Transcription
Okay, let's talk about what is happening in the product design industry right now and why I am looking for a way out. And I think I owe you this video for quite some time because if you've been following me on different social media, you know that I've been advocating for product design, for UX design, and UI design, and then I kind of stopped doing that.
And the reason for that is that in all my 17 years career, I don't know if I have ever seen the changes of that scale. And I also don't know if I like the changes. So, let me first explain where I'm at and what is happening around me. And then, what I see is going to happen in UX design in the near future. Maybe let's take a three to five years horizon. And then I can just tell you what I'm going to do with this.
And if you don't know me, my name is Aness, and I'm a principal product designer. And on this channel, I talk mainly about UX, business, and building a career that lasts.
So, right now, I'm working as a principal product designer in a big tech company, and mainly I was satisfied with my role. And I've been working there for 5 years straight. And I really try to separate the situation that is unique for my company and the trends that I see in the industry because, of course, every company has its own challenges. And honestly, the challenges that we have in my company, they are minor. Yeah, I'm maybe I would wish certain things to change, or maybe some people to leave that I don't really get along with, but it's minor. And I don't think any job is secured from that. So, you can switch your position and you still get to the people that you don't really like or get along with.
And it took me a while to separate what is unique about my company and if I should leave because of this unique situation, or if this is a trend and if I'm going to get the same experience working elsewhere. And after having, and after almost half a year that I took this into the consideration, I could definitely tell that most things that I don't enjoy are the overall trends.
So, what trends am I talking about? Of course, there is AI. But for the context, I really love AI. I actually would wish we had it earlier, and I embraced AI quite early on. I was also quite privileged to work in a company that invested that their employees are also familiar with AI. We have the access to the best tools. We got to try almost everything that is there on the market before we decide on the tool that we're going to use in our team. So, everything is great in terms of like our enablement, the adoption, the ease of experience for me, and the fact that I can now realize many, many things that I couldn't do previously on my own and I would require an engineer or a PM or somehow a team to do what I really want. So, overall, surprisingly, I think AI is an improvement of our ways of working, of the tooling, of the, and the overall experience of the craft.
Unfortunately, AI also changes the way how we work with other people. And this is what I find the most concerning. So, what is changing, and I think it's not unique for my company, is that first, everybody can now do prototypes. And because we invest in our tooling, and AI is getting better day by day, and we really try to integrate our design library to code right away, it's getting easier and easier for everyone in the team to code and to create prototypes and to influence the road map and so on and so on. And I think it's overall a positive development for the business. However, that raises a question about the need of having a product designer at place and what role are we going to take moving forward.
And they've been predicting it for a while, even before I saw how powerful these AI tools can be, that designers will kind of split. And one part will probably be merged with PMs and we'll start working closely to the product development process in the beginning, maybe defining the problem, um, maybe finding the right um angle to work on this problem, and new user groups, and something like that. And maybe the second part is going to be more transitioning towards being front-end engineers and working together with developers and maybe mostly focusing on UI and the design system.
So, that was my prediction maybe since the last year, and overall, I kind of stick to it as well because this is what I see happening. However, I don't think we really have a choice here. So, in my mind, last year when I started seeing this trend and when I started seeing some colleagues transitioning to learning front-end development and other colleagues transitioning to PM work, I thought at some point somebody will have a conversation with me and I will have to decide and I will weigh my options. And in my mind, I was thinking that well, probably I'm gravitating towards being more of a PM because I work on the earlier stages of the design process anyway. I'm a principal designer already. I'm not yet that familiar with code and with craft and with everything that lies on the execution part because I usually have designers on my team who are middle-career designers, for example, and they take over this part for me.
