Jeffrey Perona Boyce

This hit close to home. This quarter we've been actively rethinking our design process. Removing rituals, pulling back on some discovery activities, and prioritizing speed and learning over craft and critique. It can be uncomfortable but it's the right direction. This episode puts a lot of it into words.

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A lot of this reflects my own personal view of how the design process is changing, and its effects on the archetypes of designers needed for the next chapter

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The classic design process is evolving and fast. For African tech innovators, this is a wake-up call: the way we build products, design interfaces, and solve problems is changing globally. Leveraging AI, thinking beyond traditional processes, and embracing new design archetypes could be the key to creating world-class products from Africa. 🌍✨ Tech is no longer about following established playbooks, it’s about adapting, experimenting, and innovating faster than ever. #AfricanTech #Innovation #Design #AI #ProductBuilding #FutureOfWork

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Most designers say they want impact. What they really want is proof. At scale, I had to formalize proof. I once built a quarterly UX strategy using Jared Spool's Persuasive Metrics to connect design decisions to revenue. A 2% reduction in onboarding friction translated into six figures in retained revenue. That was the language the room spoke. Dashboards. Quarterly reviews. Attribution models. Impact had to be quantified before it was believed. Now I’m at a tiny startup. Last week, a customer Slacked: “Magemetrics saves me days on campaign reports.” Following the rebrand, a prospect opened the site and said: “Okay. This feels serious.” These calls felt different: less explaining, fewer objections, more trust. No attribution model. No presentation. Just behavior changing in real time. Here’s what’s different: In enterprise, proof arrives as numbers. In startups, proof shows up as decisions. Enterprise feedback arrives filtered and quarterly; startup impact is immediate. Doubt slows deals. Confidence speeds them up. Immediacy forces clarity. You take fewer performative bets. You stop optimizing for presentations. You design to remove doubt. Because you’re not defending slides — you’re shaping what happens next.

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This is super interesting and especially relevant right now. AI is reshaping product design, development, and engineering at an unprecedented pace. Many of the assumptions and practices we relied on are being disrupted, and we need to adapt quickly.

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This is a fascinating look at how AI is reshaping the way we design and build. Our workflows, and the relationship between design and code are evolving quickly. Jenny Wen explores what this shift means and how we can adapt to what’s ahead.

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen everyone sharing Jenny Wen’s interview. However, here’s my view: The design process isn’t dying; it’s being stripped of its “busywork.” For years, we’ve been judged by our production output: wireframes, pixels, and documentation. But today, AI can act as a high-fidelity sketchpad, generating variations faster than we can think of them. So where does that leave the human designer? In my view, we are moving from creators to curators. AI provides the recommendations. You provide the judgment. AI provides the options. You provide the integration. AI provides the speed. You provide the direction. We still use a hypothesis-driven approach. We still iterate. We still test. But we are no longer just “pixel pushers.” We are experience architects who use AI to amplify our reach while maintaining a firm grip on the human “why.” The question is: in an AI-accelerated world, is design craft still about how you make something, or is it now about how you judge what is right for the user? Can a machine ever truly replace the experience judgment required to decide the soul of a product or brand? #DesignStrategy #AI #ExperienceDesign #Leadership #DesignProcess #FutureOfWork

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A lot of conversations I have with design teams start the same way: “We’re moving fast… but we keep circling back.” It’s rarely a skill issue. It’s a timing issue. Most misalignment doesn’t come from bad design. It comes from discovering truth too late—after engineering starts, after a sprint closes, or after launch. And the cost of that delay is enormous. A late fix can be 100× more expensive than catching the issue early. But the teams that validate upfront—concepts, prototypes, even simple assumptions—consistently move faster, not slower. I’ve seen: • 25% fewer iteration cycles • Clearer rationale behind decisions • Less friction between design, product, and engineering Early insight isn’t a tax on velocity. It’s the engine of velocity. When we test earlier, we spend less time reworking and more time progressing. And our teams feel it—not just in timelines, but in confidence and morale. These themes are showing up across the teams featured in our newest Leadership Signal. It’s a great pulse check on how leaders are tightening alignment earlier in the process. https://bit.ly/4ixuGp2

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This is a must watch, not only to every Product Designer, but also to all product people, and also to heads of functions.

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For years, design leadership has been rooted in a familiar rhythm: refine the interface, elevate the craft, ship the next iteration. But the ground is shifting under our feet. Alan Dye leaving Apple to lead Meta’s new AI-focused design studio is more than a career move. It’s a signal of where design leadership is headed next — from polished pixels to the orchestration of intelligent systems. And I think this shift has been building for a while. Design leaders are no longer stewards of screens alone. We’re becoming stewards of behavior. We’re shaping how intelligence shows up for real people in real workflows. That means expanding our craft: - Understanding how AI perceives, interprets, and responds. - Designing workflows where the interface becomes the smallest piece of the experience. - Thinking about failure modes, trust, escalation paths, and recovery states. It’s a new kind of design practice. One where interaction models stretch beyond UI and into environment, context, and intent. AI isn’t replacing design leadership. It’s redefining the battlefield. And the leaders who thrive will be the ones who think beyond surfaces and start designing the systems of intelligence that sit beneath them. https://lnkd.in/g35fcFiU #ProductDesign #DesignLeadership #AIXDesign #FutureOfWork

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Loved this. Jenny's perspective on general trends in how design work is moving aligns fairly closely with my own experience and what I'm seeing. I loved that she called out that Figma is still valuable (and faster) for many design tasks than jumping straight into prototyping. Just like persistent chat and UIs won't completely go away, I don't see a "drawing" tool going away, even for designers comfortable with code and AI prototyping tools. (Side note: I've been using hand-drawn sketches to illustrate ideas, and it's worked surprisingly well.)

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