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๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ฆ๐ต๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐ท๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ ๐ง๐ถ๐บ๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐ โ ๐๐๐ ๐๐น๐๐ผ ๐๐ป๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ ๐๐
๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐
๐๐ฒ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐:
Clients expected 2โ4 weeks for MVP design.
๐ก๐ผ๐:
They expect magic in days.
AI has reduced production time.
But it has increased pressure.
Because speed โ quality.
The real competitive edge now is:
โข Faster research
โข Faster iteration
โข Better decision-making
โข Human-centered refinement
AI helps you move faster.
UX thinking ensures you move correctly.
If you need fast execution without sacrificing UX quality, letโs talk.
Clients should be somehow educated on AI usage and set properly expectations. As you mentioned, AI might makes things faster, but human is still needed to make them "better".
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๐ง๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ถ๐ด๐บ๐ฎ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ป ๐ถ๐ ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ ! ! !
As a designer, I love how AI is changing the way we work.
Weโre moving from simply sending clients static designs on Figma to building clickable prototypes that bring their vision to life.
Now, a founder can actually experience how their website will look and feel before development is complete.
They can click through pages, explore interactions, and see animations in action.
And for developers? The handover becomes much smoother because they can see how everything is supposed to work, not just how it should look.
Less guesswork. Better collaboration. A clearer vision.
Honestly, itโs a win-win for everyone.
I think every designer and developer should embrace AI in 2026. Not to replace our skills, but to expand what we can create with them. ๐
So are you still team traditional Figma design ? Or you now use Ai to advance your design work ?
Awesome work!
Beautiful UI No Longer Guarantees a Job. Especially for Junior Designers. Where Is Our Profession Heading?
๐ The main point of this article: AI will take over more routine execution, so designers need to know how to identify problems, make decisions and demonstrate results for the business.
The market is becoming more selective. Companies increasingly want designers who can solve product and business problems. In an interview, showing polished screens and explaining that you can work with a design system is no longer enough.
AI can already create reasonably good UI. Given clear rules, it can follow a consistent spacing system, use shared styles and components, and help with layer naming and file organization. Many tasks that previously required careful manual work can now be accelerated or automated.
I think one experienced designer using AI will be able to handle the volume of routine tasks that previously required three designers. They will assign tasks to AI agents, evaluate the results and take responsibility for quality.
This will make it harder for junior UI/UX designers to find work, especially if their value is limited to creating mockups. But experience alone is no guarantee either. A junior designer can think strategically, while an experienced designer may still spend most of their time on routine execution.
At the same time, experience, skills and product understanding become even more important. To guide AI, you need to recognize quality and judge whether the result actually meets the task.
๐งญ What Companies Expect from Designers Today
I increasingly see job posts expecting one designer to deliver HTML and CSS, animation, video and branding. The range of results a specialist is expected to produce is expanding.
At the same time, expectations around independence and business understanding are growing. Companies want designers to help define problems, explain their decisions and evaluate the results.
Product thinking has always been important. There simply used to be more demand for specialists who could create good UI. Now I increasingly see requirements such as:
Connect interface problems to business losses. Explain why a company is losing, for example, 20% of customers during checkout and propose changes to the architecture that could address the problem.
Understand complex products and their economics. Connect technical concepts, including those in crypto products, with user behavior and business profitability.
Help define the task. Contribute to the brief, run research sessions, define KPIs and build a UX strategy around specific business goals.
Work with data and architecture. Identify the causes of problems through analytics and heatmaps, turn observations into solutions and structure the product with conversion in mind.
Explain decisions and build alignment. Work with client teams and leadership, clearly explain the reasons behind changes and speak the language of ROI, churn and LTV.
Use AI to accelerate work. Analyze research and test ideas faster while focusing personal effort on strategy.
From what I observe, this broader set of requirements is no longer always accompanied by a comparable increase in pay. I saw vacancies asking for coding, animation and other additional skills before AI became widely available. Back then, I saw offers paying three or four times as much as work focused only on UI. Now I increasingly see these skills listed without that difference in compensation.
I see this as a change in the standard of the profession itself. Companies expect more from designers, and meeting those expectations may become necessary primarily to remain in demand.
๐ How I Apply This in My Work
My expectations about the future of the profession come primarily from what clients already pay me for today.