But there was no conversation about it, and at at no point in time I was able to choose. And the fun fact is that now I'm doing this both. So, when the project is in execution, I'm working on the code. I'm creating pull requests. And at first, that was fun and really something new. And I have an amazing team of engineers around me. So, they really helped me to get familiar with the code environment, to get my pull requests on s on a better level. So, now I'm kind of creating the changes that are really meaningful. Of course, I'm not changing the database access, or I'm not touching anything related to the API or anything. So, I usually do some like uh smaller changes when I see that something is off and I need to change a couple of pixels and things like that. Or maybe I add some additional state um in the design that we have. If I forgot to add it to Figma, then I can add it directly to code, which is kind of a positive development, is it not? Because now I don't need to wait until engineers will tackle my design requests. I can correct things on my own, and the quality of the overall product will increase.
And I'm kind of torn apart between those two moduses. And I feel like I'm stretched thin across the product development process. And I don't know if at any point my contribution is so big and it cannot be substituted by a better professional in front-end, or that it cannot be done by a PM who did it many times. So, if previously I was owning a unique part of the product development process where I could shine, where my experience lays, and where I skilled myself to be for 17 years, it's namely the UX and UI design part. And so sort of like nobody could interfere with my work, and I felt um maybe falsely, how we now know it, a certain job security in this process. And yes, this part is not going anywhere. However, it is now just so stretched across everything.
We start creating prototypes the minute we heard about a project, or we decide to go on a certain initiative. PMs are doing prototypes with Claude, right, with our design system in the very first moment. And and my only job is there is just to find it and to course-correct it and to maybe give them some advice on what they could have been doing better and what components they should not not be using in this page or something like that. So, I'm more of a consultant on this first part. And then what is left for me to do is when the prototype is ready, and I've been consulting it to the point where it could be really used as an explanation or as a thing to discuss with our stakeholders, we get an approval. And then if this is a new product we are developing or a new page, we still have this awkward interim period where I redesign it in Figma because even though Claude is using our design library, sometimes it's not doing it properly, and still some things are off. And if and just we find it's a bit easier when we have this transitioning to Figma and then back to engineers. I am 100% sure that this step will go away until the end of this year because already for like smaller improvements, for second iterations on existing pages, we don't have this step. We sort of like download the page, or however you would call it, we fork it, and then we do the changes, and then they go straight away to the production. So, I think it's only this awkward period that we have for new products, and then basically nothing is going to be left for me that I own.
I'm consulting different stages and maybe doing some hands-on stuff, if you can even call it hands-on if you just write a prompt to Claude and ask it to correct a padding. But I don't think that I'm very much needed in this process anymore. And I've been talking with many people um in my social media, in my Instagram, with my ex-colleagues who have left Zalando for a while and are working elsewhere, and they all are telling me the same story that what I'm noticing at my workplace is the industry trend. It's just some teams they are not there yet. And maybe that's because the company has a lot of legacy processes, or maybe like because they just not seeing this trend. But it seems like eventually this is going to be the standard way of working. And if product designers are going to even stay in this process, they are going to take the consultation role along the way.
Even right now, I have a project that I'm actively involved in my work where we try to establish a clear process how PMs and engineers and whoever else who is doing the prototype today can request a formal design review because right now it's more on like an ad hoc basis. If I'm going along with my engineers and my PMs, I can make sure that they will involve me and we will review the design. If not, then I have no idea what is going on in my area anymore. And sometimes I'll see the changes that are happening on production that I have never ever discussed with anyone. And with the formal process, we kind of trying to maybe make it more predictable, uh, so that the design team is not learning about the new developments just one day when they open the staging.
But anyway, even if product designers are going to stay, because maybe right now when I see how my colleagues from different functions are working on the prototypes, I see how many mistakes they are actually doing, how they are not aware about the bigger idea we have for the design system, about the use of every component because we were not documenting everything. Because within one design team, it's sometimes not necessary. You know, we kind of we know what color we should use for all situations. Plus, we have all those interim design processes like a design critique where we align with each other and we kind of make sure that nothing is released that is not intended. But I think this is going to improve, and maybe PMs are going to be more familiar with the basics of the design, and the design system is going to be well prepared for people who are non-designers right now. This is going to be the ongoing trend.
