Yuwei Fu

If your personas describe users in isolation, you’re limiting impact. Real work is collaborative, constrained, and increasingly shaped by automated systems. Our design artifacts need to reflect that reality. This piece explores what it means to expand personas beyond the single user, and why relationships between actors matter just as much as the actors themselves. https://lnkd.in/g4dxrrHx #designexcellence #designleadership #userpersona #AIintegration

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The future of design isn't prettier pixels—it's intelligence architecture. Suff Syed's latest piece challenges everything we know: designers must move from the surface to the substrate—from interfaces to the intelligence layer beneath. We've spent careers perfecting visual design, following leaders like Jony Ive. However, in the Era of Intelligence, we need to look toward different leaders—such as Demis Hassabis—who design systems that think, not just look beautiful. Here's the shift: The skills that got us here are no longer sufficient. As AI becomes the new operating system, designers who understand agentic AI, proactive systems, and personal intelligence will shape the next decade. Why now: 96% of designers are self-teaching AI skills. Startups are adopting AI at twice the rate of enterprises. The window to become an outlier is closing. This isn't about AI replacing designers—it's about designers who understand AI replacing those who don't. My challenge: Stop treating AI as just another tool. Start learning how these systems work intimately. Move from decorating surfaces to architecting intelligence. Read Suff's full article: https://lnkd.in/dtfG4dGn Will you be designing with AI or watching from the sidelines? #Design #AI #UXDesign #ProductDesign #DesignLeadership

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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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Similar to the power of, “yes and”, design’s core value is the craft itself applied to experiences; does not matter if it’s a UI, customer journey, or onboarding experience for new hires. Running Marketing and Design at Replit is one of the many fond memories for the ages. Designers, it’s okay to do work outside your department.

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The biggest shift I have seen as a VP of Design isn't AI-generated wireframes or prototyping shortcuts. It is designers using AI to step directly into frontend coding. No more design QA. No more translating Figma into tickets. Designers polish the experience in the same medium the user actually sees and feels. This change transformed my team. Designers loved the autonomy. Engineers loved being free to work on complex backend code. Quality went up, and we shipped faster. The more I talk with design leaders, the clearer it is that this will not stay a niche skill. This is becoming part of how modern design teams work. I launched CraftAmplify to help designers build this skill properly. We focus on writing production-quality code rather than prototypes. The response has been incredible. Thank you to everyone who put in the work and started shipping real code. Watching designers push their first production PR has been the highlight of my year. Each cohort is capped at five designers to keep the experience hands-on. I checked this morning, and there is only one seat left for all of 2025, so I added new sessions for January and February 2026. Details are here: https://lnkd.in/eXqsMadG #ProductDesign #Frontend #AI #DesignEngineering #CraftAmplify

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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 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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Terminal Fluency: As AI becomes more central to Designer workflows, I’ve been seeing more questions about whether the terminal is still worth learning. I think it is, terminal is core skill that compounds and unlocks next-level control over agents. Make terminal your second brain with this tmux + vim cheatsheet (or just get started) and keep your hands on the keyboard. https://lnkd.in/eV5bAFhF

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