The hottest Product Design Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Technology Topics

How to talk to someone who doesn't trust AI

The AI Frontier • 59 implied HN points • 25 Apr 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Many people doubt AI tools because they believe they only look good in demos but don't perform well in real life. Trying out LLMs like ChatGPT can often change that opinion for the better.
  2. Some skeptics challenge AI by asking tricky questions that the AI can't answer. It's important to remember that AI has limitations and not every mistake means it's useless.
  3. People notice that AI responses can seem similar, making it hard to trust their accuracy. Customizing answers and improving quality can help address this issue.

Ergotron's MacTilt

Computer Ads from the Past • 384 implied HN points • 30 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Ergotron is known for creating ergonomic solutions. They design products to help people work comfortably and reduce strain.
  2. The MacTilt stand helps improve computer use by adjusting the screen for better view and reducing glare. This leads to less fatigue and more comfort during prolonged computer work.
  3. The company's focus on ergonomics has been backed by studies showing that a well-designed workstation can boost productivity. Users of products like MacTilt have reported feeling more energized and productive.

The origins of human-centered design

Can We Still Govern? • 151 implied HN points • 11 Jun 25
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Human-centered design started in the military during World War II. It focused on understanding how people interacted with equipment to prevent crashes and improve safety.
  2. John Arnold formalized human-centered design processes in the 1950s, laying the groundwork for its use in technology and public services.
  3. In recent years, human-centered design has gained attention in government to enhance services. It's about putting people's needs first to build trust and engagement.

Feeling the Design

UX Psychology • 238 implied HN points • 05 Jun 23
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Emotions significantly impact user attention and decision-making. We can design products that resonate with users by considering their emotional states.
  2. Balancing functionality and aesthetics is crucial in design. Negative emotions may lead users to focus on functionality, while positive emotions may draw them to aesthetics.
  3. Design strategies that consider emotional mapping, create emotional peaks, and provide feedback can enhance user experience and engagement.

Who Designs the Future When Everyone Can?

New World Same Humans • 12 implied HN points • 11 Jan 26
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. AI makes it easy for anyone to create products and experiences, so standing out will depend on clear intent, a strong mission, and high product quality.
  2. The design of AI output is its own challenge — you must decide if AI is the product or a feature and intentionally design for differentiation, trust, and taste.
  3. Putting humans at the centre matters more than ever, because genuine stories, authenticity, and human delight will command a premium in AI-driven experiences.
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UX Roundup: How People Use AI | AI Does User Research | Founding Designers | Prompt Engineering | AI Agent Use Cases | Electricity Fuels AI | GPT 5.2 Beats Humans

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 23 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Workers are already using AI a lot — often secretly — so product design must support both automation and collaboration, teach prompting, and give users control (especially for creative workflows that need canvas-style UIs and curator tools).
  2. AI can run and analyze large-scale interviews, turning qualitative insights into quantifiable themes and making researchers into orchestrators, but agent behavior and user needs change over time so longitudinal usability studies are essential.
  3. Simple persona prompts don’t improve factual accuracy, yet models and costs are improving rapidly — cutting task costs and enabling AI to outperform experts on many half-day tasks — so designs and infrastructure (including power capacity) must evolve quickly.

Quiz Answers: What Happened in UX & AI in 2025?

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 13 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. AI is shifting value away from routine craft toward human skills like agency, judgment, and persuasion; tools like vibe coding and generative UIs let people state intent while AI handles implementation.
  2. UX practice must evolve with new interaction patterns for AI: design for long-running "Slow AI" tasks (return recaps, conceptual breadcrumbs, tiered notifications), use prompt-augmentation interfaces (prompt builders, parametrization), and optimize content for AI citation (GEO).
  3. AI will reshape organizations and the economy by lowering transaction costs and flattening firms, displacing many routine knowledge jobs while creating new roles (super-users, auditors, FDEs) and exposing gaps in how we measure value and ROI.

Security by design is hard

Frankly Speaking • 355 implied HN points • 10 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Security by design is a good idea but hard to implement. Most companies prioritize speed over security, treating security as an afterthought.
  2. Many existing cybersecurity solutions focus on adding security measures after a product is built instead of integrating it from the start.
  3. Tools like Pangea help address security issues early in product development, making it easier for developers to implement security as they build.

the first one's the bad one!

vrk loves paper • 199 implied HN points • 05 Oct 23
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. When working on goals, it's better to focus on whether the problems that come with them are interesting and fulfilling for you. Every goal has challenges, so choose the ones you want to tackle.
  2. In design, it's important to sketch many different ideas, even if they seem odd or wrong at first. Your first attempt is usually not your best, so keep exploring different options.
  3. Using references that resonate with you can make the design process easier and more enjoyable. It's fine to start with things you're familiar with before branching out to more complex inspirations.

