r/productdesign

For some context, I'm currently in tech sales and have been seriously considering pivoting into UI/UX (product design).

Lately, though, I've been hearing that the industry has changed dramatically with the rise of AI. It seems like many companies are consolidating roles, expecting designers to take on more responsibilities, and the job market feels much tougher than it did a few years ago.

For those of you currently working in the field, would you still recommend making the switch today? Do you think the long-term outlook for UI/UX is still strong?

A few questions I'd love to hear your thoughts on:

- Has AI significantly changed your day-to-day work?

- Is knowing how to code becoming an expectation, or is it still optional?

- If someone were starting from scratch today, what skills would you focus on to stand out?

- If you could start over in 2026, would you still choose UI/UX?

I'd really appreciate any honest perspectives, both positive and negative. Thanks in advance!

https://preview.redd.it/yvabzb51kzah1.png?width=1086&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea67ef42d88b18b2f4dec79fb1f33334612f369d

You literally just lift the Mac mini slightly and press it. In exchange, Apple gets a cleaner, uninterrupted design.

Am I missing something, or is the backlash a bit overblown? What do you guys think?

Recently my company got all into AI pushing for PMs to use Claude design to create prototypes and hand off to devs. They’re looking to make everything faster and dev focused. Anyone else experiencing this and feeling left out and with no say in the planning and designing process of their products? How are you handling it and what have you done to make the team understand the value of thinking things through?

Hey all, sharing a few projects from my portfolio as a 3rd-year Industrial Design student — would really appreciate honest feedback, brutal or otherwise.

A couple of these (Seido X1, an injection-training tool for hospitals, and First Strike, a drone-mountable firefighting attachment) are patent pending, so I've kept some of the technical/mechanism details out of the writeups — happy to talk process, research, and design decisions in the comments though.

Would love to hear what's working, what's not, and what you'd push further.

pOrtfolio

https://preview.redd.it/g4lypjdponah1.png?width=1448&format=png&auto=webp&s=6e9f3343a50f190412a3ab2ff8ac2e0e55c9fdb0

I think it increases it's readability and contrast stuff for the top information, while still keeping it clear that it's coffee!

Hi,
I am an industrial design student in India. I will be starting my third year of college soon. I have recently been on Linkedin alot and am noticing that most ID professionals switch to UI/UX. the reasons i have heard are ID has less jobs, less pay, etc etc.I am really passionate about ID but in the end the money does worry me a bit so I am wondering what the pay looks like in ID for a mid level or senior Industrial designer in India specifically. Any guidance would help please!

https://preview.redd.it/t99m4fim1gah1.png?width=1448&format=png&auto=webp&s=7412492b50b61a0d1259b9bd9f9ca4681ded69fd

Hey everyone, I’m an NYU student working on an early product idea and I’m trying to get honest feedback before I build anything.

The idea is a tabletop storage system for people who use prescribed injectables, GLP-1s, insulin, or similar supplies. It would have one refrigerated section for items that need to stay cold, like pens or vials, and a separate dry section for prep supplies like capped syringes, alcohol pads, labels, and small accessories.

I attached a rough AI concept mockup just to show the general idea. It is not a finished product, and I’m not trying to promote anything. I’m mainly trying to understand whether the storage/organization problem is real.

I’m not selling anything, not giving medical advice, and not asking about anyone’s personal dose or medication.

Right now, I’m assuming some people keep meds in a regular home fridge and supplies in random drawers or cabinets. I’m wondering if a dedicated storage station would actually be useful, or if it is just an unnecessary “cool looking” idea.

A few questions:

1. Where do you currently store refrigerated injectable meds?
2. Where do you keep prep supplies like alcohol pads, syringes, labels, etc.?
3. Is your current setup annoying, messy, awkward, or totally fine?
4. Would a dedicated tabletop storage system be useful?
5. Would you rather buy a full mini-fridge style product, or just an organizer insert that fits inside an existing fridge?
6. What would make something like this feel unsafe, unnecessary, or not worth buying?
7. What price range would feel reasonable, if any?

I’d really appreciate honest feedback, even if the answer is “I would never buy this.”

if you could design the perfect tool for managing project specifications (saving products, comparing materials, requesting samples, building spec packages), what would it include? Working on a concept and want real input from people who actually do this work.