Still, if product designers are staying in this, I don't really know that I love this role because it has never happened with me so much as it happened for the previous last year, for the previous half year, is that people are questioning why designers are there, and designers are perceived as a bottleneck. In many instances, in many conversations I had, especially with higher leads, I hear that designers are slowing down the process. And that happens because when we see something is being developed, we ask for the review, and we give feedback, and we ask them to check the components, and we ask them to double-check with content designers and something like that. Or we ask if they did research, if they actually showed it to uh users. And when they say they showed it to users, and then we go through the script and through the video recording, we just see that they were leading them to the answer. This is no way they are doing this properly. But when we impose these guidelines and we suggest maybe to go and double-check it one more time because the way how it was done, it's not the proper way, we feel how it annoys people.
And design always had this problem to justify the value, right? So, because it's not like that you can connect business KPIs to product KPIs and design experience that easily. And right now, with this notion the designers are slowing down the process, I just don't know if I want to prove the value of my work constantly until I go to my pension. So, I'm giving the situation some time now because I'm also not prepared to leave anywhere. Plus, I tried to talk with some companies and I see that they are offering sort of like the same experience and the same circumstances, and they all name the same challenges. So, I'm interested to see where the situation will develop, and I'm observing closely if I really like this role that I'm taking right now because, of course, the industry has changed so much from where I started as a product designer 17 years ago, and what I'm doing now, I need to re-evaluate, right? I also changed as a person in the last 17 years, so that's an open question for me.
But while I'm waiting for things to unroll, goal, and maybe to stabilize, and maybe like I could find I could find joy in my profession one more time, I'll try some other experiments that I've been wanting to do for a while. So, one thing I'm doing right now with my partner is that we are investing in real estate. And I promised a video about how we bought our first apartment. Long story short, we're now buying the second one in Germany. And I don't know who is going to be interested in this video, but some people requested it on my Instagram. So, maybe I'll do this as an experiment because I think my channel is not going to be complete and will not be giving the expertise that I actually have without this story because I really started um studying it and I went to the courses about buying and owning and maintaining real estate. So, I think I'm going to do this, maybe not professionally, but that's going to be a big part of my life because that's the approach I decided to take um to secure my future. This is going to be one part that I'm currently doing.
The second part is that I decided to try myself in a different sort of business of entrepreneurship. Namely, I want to try and open a nail salon. So, if you've been watching my videos, then you sometimes notice that maybe I wear a manicure, and I really love it. And um, this is a physical business. So, I have nothing um I have nothing in common with this with this area. I've never worked in a nail salon. I have never been a nail technician, and I'm not planning to be a nail technician. So, this channel is not going to be turned into a channel about nails. However, I feel that the tech industry, and maybe like web design or mobile design industry, is so saturated right now that I don't really see myself fighting for those crumbs of opportunities that are left there because just everybody is doing something. Everybody's vibe coding, and it might be more native for me to also vibe code something. And I did some experiments and I even designed like an app for myself to search for my creative spark, and some other friends were using this as well because that's a cool idea. But everybody now can do this. I don't think this is a big a big value that I will provide with this. It's just like an one evening of fun prompting, and then you have something that you can use and really install on your um on your phone.
And now I'm looking at the physical business because I think there are many things that you can control, or sometimes not. But it's a very diverse um dimension because in tech, the only thing that you have is the thing you coded. It's maybe a mobile app or a website. But in a physical business, you have location, you have your social media, you have your advertisement, you have your brand, right? And um, and the other things that you can control sometimes, and sometimes it's just the luck. But if things will come together, you could really create something nice. And I have big plans about the this nail salon investment. And if you want, just check my Instagram. I recently told the full story how I landed there. I'm going to tell this story definitely here um because I think this is what I want to be focusing now, doing together with my job.