#127 Sick of design 🤢

Design Lobster • 339 implied HN points • 06 Feb 23
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Good design can promote health: Architectural design, like in sanatoriums, can aid in patient recovery by providing optimal conditions like sunlight and fresh air.
  2. Design for comfort: SEETROËN glasses use innovative design to combat travel sickness, but the attention-grabbing appearance can deter people from using them.
  3. Design as a solution: Better design can be the answer to various problems, bringing functionality and aesthetics together.

3 Years of ChatGPT

Olshansky's Newsletter • 22 implied HN points • 03 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. AI is already here as an amplifier of human intelligence and is being used daily across personal and professional tasks; agent-driven tools have massively increased productivity, especially for coding.
  2. High-quality, unique data and expert-labeled "golden" datasets are the most valuable assets for building useful AI systems; simple benchmarks and naive fine-tuning are limited, while reinforcement fine-tuning and dedicated context engineering will drive real gains.
  3. Practical changes are coming in the next few years: local inference stations, agentic e-commerce, consolidation of tooling, and new roles like context engineers and AI bootcamps; foundational roles like architects will remain and superintelligence isn’t expected soon.

I HAVE IMPROVED AT DESIGN 😤

vrk loves paper • 159 implied HN points • 08 Nov 23
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Design skills can improve over time with practice. The recent work showed noticeable growth compared to earlier projects.
  2. A recent event, the Receipt Printer Meetup, was a success with many attendees enjoying the chaos and fun of printing stickers together.
  3. New creative projects, like the 'Dogs of Fate,' are exciting and can be made quickly, inspiring continued exploration and development of ideas.

Five Lessons From Building AI Developer Tools

Kathy PM • 15 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. AI shifts complexity rather than removing it. The mess moves from configs and docs into prompts, retries, and opaque layers, so teams must decide where to contain it.
  2. Developers want AI that manages itself quietly in the background. They don’t want to babysit agents, re-run tasks, or constantly context-switch between new dashboards and chats.
  3. Trust and integration matter more than flashy features. Predictability, consistency, and small reliable automations inside editors and pipelines make work lighter and let developers feel in control.

#130 Put your feet up

Design Lobster • 239 implied HN points • 03 Apr 23
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Early experiments explored foot-controlled computer interfaces in the 1980s, but they weren't widely adopted due to a steep learning curve compared to hand-controlled interfaces.
  2. Engaging more of the user's body in design could enhance interaction, especially in augmented and virtual reality applications.
  3. Small design changes, like adding whimsical elements such as unique feet to furniture, can bring lightness and freshness to the overall aesthetic.

The thermodynamics of user laziness

Sunday Letters • 159 implied HN points • 04 Sep 23
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Users are often seen as lazy, but that's because they are busy and don’t have time to adjust to new things unless it’s really worth it.
  2. For people to adopt a new habit or product, the benefit must be significantly greater than the effort it takes to change, often needing to be ten times better or solve an existing problem.
  3. When creating products, it's crucial to understand the user's total experience and ensure the solution truly simplifies their life, or they simply won’t bother adapting.

UX Roundup: AI Empathy | Transparency About Compute Limits | UI Modes | Seedream 4.5 | AI In/Out of Silicon Valley | Kling Speaks

Jakob Nielsen on UX • 17 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Patients tend to rate AI as more empathetic than human clinicians, and newer models are likely even better; however, empathy measures need stronger, more detailed instruments.
  2. AI inference is scarce and costly, so product interfaces must be transparently show limits and trade-offs with quota meters, graceful fallbacks, and realistic wait estimates.
  3. UI modes (like separate “AI mode”) usually reduce usability, so AI features should be integrated into workflows and avoid forcing users to switch modes.

#116 Sh*t design

Design Lobster • 419 implied HN points • 22 Aug 22
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Design choices can have long-lasting effects, leading to path dependency that constrains future options.
  2. Simple design changes, like a square-cored toilet roll, can lead to clever outcomes by encouraging efficiency and mindful usage.
  3. Questioning design briefs and challenging the necessity of elements can be a mark of a great designer.

#117 It's a blow out

Design Lobster • 399 implied HN points • 05 Sep 22
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Designing with air can lead to innovative products like the Dyson Airwrap that uses the Coanda Effect to create curls without excessive heat, showcasing the importance of understanding and utilizing physics in design.
  2. Consider emotional and symbolic factors in design, as seen in the case of the IKEA inflatable furniture series from the 1990s that faced practical issues and failed to provide a comfortable user experience.
  3. Whitespace, like air, is essential for design to breathe. Remember the significance of negative space in layouts and compositions when things feel cluttered.

