8th at 12pm ET.
✨ For Career Transitioners ✨
UX Academy Foundations is our beginner-friendly course to help you take the first step toward a career in UX or product design. Gain proficiency with Figma, work 1:1 with an experienced design mentor, and develop the skills you need to move on to our award-winning career accelerator program, UX Academy. Join our live info session today at 11am ET for more details.
✨ AI Prototyping Camp ✨
AI Prototyping Camp (launching 1/27) is a 4-day, hands-on intensive to help designers, PMs, and builders prototype and ship at lightning speed. Learn more at our informational webinar on Wednesday, January 7th at 12pm ET—featuring course instructor Jacques Debeuneure.
