shalin retweeted
How much more creative could models be by default?
We asked frontier and open-weight models to design a landing page with “unique personality and taste” three separate times using the same business brief and images
It almost looks like we got the same site
shalin retweeted
The life of a cursor...
Inspired by Cole, and recent work for historyofsoftware.org
shalin retweeted
When I look back at the earliest @Muse mocks, the very first thing that was designed was the “status” pill at the top of the screen. That one tiny piece of UI survived every subsequent revision, many months on.
It remains one of my favorite parts of the design. Its purpose is to simply and clearly answer the question: what is my agent doing right now? And do that across every surface of the app.
Representing status in this way is more of a messaging pattern and was kind of controversial early on. Most AI apps had coalesced around “chain of thought” as the way to represent ongoing work, which almost always appeared at the bottom of the thread itself. I had a petulant aversion to this and it didn’t work anyway, given the initial app was already three tabs (feed, chat, library). A persistent status display was necessary.
The initial version didn’t have the avatar and was only capable of ~6 deterministic states. Even in that basic form it was incredibly useful during testing – just showing connection status was critical in those early days.
Excited to share some more stories about the design of Muse. I haven’t tweeted in a few years as I’ve just been working away, but I think this will be a fun story.
shalin retweeted
You probably need a bit more rhythm in your life.
My quick pro tip for improving your web designs is to choose one major and minor spacing unit for vertical rhythm, and align everything to it by default.*
*this is also how you teach agents to design productively
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A new home for designers
Absolutely crazy — we are live!
Invites rolling out.
Community by the community.
This is ours.
See you in there ❤️
shalin retweeted
I wrote a 6,000 words retro on my career so far. I found it useful to reflect on the last 40 years and fun to explore some interactions with chronology.
Time is unrelenting. Life is long.
gabrielvaldivia.com/timeline
shalin retweeted
When you're designing anything of even moderate interface interactivity or complexity, state machines are a great way to help you manage that.
I make these all the time, and they're remarkably useful little tools.
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Today we’re releasing an early preview of the /design command in Claude Code!
from CC Desktop or CLI, try something like "/design a few options for {feature}" before you build — pick your fave artboard, edit it and implement.
shalin retweeted
I designed the new icon set for @cursor_ai. ✨
420 icons. 2 sizes. 2 styles. One single family.
Simple, beautiful and practical – with just enough character to feel satisfying.
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Our 2026 Design in AI Report is now live!
This report is the culmination of thousands of people hours and many late nights to create what we believe is the most comprehensive, well-researched report capturing and synthesizing the state of Design + AI today.
While we used AI in many areas, a report like this still required deep thinking, grit, and humans coming together to do what they do best.
The final report spans nearly 20k words covering the survey results of over 900 people paired with dozens of qualitative interviews.
Over the coming months we will also release 7 beautiful case studies showing how top design teams are working on the ground featuring designers at @AnthropicAI, @framer, @linear, @NotionHQ, @Shopify, @SierraPlatform, and @stripe.
This work is a true labor of love to help guide a design community we hold so dear.
Link in the comments and please let us know what you think. Your feedback helps us shape how we will evolve this work over the coming years...
shalin retweeted
1. This definition of product design is so sadly thin given where Gokul worked. Product designers do help with UI design systems but that's a fraction of what they do which also includes what product to build, how it should work, how to ensure people understand how to use it, how to create a brand people love and rally around, how the system should work together, etc etc etc but yes they'll need to do visual design of UI design systems less so I'll concede on that.
2. Design is not the "first casualty" and we have the data on design hiring - will release it here in a few weeks - stateofaidesign.com/ but at least the top tech companies continue to hire top designers AND pay top dollar for those folks.
3. If you're a designer you don't have these “two choices” - you can also become a founder of a startup (not just a design agency) - in fact this is an incredible time to be a designer founder. You can become incredible at storytelling and help with brand/marketing. You can freelance as a product designer (not just a systems UI specialist)... and many more...
AND any product designer worth their weight already does/did PM/Eng type work... so sure if you're one of the few software designers that somehow didn't touch code or help with product strategy yeah pick that up it's 2026... you don't need a PM/Eng to tell you that.
/end rant
DESIGN: THE FIRST AI CASUALTY
I'm increasingly sure that 2026 signals the end of product design as a full-fledged stand-alone function within companies. If so, it will be the first role / function to be eliminated by AI on a go-forward basis.
Instead of hiring FT designers, startups are hiring / will hire design consultants to create a design system that the founder likes (this takes a few weeks max). Once the design system is finalized, PM/Eng feed it into their AI tool of choice to generate prototypes. The design system is refreshed annually by the same consultant.
Larger companies will likely not backfill design roles and will do some targeted attrition to reduce the design department to 20% the size it is today.
If you're a designer, I think you have two choices:
1. Become an entrepreneur: Start a design agency and become the go-to resource for design systems for startups and even larger companies. This can be a good recurring revenue business.