And um, also I noticed that um, the thing I loved um working as a product designer is that I loved the creation process. I loved when I had a space that I could own completely, that I could change, and I can see it being realized exactly as I wanted. And this consultancy role that I'm taking right now sort of not giving me the same satisfaction. And that's why let's see. And of course, I know that owning a business is a bit of a different journey, but my hope is that I can get to this creation again because I can maybe create something. Um, I can own my social media again. I can own the brand. I can own the location, the design of the space, and it's going to be realized exactly as I wanted. So, let's see.
There is a long road in front of me ahead. Um, I also shared on my Instagram about the steps I'm going to take. Um, and I'm going to share it there as well, as I told you. So, maybe this channel is going to be kind of taking a different perspective and combining the product design together with like some physical design business experiments. Maybe I'll fail, and I'm prepared that I'm going to fail. To be honest, I think the likelihood that I will fail is honestly higher than that I would succeed. But I still want to try it because I did some business experiments before. I had my own UX design school. I tried to create a recruitment agency, and I hated it. Recruiters are in, I don't know, like saints. They work in hell. So, companies are really the m the the issue, right, not the candidates, of course.
So, um, and these business experiments um maybe you also can consider them failed because either I didn't like it, as it was the case with the UX design school. I liked teaching, but I didn't like growing this this business model. I don't know how to explain it. Maybe it's also the topic for a different video. I'm still reflecting on this experience. I didn't like the recruitment agency, and it's a very saturated area. So, I also kind of I backed up um seeing all the competition and all the things and the hoops you need to jump through in order to get a client. And I also didn't earn anything from this recruitment experience considering the efforts that I gave to it. So, and it's fine, uh, because every time I learn something, I learned how to promote my work. I learned how to do B2B sales. I learned how to, I don't know, maintain the experience of people who are studying with my materials and stuff like that. I'm definitely going to learn something um when running a physical business in um in either a form of a nail salon or maybe something else.
And maybe one day, um, if I'm going to be strategic enough and if I'm going to have enough resources to get on with these experiments, is that I'm going to maybe stumble upon something that works. That's that's my hope. That's the hope I have right now for my life and for my career. Uh, and I'm going to do all these experiments while still working full-time. So, I'm going to definitely inform you on all the changes that are happening in my industry. I'm not going to be leaving my company because I also don't think the company is the problem. Uh, right. So, I have no one to blame there, or I have no incentives to change to something else. And also, I will use this full-time work, full-time job as a runway, basically, for my experiments. And if something is going to work, then I'm going to transition full-time.
But I definitely don't want to quit and do something drastic and to place on myself this burden of financial responsibility because I'm now have the mortgage for the for one apartment. I'm soon going to be having the mortgage for the second one, maybe the third one closer to the end of this year if we are going to come to the deal. But um, I think the financial burden is the one sure thing that kills creativity and kills this spirit of entrepreneurship because I will feel that I will have to make this thing succeed, and I have no no space for a failure and no opportunity to fail and learn. So, I will kind of try and have this interim setup um for the time being, and then let's see what's going to come out of it.
So, if you want to know more about real estate investment, let me know in the comments because people on Instagram have voted, but I don't really know if people on YouTube are having the same interest as my crowd on Instagram. And let me know if you want to and what you want to know about my nail salon experiment. I will also try to make a video about it that is going to be helpful for everyone. And thank you so much for being there. Thank you so much for following me in this journey through my burnout, through being excited about my career, through being adopting AI. This is only the beginning. Nothing stops here.
And hopefully, um, I don't know, my wish is that this channel is going to be for people who want to do some real changes who want to in their lives and in the lives around, and who want to create and see the impact of their work and of their lives on the lives uh of others because this is what I wish for myself. And if the topic of the state of UX design in 2026 is why you came to this video, then check out this video specifically about what is happening in UX design in my profession. There are more points that I mentioned that we discussed in this video, and I see you next.