Dive Club 🤿

In this episode, Ryo Lu, former designer at Notion, shares insights on the Notion design process, user research for AI, feedback sourcing, design system, portfolio expectations, and operating outside the traditional design role.

Molly Hellmuth, creator of UI Prep, discusses building design systems with variables in Figma. They explore when to adopt variables, avoiding regretful strategies, favorite Figma plugins, building components in V8 of UI Prep, her journey as an independent creator, and more.

Derek Briggs, leader of the design super team at Clerk, discusses assembling an A-list team, the importance of collaboration between UI engineers and designers, redesigning Clerk's product, creating a culture of craft, and investing in understanding the medium for new opportunities.

Tommy Geoco, an experienced designer and entrepreneur, shares his wild journey of selling his first company, the importance of design tools, strategies for side projects, and his mental model for learning as a self-taught designer. He also discusses ways to improve taste as a designer and his acquisition of UX Tools, along with his vision for the future.

Experienced designer Kevin Twohy shares strategies for cold outreach and pricing, getting aligned quickly with clients, and positioning himself as a studio. He also discusses the vulnerability of not having a traditional design background and the pros and cons of productized agencies in the design industry. Plus, strategies for increasing client referrals and balancing long-term projects and setting boundaries.

Design systems leader Lauren LoPrete shares insights from her experience at Dropbox and Cash App, including the importance of documentation and excitement about string variables. The podcast also discusses traits of successful DS designers and the adoption process of Figma variables beta at Dropbox.

Kate Syuma, Former Head of Growth Design at Miro, shares insights on designing for business impact, overcoming imposter syndrome, asking better data questions, and the importance of designing for emotion. The podcast also explores user onboarding, user activation, and the unique qualities of a growth design team. Plus, the guest discusses their departure from Miro, experiments in career and podcasting, and creating better user experiences.

Experienced designer Soren Iverson discusses his satirical designs, overcoming creative blocks, collaborating with Duolingo, growing your product sense, and the importance of consistency and building an online network.

Kathryn Gonzalez, DoorDash's first designer, shares insight on building a design language from scratch and designing a 3-sided marketplace. Topics include taking smaller steps when selling and scoping infrastructure work, the importance of understanding restaurant workflows, investing in design and infrastructure, embracing chaos in the early days, and future plans after DoorDash.

Niko Klein and Garrett Miller from Figma's prototyping team discuss the advanced prototyping release at Config 2023, collaboration with engineering, balancing power and simplicity in the expression builder, the development of the inline preview feature, using variables in prototyping, and the future of prototyping in Figma.