Google Maps UX: The India Conundrum

Elizabeth Laraki • 2 HN points • 05 Sep 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Google Maps struggled in India because people didn't use street names for navigation. They relied on landmarks instead.
  2. The team did hands-on research to understand how locals used landmarks for directions. This included talking to people and observing their navigation.
  3. By focusing on landmarks, Google Maps improved its directions to better fit India's needs, making it a popular navigation tool over time.

Attenspiration

12challenges • 171 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Attention will focus on making tech fun and poking fun at it through playful analysis and satire.
  2. The publication will feature interactive mini-sites that combine both tech analysis and humor.
  3. The author is inspired by diverse examples of creativity in tech and media, and welcomes suggestions for additional content.

The hard thing about building AI applications

Generating Conversation • 140 implied HN points • 27 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Good AI should figure things out for you before you even ask. It should make your life easier by anticipating what you need without requiring a lot of input.
  2. Trust is key for AI systems. They should be honest about what they don't know and explain their level of confidence. This helps users rely on them more.
  3. AI should take complex information and boil it down to what's important and easy to understand. It should help you find insights quickly without overwhelming you with details.

Elon Musk Book Review (Part 2 of 2): Operations Excellence

Mike Talks AI • 58 implied HN points • 05 Feb 24
💼 Business Product Design
  1. Operations excellence is key: Musk focused on improving efficiency and revolutionizing industries through operational excellence.
  2. Design the right factory: Musk emphasized the importance of well-designed factories and involvement of design engineers in manufacturing processes.
  3. The Algorithm for operations excellence: Musk's framework involves questioning requirements, deleting parts/processes, simplifying, accelerating cycle time, and automating last.

Big impact can be small

Sunday Letters • 39 implied HN points • 24 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Small actions can have a big impact over time. Just think how turning on a light used to be a big hassle, but now it's super easy.
  2. Making tasks easier leads to wider use. If a product is simple to use, more people will adopt it without thinking twice.
  3. Focus on common problems and make solutions accessible. Like how we turned on lights without much thought, your solutions should be just as easy for everyone to use.

A Fresh Look at Analytics

trydeepwork • 2 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. The analytics view is redesigned to be cleaner and more opinionated, surfacing when focus actually happens.
  2. Time is grouped by objectives so you can quickly see how your week splits across goals.
  3. The page is scannable in under a minute and highlights concrete work done each week, reducing digging and interpretation.

5 learnings from making UX less annoying for 20M+ users

CommandBlogue • 19 implied HN points • 28 May 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Users don't easily forget bad experiences, like annoying pop-ups. Once trust is lost, it's hard to regain, so it's important to be careful with how you present information to them.
  2. Beautiful design attracts users and keeps them engaged. Nowadays, a nice look matters just as much as solving a problem, since many products are similar.
  3. Users prefer having multiple options. If they feel like they don't need help at first, they might still end up needing it later, so providing a way for them to revisit guides is key.

Designing the AI Future

New World Same Humans • 11 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. A research service is focusing on the intersection of technology, business, and creativity to help professionals make sense of rapid change. It targets marketers, designers, strategists, innovators and other knowledge workers who need clear foresight.
  2. The central challenge is crafting an AI-powered future that’s worth living in, not just more capable systems. Decades of design experience suggest feeling, relevance, and human consequences will matter more than technical capability alone.
  3. The approach is to explore these questions through deep essays and conversations so ideas become practical insight. Those resources aim to help people see what’s coming and do work that matters.

Acceleration With Consequences

Kathy PM • 7 implied HN points • 03 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. AI is shifting from one-off features to ongoing relationships, so tools will be judged by how they behave and fit into users' lives over weeks, not just by single outputs.
  2. Agency and control matter more than raw intelligence; the hardest design choices are about when an AI should act, when it should stay quiet, and who gets to decide.
  3. Working code alone won’t win — teams need understandable, maintainable systems and clear mental models, because loss of trust and confusing handoffs will drive people away faster than bugs.

Die Mokassins eines anderen

Squirrel Squadron Substack • 3 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. The repair notification said the device was restored but also warned the keyboard and trackpad might not work and the display could turn off, which is contradictory.
  2. The technician explained those odd comments were automatically generated and admitted they don't use the system, so they never noticed the misleading wording.
  3. When technicians don't validate automated messages, customers get confused and the business risks lost trust and revenue.

Why Creator Funds Have Failed

David’s Substack • 98 implied HN points • 17 Feb 23
💼 Business Product Design
  1. Creators look for meaningful, predictable, and achievable income streams to monetize their content.
  2. TikTok Creator Fund failed due to low payouts and unpredictable earnings tied to video views.
  3. Snap Spotlight Fund struggled with massive creator fatigue and burnout by tying payouts to daily top performers.