Most of my long term clients stay with me and recommend me to others because of my product approach and the specific business problems I help solve.
Quality UX remains essential. But making an interface clear and easy to use is not enough. You need to understand which problem you are solving, why it matters to the business and how to verify that your changes actually helped.
The following projects show how I apply these principles: working with data, helping define the task, understanding business processes and validating decisions.
1. An Online Document Preparation Service
The goal was to help more users complete the questionnaire and pay for the companyโs services. This required understanding where users struggled and connecting those problems to the companyโs conversion goals.
I investigated user problems through Hotjar, Google Analytics, support inquiries and an NPS bot connected to Slack.
In Hotjar, I watched session recordings and identified moments when people got stuck and did not know how to continue. I analyzed heatmaps, pages and stages where users left the website.
I tested redesign hypotheses through interactive prototypes with existing users, as well as potential users recruited through UserTesting.
Annual growth in paying clients increased from around 8% to 17%. Users completed tasks 37% faster, and 86% of existing clients rated usability 8.5 out of 10.
2. An Operations Platform for Glazing Contractors
Slow estimate preparation and lost project information caused costly rework. Most processes relied on paper documents and phone calls between managers and the staff taking measurements on site. Customers left for competitors who responded faster.
Before designing the screens, I needed to understand how the company actually worked and what the product needed to support.
I analyzed the companyโs processes, spoke with employees and studied their work in the office and on site. I created a digital map of the existing workflows. This helped identify problems and determine how a CRM could address them.
I then designed connected workflows for estimating, scheduling and field measurements. I tested the design with technical staff and corrected navigation and button wording issues before development.
I used Tailwind as the foundation to focus time and budget on business workflows rather than creating every component from scratch.
A supplier pricing database and inline editing made estimate preparation approximately 45% faster. This helped companies respond to customers sooner and contributed to higher conversion and profit.
These examples show the product approach clients value. AI changes the tools I use, while understanding the problem, choosing a solution and evaluating its impact remain central to my work.
๐ค How AI Is Changing My Work
Claude has already become my main tool. When I need to create a quick concept, I start there and then transfer the designs to Figma. I think Figma will play a smaller role in my work over the coming year.
I already deliver more than static mockups. I also give clients HTML and CSS pages built with AI. Eventually, Claude or similar tools may help me deliver the backend as well, but it is too early to talk about that. I have already shared how AI helps me today in a separate article.
These tools are changing very quickly. Each new model can significantly change an established workflow. Designers need to know how to use AI to strengthen their skills and improve productivity.
Responsibility for decisions still belongs to the designer. They need to understand users, business goals, product logic and the quality of the result.
๐ฏ What This Means for Designers
My advice to junior and intermediate designers who still spend most of their time on routine work: learn to understand the business, work with strategy and solve problems beyond individual screens. At the same time, learn to use AI and apply it in your work.
Experienced designers should show the results they have achieved for businesses more often and explain how they make decisions. Polished shots reveal less and less about the value of a particular specialist.
Product thinking helps you define the task, choose a solution and evaluate the result. Knowing how to work with AI helps accelerate research, idea validation and execution. The ability to generate interfaces alone does not explain why a business needs that particular designer.
๐ My main conclusion: develop a product approach and learn to strengthen it with AI. Understand the value you create for the business and use modern tools to deliver it more effectively.
๐ค ๐๐ฌ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฏ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ฌ?
Let's talk about it. ๐จโ๐ป
AI can generate code, fix bugs, build UI components, and automate repetitive tasks. But does that mean developers are becoming unnecessary?
๐๐จ๐ญ ๐ซ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ. ๐๐๐ซ๐'๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐ก๐ฒ:
๐ก AI can write code, but understanding business requirements still matters.
๐ AI can suggest solutions, but developers need to test, debug, and secure them.
๐จ AI can build interfaces, but creating a great user experience requires human thinking.
โก The real change? Developers who use AI effectively can work faster and smarter.
I believe AI won't simply replace developers. Developers who adapt to AI will have an advantage over those who ignore it.
The future isn't just about writing code. It's about solving problems with the right tools.
๐ฌ What's your opinion? Will AI replace developers, or will it make them more powerful?
