r/productdesign

Hey all!

I’m a junior designer and I've been getting some traffic to my landing page (around 63 unique visitors in the last month, mostly from Instagram) but zero waitlist signups. Average session is 3+ minutes so I guess people are reading, but something's stopping them from converting.

Context: Gatherly is a social event planning app for adults who want to actually see their friends in person, not another algorithmic feed.

Landing page: Gatherly BETA

Honest question: what's stopping you from signing up? Is it the copy, the design, the value prop, the trust signals, the form itself? Brutal feedback welcome!

I'd rather hear it now than keep wondering.

SO, im starting uni in september after taking a gap year and theres a few things im lacking SUCH AS A LAPTOP. But i’m not sure what laptop, i should get but i assume it needs to be really good RAM and be able to hold CAD and 3D modelling n all that well PLUS i also wanna be able to use to play games like sims 4. I JUST DONT WANNA BE SPENDING ALOT !

sooo i narrrowed it down to the Lenovo ideapad slim 5, Asus vivobook 14 perhaps but im not sure, it needs to be worthwhile.

SO to all product design students ? what do you use that holds well for uni and in general that isnt crazy in price.

Tl;dr: i want a good budget friendly laptop to use as a product design student but i can also use for occasional gaming

I’ve been a software engineer ( heavy frontend ) for the past 4 years, and I’ve always been drawn to great landing pages, polished products, and beautiful UI. In fact, that attraction was one of the main reasons I chose the frontend development path in the first place.

Lately, I’ve been seriously considering switching to Product Design, but I’m unsure where to begin. I’m also not sure whether this is the right move considering the rise of AI, the current market situation, and the impact on compensation. Right now, my pay as an engineer is decent, and changing careers feels like starting from scratch again.

I’m feeling conflicted about whether this is the right step long term. I’d really appreciate some advice on the market, career growth, and whether transitioning from frontend engineering to product design makes sense today.

I’m currently designing a new product dashboard and looking for inspiration from products with really clean UX/UI.

Would love to see dashboards you think are exceptionally well-designed – SaaS, analytics, AI tools, finance, devtools, anything.

What are some of your favorites and why do you like them?

https://preview.redd.it/mfhznnyahv0h1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=92dae0e06e8d0486625b00e4a4b8391d1def1446

I’m exploring backpack modularity concepts and wanted to get usability feedback

The idea is a minimal, architectural modular bag system that adapts to different daily situations:

• backpack for work (fits MacBook 13")
• transforms into a light sling bag for walking
• becomes a waist bag for running, cycling, fishing, etc.

The focus is on:

• minimal weight
• clean construction (no unnecessary structure)
• quick transformation between modes

I’d be glad to hear any feedback, suggestions, or criticism — especially about how this could be positioned or distributed.

Also open to meeting people with similar interests or potential collaborators.

https://preview.redd.it/jdbgv1mngv0h1.png?width=724&format=png&auto=webp&s=a3d18cad48dc9ed58b15b15ffa768ee84503c5bc

https://preview.redd.it/k3lpn3mngv0h1.png?width=846&format=png&auto=webp&s=76d15209eebb8526c30a09c3ee97cbe52714d689

https://preview.redd.it/az6wa3mngv0h1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b8394d20bd33fdaab2c8e883f6a80a75d3c62ec

Long story (not that) short.

I'm a product designer with prior experience of ~8 years, mostly tbh in consultancy and not product but still.

I've got my actual role in a start up after a long hiring process (that kind with weird questionnaire-Googlewannabe-like at the beginning). I've arrived with the product mindset aka data > assumptions, quali-quanti is the compass and so on.

Fast forward after a year in the company: every single thing I design or propose is never enough, apparently, for the Cs. Bare in mind that we're a team of 30 ppl and whenever the product lead is on holiday, the CEO and co founder (head of marketing) immediately step in to micromanage and comment everything I do as of "this doesn't work" without even saying why.

What makes me completely going nuts is that I've recently got a pay raise for a overall company pay adjustments, but then I keep trying to propose improvements and they would always add comments on Figma asking me to change the design or copy (making it like 3727272 times longer) and in the next workshop the same ppl revising my copy or design based on their comments, complaining about a screen being a wall of text.

Now. The real deal is that they don't trust me, obviously, despite I clearly explain the rationale of my choices and at the end of the day they forget their involvement in the edits I had to do and complain about "my" design choices. Also when I've had to digest a random 4 pages pdf of critique generated by AI sent to me by the CEO, where 80% is only noise and not relevant.

I've reached a point in which I feel frustrated, burned out and -mostly- questioning my skills and starting to hate the same job I've fought for and loved for so many years.

I even embraced the AI as requested from the founders to speed up the process -and it actually helped to iterate on stuff or speed up the research insights documentation, I even vibecoded myself some stuff doing git PRs and so on- but then the CEO throws up a couple of screenshots of my designs, with no context at all, to whatever AI he feels like to and coming back with pages and pages of feedbacks that are 80% noise (again).

Sorry for the rant here but I'm so very fucking tired.

Hey, hoping someone here can give me some real talk because I’ve been spiraling a bit lately lol.
I’m a designer trying to figure out my next move and I keep getting stuck on the same questions. Maybe some of you who’ve been in the trenches (or are hiring) can help me out:

1. What are top companies actually looking for right now? Like beyond the polished case studies and Dribbble shots, what’s the stuff that genuinely makes someone stand out in a portfolio review or interview? I feel like the goalposts keep moving and I can’t tell if it’s me or the industry.
2. What if you have a gap in your career? I stepped away for a bit (life stuff, burnout, you know how it goes) and now I’m second-guessing whether to even mention it or how to frame it. Has anyone been through this and come out the other side? Did recruiters actually care or was it more in my head?
3. And honestly… how are people thinking about career strategy with AI changing everything so fast? Half the stuff I learned feels like it might be irrelevant in two years. Should I lean into AI tools and become “that person” on my team, double down on the human/strategic side, or something else entirely? Curious what’s actually working for people right now, not just hot takes on Twitter.

Any honest insight would mean a lot. Thanks in advance 🙏

Hi all,

Sharing a discovery that might be useful if you're working with *dense* requirements.

I recently wrapped an enterprise application design project involving 500+ pages of FRDs spread across 9 epics, and honestly, NotebookLM ended up becoming one of the most useful tools in my workflow.

The biggest challenge for me on this project was understanding fragmented operational logic spread across workflow notes, revision history, backend dependencies, and legacy system behavior.

A few things that helped me:

• Uploading each FRDs epic into a NotebookLM notebook
• Using mind maps to understand relationships between backend systems and frontend workflows
• Generating custom reports specifically focused on UX/UI implications
• Using citations constantly to validate assumptions against the original source material

I ended up delivering the project ~40% faster than originally estimated because retrieval and synthesis became much easier and faster. (Although that's a double-edged sword when getting paid hourly).

Curious how other people here are using NotebookLM (or similar tools) in your day to day.

Full deep dive attached if you're interested. (Not monetized)

How do you balance accountability with fun in product design? I've been reading about the pitfalls of guilt-based gamification (e.g., "You haven't logged in for 7 days!"). Has anyone successfully implemented non-coercive, motivating systems? Thoughts welcome!

#ProductDesign #UXResearch #Gamification #CommunityDiscussion