The Big Question: What Comes After Right-to-Repair?

Fight to Repair • 78 implied HN points • 16 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Several states have been passing comprehensive right-to-repair laws, indicating that the movement is gaining traction and popularity.
  2. The concept of the Overton window helps understand how companies like Apple are adjusting their stance on repair due to legislative and consumer pressure.
  3. The focus is shifting towards challenges beyond just access to parts and information, with emerging concerns surrounding software restrictions and product design in the right-to-repair movement.

The Full Moon Podcast

New World Same Humans • 8 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. A new podcast called Full Moon has launched as a research service exploring the intersection of technology, business, and creativity.
  2. The first episode focuses on design — saying it’s a crucial moment, that we’re all designers now, and drawing lessons from early digital days to help design in the age of AI.
  3. Listeners are invited to watch and sign up, with paid members getting the next essay on the January full moon, hinting at a regular, member-focused release rhythm.

The "Brilliant" Idea that Saved The Economy and Killed The Future

OK Doomer • 111 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
💼 Business Product Design
  1. A group of light bulb companies created a plan to make bulbs that burnt out faster, so people would buy more. This was done under the false idea that they were improving efficiency.
  2. In the 1990s, a company launched a cheaper printer but actually just made minor changes instead of improving the product. They found clever ways to cut costs without giving customers a better deal.
  3. These examples show how businesses can prioritize profit over quality, tricking consumers into spending more money without a real benefit.

Toasts and Theming

Pine • 19 implied HN points • 23 May 24
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Pine now gives you fun little toast messages when you keep a daily streak or reach card milestones. This helps give positive encouragement while you work.
  2. You can now customize the appearance of each deck with different themes and styles. This makes it visually unique and easier to switch between decks.
  3. Many improvements have been made to the user experience to make using Pine more enjoyable overall. This should enhance how you create and review your cards.

Techno-Feudalist Time Theft

The Carousel • 89 implied HN points • 04 Feb 25
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Many tech products force us to do extra work, making us feel like we're troubleshooting issues that should be the company's responsibility. This is done to cut costs for the companies and shift the burden onto consumers.
  2. Digital products can end up costing more and being more complicated than simpler, traditional options. For example, digital car keys can be expensive to replace and often need frequent reprogramming.
  3. The design of modern tech is often intentional to make us do more work for them, not less. Instead of providing convenience, tech can sometimes complicate our lives and steal our time.

Tariff Engineering, Explained

SatPost by Trung Phan • 84 implied HN points • 07 Feb 25
💼 Business Product Design
  1. Tariff engineering is when companies change their products slightly to pay less in import taxes. This can involve using different materials or designs that fit into cheaper tariff categories.
  2. Some well-known brands, like Converse and Subaru, have used tariff engineering to give their products lower duty rates. This practice can lead to legal debates but is generally accepted as long as rules are followed.
  3. Recent changes in tariff rules, especially related to low-value imports, can affect companies like SHEIN and Temu significantly, potentially leveling the playing field for U.S. businesses and impacting the prices consumers pay.

How 15 famous brands got their names

Jon’s Newsletter • 99 implied HN points • 21 May 23
💼 Business Product Design
  1. Many brand names have personal or fun stories behind them, like Android being named after a co-founder's nickname. It's cool how these names can connect to the people or experiences involved in their creation.
  2. Some brands, like Band-Aid and Life Savers, have names that describe exactly what they do. These names help customers understand what to expect from the product.
  3. The origins of brand names can reflect cultural or geographical influences, such as Lego meaning 'play well' in Danish. It's neat to see how language and culture shape these popular names.

Kosmik Year in Review

Kosmik’s Newsletter • 39 implied HN points • 26 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Product Design
  1. Kosmik 2.0 aims to be a desktop in the cloud, providing an environment where users can organize files and tools in a more visual and collaborative way.
  2. The concept of a digital desktop is changing, with a shift towards cloud-based storage and a need for a more flexible and fluid way to organize files and assets.
  3. Kosmik is evolving as a product, with a focus on web technologies to improve speed, product quality, and roadmap, along with securing funding to ensure long-term growth and development.

Ten principles of good design

A Bit Gamey • 33 implied HN points • 22 Jun 25
🪑 Design Product Design
  1. Good design should be simple and focus on what's really important. Less is more when it comes to creating functional products.
  2. A product must be useful, attractive, and easy to understand. If a product fails to meet these needs, it won't be successful.
  3. Sustainable design is vital, as it helps protect the environment and creates lasting products that avoid trends and fads.