How to design an AI product like Perplexity - Henry Modisett (Dive Club S7 | E8)
2.4 هزار بار بازدید -
2 هفته پیش
-
Imagine leading the design of
Imagine leading the design of an AI product that skyrockets to a billion+ dollar valuation in under two years…
That’s the story of Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) and today we get to hear from their founding designer and current Head of Design, Henry Modisett (https://x.com/henrymodis?lang=en). Some of the highlights from this conversation:
- What it takes to thrive as a founding designer
- Why Henry likes hiring designers who can code
- The challenges of designing dynamic interfaces
- Why Henry didn’t want to anthropomorphize the AI
- The initial creative direction for the Perplexity brand
- The keys to making a consumer product cognitively fast
- Why Henry built a mini design system as his very first step
- + a lot more
⭐ *KEY TAKEAWAYS*
*Starting with a design system*
Before Henry had any idea what the Perplexity product would become, he *built a component system in React as the first step**. The goal was to give himself a toolbox to make it easy to assemble new features. Many components are *obvious (ex: you know you’ll need a grid, type system, color system, buttons, etc.). We don’t have to overcomplicate design systems. They’re the thing you invest in to move fast… not the thing you invest in once you have most of the interface figured out.
*Empowerment through code*
When you write code, you develop a stronger emotional attachment to the product. You’re also empowered to continually make improvements without having to go through engineers. The more removed you are from what ships, the easier it is to dish blame on someone else for an experience being janky.
“Having designers that can code is a hack…quality just happens”
*Velocity is everything*
Henry makes a point to prioritize velocity over exploration, debate, visual design, etc. And a big part of what makes that possible is empowering designers to make decisions. If it’s a UX question, the designer needs to make a call (”go with your gut and if you want to change it later you can”). This is also why having designers who can code is key. Nothing is cemented. You don’t need permission to iterate after something ships.
*Dynamic UI systems*
At the root of Perplexity are UI systems that display dynamic content based on what the user searches. That means as a designer you can’t possibly mock up all use cases. You have to think about interfaces as slightly abstracted (ex: “entity comparison” which can work for comparing dog breeds, restaurants, etc.). Part of designing a dynamic system is you have to be ok with percentage outcomes. Sometimes the formatting isn’t going to be perfect.
You’re designing the *system*, giving AI the tools to use, and hoping that it works most of the time.
- Ivan (CEO of Notion)’s tweet (https://x.com/ivanhzhao/status/182390...) about not having a design system
- Perplexity’s incredible brand designer named Phi (https://x.com/apostraphi)
- We talked about how booking.com (http://booking.com) is a masterclass in optimizing UI
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
🌐 dive.club
🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub
Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:18 Perplexity's origin story
4:42 Jitter
5:26 Why Henry started by building a component system
7:23 Henry's strategy for positioning Perplexity
11:55 Henry's role as the very first designer
14:40 Henry's skill as an engineer
17:29 How Henry is shaping the way design operates at Perplexity
21:17 How design at Perplexity makes decisions quickly
23:51 Maintaining quality while prioritizing velocity
29:57 Designing the mobile voice interaction
32:10 Creating Perplexity pages
33:53 How do you ensure simplicity in a product like Perplexity?
37:53 Perplexity's future with generative UIs
45:20 How Henry learned what's possible with AI
47:45 Henry's predition for AI hardware
#productdesign #podcast #uiux
That’s the story of Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) and today we get to hear from their founding designer and current Head of Design, Henry Modisett (https://x.com/henrymodis?lang=en). Some of the highlights from this conversation:
- What it takes to thrive as a founding designer
- Why Henry likes hiring designers who can code
- The challenges of designing dynamic interfaces
- Why Henry didn’t want to anthropomorphize the AI
- The initial creative direction for the Perplexity brand
- The keys to making a consumer product cognitively fast
- Why Henry built a mini design system as his very first step
- + a lot more
⭐ *KEY TAKEAWAYS*
*Starting with a design system*
Before Henry had any idea what the Perplexity product would become, he *built a component system in React as the first step**. The goal was to give himself a toolbox to make it easy to assemble new features. Many components are *obvious (ex: you know you’ll need a grid, type system, color system, buttons, etc.). We don’t have to overcomplicate design systems. They’re the thing you invest in to move fast… not the thing you invest in once you have most of the interface figured out.
*Empowerment through code*
When you write code, you develop a stronger emotional attachment to the product. You’re also empowered to continually make improvements without having to go through engineers. The more removed you are from what ships, the easier it is to dish blame on someone else for an experience being janky.
“Having designers that can code is a hack…quality just happens”
*Velocity is everything*
Henry makes a point to prioritize velocity over exploration, debate, visual design, etc. And a big part of what makes that possible is empowering designers to make decisions. If it’s a UX question, the designer needs to make a call (”go with your gut and if you want to change it later you can”). This is also why having designers who can code is key. Nothing is cemented. You don’t need permission to iterate after something ships.
*Dynamic UI systems*
At the root of Perplexity are UI systems that display dynamic content based on what the user searches. That means as a designer you can’t possibly mock up all use cases. You have to think about interfaces as slightly abstracted (ex: “entity comparison” which can work for comparing dog breeds, restaurants, etc.). Part of designing a dynamic system is you have to be ok with percentage outcomes. Sometimes the formatting isn’t going to be perfect.
You’re designing the *system*, giving AI the tools to use, and hoping that it works most of the time.
- Ivan (CEO of Notion)’s tweet (https://x.com/ivanhzhao/status/182390...) about not having a design system
- Perplexity’s incredible brand designer named Phi (https://x.com/apostraphi)
- We talked about how booking.com (http://booking.com) is a masterclass in optimizing UI
Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿
🌐 dive.club
🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub
Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:18 Perplexity's origin story
4:42 Jitter
5:26 Why Henry started by building a component system
7:23 Henry's strategy for positioning Perplexity
11:55 Henry's role as the very first designer
14:40 Henry's skill as an engineer
17:29 How Henry is shaping the way design operates at Perplexity
21:17 How design at Perplexity makes decisions quickly
23:51 Maintaining quality while prioritizing velocity
29:57 Designing the mobile voice interaction
32:10 Creating Perplexity pages
33:53 How do you ensure simplicity in a product like Perplexity?
37:53 Perplexity's future with generative UIs
45:20 How Henry learned what's possible with AI
47:45 Henry's predition for AI hardware
#productdesign #podcast #uiux
2 هفته پیش
در تاریخ 1403/06/14 منتشر شده
است.
2,477
بـار بازدید شده