I've been trying to make our brainstorming sessions more productive, but we keep getting stuck on the same repetitive tasks organizing ideas, sorting through feedback, and figuring out ways to improve things, its all slowing us down and taking away from the creative part of the process.

Has anyone found a way to automate or simplify some of these tasks during brainstorming? i feel like theres got to be a better way to stay creative without getting bogged down by all the little stuff.

In the company I work for, the Head of Product wants to switch any design activity from Figma to Claude Code. He says that this way developers won't have to code frontend. He has not a design or product background, so he's trying to optimize everything without knowing how the design process works.

I'm not sure about this because the more I try to use Claude the more irritated I become with it. I don't like the "chatbot" interaction, it's a huge loss of time for me and the results are so disappointing. Also, I honestly think I'm loosing skills as a designer because I'm more focused on talking with a bot, fixing graphic bugs instead of actually thinking about features and problems.

I don't want to focus on one tool, because design is about processes and ideas and not only tools, but I prefer using my hands to create something instead of delegating everything to a chatbot.

What do you think? Are you in a similar situation?

Genuine question, because I keep seeing this workflow pitched as the future. The idea is you skip the whole Figma-handoff-to-dev loop entirely. You describe a change, or tweak something, an agent like Claude Code applies it straight to the real codebase, and you see it live in the actual product.
On paper it kills the telephone game. No more opening the build and finding the dev shipped it 80% like your design. But it also drops you into a world of existing components, conventions, and constraints, where the thing fights back in ways a Figma canvas never does. You’re not on a blank canvas anymore. You’re in someone else’s house with someone else’s rules.
So setting aside whether the AI is even capable of it yet, do you actually want to work this way? Is leaving the design tool and getting your hands in the codebase “freeing”? Or does it just turn you into a junior dev with extra steps?
And if you’ve actually tried it on a real product, not a demo, I really want to hear it. Did it feel like power, or did it feel like a trap?

Went through three different prototype development services while working on a consumer product and thought I'd share my experience. This isn't a ranking, just what stood out to me from each approach.

Rabbit Product Design

Handles design, prototyping, and manufacturing under one roof. One thing I found interesting was that they looked into existing patents and prior art before getting too far into development. The process felt structured, although the all-in-one approach may not be the right fit for everyone depending on budget and how much involvement you want.

Prototype House

Smaller team that seems to work with a lot of independent inventors. Communication was straightforward and they were responsive throughout the process. From my experience they appeared more focused on the prototype stage than managing an entire product launch from start to finish.

Gembah

More of a marketplace model where you're connected with designers, engineers, and manufacturing resources. It offers flexibility and gives you more control over who you work with, but it also means you're responsible for coordinating more of the moving parts yourself.

I'm curious what other inventors here have used. Did you go with a development firm, freelancers, or handle most of the process yourself? What worked well and what would you do differently?

Ex-Visa / JPMorgan engineer building a cross-border fintech startup for African remote workers.

Already incorporated, MVP in progress, and working with payout + FX partners.

Looking for a cofounder (engineering/product) to push this to launch and scale.

If you’re serious about building something in fintech, DM me.

EDIT: this post is targeted at cofounders with PRODUCT experience

Hi everyone. I’ve decide to study industrial and product design at uni this year, starting this September. I was a visual designer before, so I’ve mastered the entire Adobe Creative Suite, plus some Blender (not a pro, but quite advanced in modeling, lighting and procedural materials). I’m aware this industry requires me to learn a CAD software, so I’m asking: which one should I focus on before starting my semester? Some say Solidworks, some Fusion, some OnShape and, of course, Rhino (I don’t want to be redundant and end up learning the same thing twice). I’m aware that Rhino is basically inevitable, so I should paired it with a parametric software, but which one? I’ve started to get the hang of the core concepts of parametric design in FreeCAD (I know, I know, it’s not “professional”, but I’m just laying down the basics). I’m not planning to become a pro in two months of course, but it’d be ideal to come prepared beforehand and not waste valuable time learning from scratch during my studies.

I'm putting together a live hands on Claude workshop for product designers.

We'll design, build, and deploy a real product from scratch.

Give me a product idea in the comments.

If it's good enough, we'll build it live.

Graduated a year ago from a top 4 university and was originally doing software engineering. Took a year off to think and realized I hate software engineering and really enjoyed the product side of tech. Have a strong GPA, worked at FAANG for a summer, and now I cannot even get an interview. What am I doing wrong? I really want to get my career started but this is just demoralizing.