Writing

What product design is now that coding agents can build, from twenty years inside enterprise software. Start with the two pieces below. The three collections after them each take one idea from the second piece further: the system, the build, and the judgment.

Start here

  1. The hardest thing I’ve designed is what’s next

    After twenty years in design, I’m applying the process to my own career: researching, experimenting, and finding a way forward as AI changes the profession.

    5 min read

  2. What makes a good product designer now?

    Designing the infrastructure behind great design: the system people and agents build from, building to find out, and the line where a person decides.

    5 min read

The system

  1. What does a design system need once AI is in the product?

    What an agent building from the system needs to know about each part, and what the components need once AI hands them claims instead of facts.

    5 min read

The build

  1. How should you test a product now that AI can help?

    How I run a usability test, step by step: the decision first, agents clear the broken paths, then five people who do the work try real tasks.

    4 min read

  2. What do the best PRD templates have in common?

    What I found reading the templates Amazon, Linear, Intercom, Figma, and Lenny Rachitsky share: the problem and the metric first, every call logged, and an Impact section almost none of them ask for.

    3 min read

The judgment

  1. Who decides when software can act on its own?

    The person accountable for the outcome. What they need to decide well, from one recommendation to an agent’s overnight run: evidence to check, and a no as cheap as a yes.

    6 min read