2. Become a builder: Add PM/Eng responsibilities to become a product builder.
Would suggest you embrace this proactively vs waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I'm really sorry about this - some of my best friends and the people I admire most and have learnt the most from are designers - but it seems inevitable.
Absolutely can’t wait to take this for a spin
shalin retweeted
I’ve spent at least 100 hours setting up, training, and working with @openclaw
Read the docs. Peeked into the source code. Edited config files by hand. Walked friends though their setup.
Then, I wrote down everything I know.
Here it is: The Ultimate 0 > 🦞 Guide
ty ty to @lennysan @nateliason @davemorin @steipete @lindsmccallum @elawless for early feedback.
gl hf snap snap 🦞lennysnewsletter.com/p/openc…
OpenClaw: The complete guide
@ClaireVo has just put together the definitive guide to getting started with and mastering OpenClaw.
Building on our podcast episode, this post covers everything you need to know, from first install to multi-agent setups, plus the real costs and security gotchas most people skip over.
Whether you’re brand new to OpenClaw or already running one, Claire’s guide will level you up.
Find it here 🦞: lennysnewsletter.com/p/openc…
I’ve been lucky to partner with @chintanturakhia for the past 4 years, and the AI transformation he led was remarkable at the pace and scale we had to operate at. Walks through walls to inspire and uplevel our entire org, including Design and Research. Give a listen!
Sure, you can vibe code but have you ever shipped so much with AI you literally break GitHub?
That’s what @chintanturakhia and the team at @coinbase did as they pushed the edge of engineering with AI.
This week, Chintan and I chat about how to get 1000s of engineers cooking with AI in real, production scale environments.
You’ll see
- how to use @cursor_ai to build a mini app to drive more cursor adoption
- his video/voice -> @linear -> @claudeai process for speed running user feedback
- a new model for eng leadership where there’s more code than meetings
Bonus: we get his hack on finding great wines based on scribbled tasting notes.
Thanks to our awesome sponsors
💼 @WorkOS - Make your app enterprise ready today
🐶 @Atlassian Rovo - AI that knows your business
Watch now: youtu.be/tidINuXB7PA
A lot of this reflects my own personal view of how the design process I changing, and its effects on the archetypes of designers needed for the next chapter
Design lead for Claude: The classic design process is dead.
Here's what's replacing it.
Jenny Wen (@jennywen) leads design for Claude at @AnthropicAI, was previously director of design at @Figma, and a designer at @Dropbox, @Square, and @Shopify.
In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
🔸 Why the classic discovery → mock → iterate design process is becoming obsolete
🔸 What a day in the life of a designer at Anthropic looks like, including her AI tool stack
🔸 Whether AI will eventually surpass humans in taste and judgment
🔸 Why Jenny left a director role at Figma to return to IC work
🔸 The three archetypes Jenny is hiring for now
This conversation changed how I think about the future of design.
Listen now 👇
youtu.be/eh8bcBIAAFo
shalin retweeted
I’m convinced that moms are going to be @openclaw power users and I wanna co-chair this club with @jessegenet - DM if you want in
2 moms, 5 mac minis, 7 kids, infinite @openclaw ideas
This episode with @jessegenet might be my favorite How I AI yet 🦞🦞🦞 🦞 🦞
After a tricky start, I finally found my groove with Polly the Clawdbot, and most of that was thanks to being inspired by Jesse.
She shows us:
- how she runs her homeschool using @obsdmd, her iphone camera, nano 🍌, and openclaw
- why she decided to invest in fat stacks of mac minis, for physical partitioning of her personal data
- what an army of AI agents can do for a busy mom of 4 who "wants it all"
Plus we talk endlessly about how AI is perfect for parents aka people "with no hands."
A BIG thanks to this week's sponsor, my good friends at:
💎 @Optimizely - Your AI agent orchestration platform for digital and marketing teams
RUN don't walk to watch this one. 10/10 👉 youtube.com/watch?v=96Vl8s3E…
While on maternity leave, I’ve similarly spent the last few weeks setting up OpenClaw to run my life as a busy mom, wife, and design leader. Talking to a chatbot is one of the easier things I can do one-handed between diapers, nursing, and naps
2 moms, 5 mac minis, 7 kids, infinite @openclaw ideas
This episode with @jessegenet might be my favorite How I AI yet 🦞🦞🦞 🦞 🦞
After a tricky start, I finally found my groove with Polly the Clawdbot, and most of that was thanks to being inspired by Jesse.
She shows us:
- how she runs her homeschool using @obsdmd, her iphone camera, nano 🍌, and openclaw
- why she decided to invest in fat stacks of mac minis, for physical partitioning of her personal data
- what an army of AI agents can do for a busy mom of 4 who "wants it all"
Plus we talk endlessly about how AI is perfect for parents aka people "with no hands."
A BIG thanks to this week's sponsor, my good friends at:
💎 @Optimizely - Your AI agent orchestration platform for digital and marketing teams
RUN don't walk to watch this one. 10/10 👉 youtube.com/watch?v=96Vl8s3E…