Design school taught us you should explore before you settle on a solution. In reality, most designers sketch two or three options, pick one, and hope nobody asks about edge cases or anything outside of the 'happy flow'. Now that prototyping is so much more accessible, going wide has never been easier. With that in mind, why are so many designers still designing for that happy flow only?

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about conceptual range and depth: going wide to find better design solutions before going deep one that one solution to bring it up to standard. They take down the "double diamond is dead" takes you read everywhere else and focus on the real day-to-day workflow of a modern product designer.

Tyler walks through his full process, step by step. He asks Claude for ten variations of a concept in a single prototype with a toggle to switch between them, shares it live with engineering and product, and narrows down from there. Before making any prototype, he maps the flow and edge cases in FigJam. Then he uses a GitHub connector to check his ideas against the real app, and the Figma agent to turn screenshots into design system-ready files for handoff.

Like always, Nick is more reserved. He shares what he learned from the Interface Craft course, why context switching while AI works is exhausting, and the risk of anchoring too hard on the design you already have. On one project, it took a developer with a completely fresh idea to break the team out of weeks of going in circles.

In this episode you will learn:

🔸 What range and depth mean and why you need both to land on a good solution
🔸 Why engineers now want designers to own edge cases and error states
🔸 How Tyler prompts for ten design directions in one clickable prototype
🔸 What to do while you wait for AI to build, without burning out on context switching
🔸 How to push similar-looking variations further until they become truly different ideas
🔸 Why Tyler never skips a journey or flow map in FigJam before prototyping
🔸 How a GitHub connector lets you check ideas against the real product and scope what fits in two weeks
🔸 How to get a full list of edge cases per screen before engineering has to ask
🔸 How the Figma agent turns prototype screenshots into design system ready files for handoff
🔸 Why new components still need real pixel pushing and craft
🔸 The risk of only improving what already exists, and when to start from scratch
🔸 How to apply all of this to last episode's hero section challenge

Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe

Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit

Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint

Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community

In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn

More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

#productdesign #uxdesign #aiprototyping

Every designer wants sharper craft and better taste. But with the new tools generating close to all of your work, it's tempting to skip the design fundamentals entirely. I mean... who knows anything about gestalt or color theory anymore?!

Also, social media is full of hot takes claiming UX is dead and the double diamond is over. None of this or the above helps you to enjoy your job as a Product Designer. Luckily, there's a better way.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick continue their series on becoming a modern, in-demand product designer with part two: improving your hard skills. They skip the hype and focus on how you get better at the output, whether you like building everything by hand or running 20 directions in parallel.

Tyler makes the case for learning the fundamentals the slow way first, so you can art direct the tools instead of just trusting whatever they come up with. He shares how he uses Figma's agent to apply a design system to his mockups, and why talking through a problem with ChatGPT for 30 minutes is part of his discovery. Nick is much more skeptical and explains why reviewing an AI-generated 80% version can be more exhausting than designing it yourself.

They also agree on a very boring answer: repetition. Copy the designers you admire, make something every day, and build a playground of experiments that shows off your range.

In this episode you will learn:

🔸 Why junior designers need to nail hard skills before leaning on AI tools
🔸 What AI design tools still get wrong, from happy path flows to generic styling
🔸 Why the journey map is the one step you shouldn't skip
🔸 How a branch-and-merge workflow could make code the source of truth for design
🔸 Why repetition and daily design challenges still beat every shortcut
🔸 Why one to two year goals beat a five year plan
🔸 How a playground page with 52 experiments helps you stand out, especially as a freelancer
🔸 How Tyler uses Figma's agent to apply components, spacing, and variables from a design system
🔸 Why the double diamond isn't dead, it's on steroids
🔸 How talking a problem through with ChatGPT turns into personal discovery
🔸 How Nick and Tyler's opposite working styles show up everywhere, down to a broken dishwasher
🔸 This week's challenge: a portfolio hero section with no centered layout that works in English, Spanish, and German

Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe

Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit

Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint

Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community

In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn

More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

Junior product designers know what it is like. To get a job you need experience; and to get experience, you need a job. How do you break free of this annoying circle? The internet is full of generic suggestions that do not really get you anywhere. Luckily, there's a better way.

In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle the experience-job circle mentioned above. They skip the tired advice of redesigning a famous website and focus on what gets you real clients, real work, and real proof.

Tyler makes the case for doing free work the right way, from pitching local businesses a redesign in exchange for a testimonial to building a home services website before you even reach out. Nick explains why good outreach makes things easier for the other person, and shares the Loom and FigJam combo that gets him a reply almost every time.

They also get honest about timelines. Bootcamps promise a new career in weeks. Nick puts it closer to two years and Tyler caps it at one year if you're willing to make sacrifices.

In this episode you will learn:

🔸 Why free work in exchange for a testimonial beats another pet project
🔸 How to pitch a local business without sounding desperate
🔸 Why freelance-style experience translates to in-house roles
🔸 What Dan Mall gets right about cold outreach, and why Don't Make Me Think applies to your pitch
🔸 How answering an A or B question with option C landed Nick a client
🔸 Why building the website before you pitch speeds up the sale and lets you charge more
🔸 How offering to do the job until they find someone can make you the person they keep
🔸 Why small, unscalable gestures like handmade cookies or a printed portfolio get you remembered
🔸 The two-minute Loom that gets Nick a reply and an invite to talk almost every time
🔸 Why vibe coded pet projects can hurt your portfolio, and when a playground page still works
🔸 How long it really takes to land your first paying design job

Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe

Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit

Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint

Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community

In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn

More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld