Dive Club Episode Summary: Stephen Haney - The New Design Tool Everyone’s Talking About

Podcast Information

• Title: Dive Club 🤿
• Host: Ridd
• Episode: Stephen Haney - The New Design Tool Everyone’s Talking About
• Release Date: May 16, 2025
• Description: Dive Club is an interview series hosted by Ridd that unlocks knowledge from today’s most prolific designers. Episodes delve into craft, storytelling, tools, design engineering, startups, and more.

Introduction

In this episode of Dive Club, host Ridd engages in an insightful conversation with Stephen Haney, the co-founder of Paper, a groundbreaking new design tool making waves in the design community. Released in May 2025, the episode provides a behind-the-scenes look at Haney’s vision for Paper and his perspectives on the evolving landscape of design tools.

Why Build a New Design Tool?

Stephen Haney begins by addressing the motivation behind creating Paper. He highlights the current focus on design engineering and the misconception that designers need to become engineers to stay relevant.

[01:43] Stephen Haney: "Right now everyone's really focused on engineering, design, engineering. If you listen to Twitter, everyone's going to become a design engineer. And I think at its core, I don't necessarily agree with that."

Haney argues that the role of designers is more crucial than ever, emphasizing that design involves driving and facilitating decisions rather than just producing UI elements.

[03:06] Steven Haney: "The designer's job isn't to produce the finished code UI and the engineer's job isn't to figure out the design. ... the designer's job is more like a driver of decisions, a facilitator of decisions."

Challenges in Designer-Developer Handoff

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the persistent issues in the designer-developer handoff process. Haney explains why handoff remains problematic:

[00:00] Steven Haney: "The reason handoff isn't solved is because no one gets hired or fired based on handoff."

He shares his experiences from his previous venture, Modules, where bridging the gap between designers and developers proved challenging due to the differing priorities and lack of mutual appreciation between the two roles.

[04:46] Steven Haney: "Designers and developers don't appreciate each other enough... Everyone's very happy to tell you, like what the other person should do to make the whole workflow better. ... it's really hard to figure out who to listen to exactly to do the product development."

Innovating Design Tools: The Role of Shaders

One of the standout features of Paper is its integration of shaders, which Haney describes as a "final frontier in UI development."

[05:23] Steven Haney: "They're like the final frontier in UI development... You're just given this canvas and it is fully up to you to figure out what to do with it."

Shaders in Paper allow designers to create complex, animated effects directly within the canvas, eliminating the need for engineers to reproduce these designs manually. This feature not only fosters creativity but also streamlines the transition from design to production.

[17:44] Steven Haney: "Shaders give us the ability to render. It's almost free... You can pick size range and opacity range to create different effects and spacings."

Enhancing Creativity in Design Tools

Haney emphasizes Paper’s commitment to enhancing creativity by providing tools that support messy exploration and unrestricted design. Unlike traditional design tools that constrain designers to specific frameworks or systems, Paper encourages experimentation and the creation of unique visual experiences.

[14:10] Steven Haney: "There's a hunger in the design community right now to like kind of break out of that a little bit... The new brush tool I think that they just launched will help with that too."

He contrasts Paper with tools like Figma, noting that while Figma excels in collaborative and technical aspects, it lacks in supporting expansive creative exploration.

[10:09] Steven Haney: "This is why I think framer is a tool for building... But a tool that encourages exploration and supports you trying 10 different things at once is very different."

AI Integration and Future of Design Workflows

The conversation delves into how AI can augment the design process without overshadowing the designer's control. Haney advocates for AI as an assistant that accelerates design workflows rather than replacing the designer’s role.

[23:45] Steven Haney: "Design tools that facilitate like, like stakeholder review... design engineers are not far behind in that type of understanding."

Paper integrates multiple AI models to assist in image generation and editing, allowing for rapid exploration of design ideas within the tool itself.

[27:43] Rid: "I always have something in my brain... What I want is AI to amplify that initial creative spark and help me get to just a bunch of different permutations that I wasn't able to come up with on my own quickly."

[28:09] Steven Haney: "Sometimes it's more structured, sometimes you have a design system already and you need to work within that."

Product Development Insights

Reflecting on his journey, Haney shares lessons learned from his time with Modules that have shaped the development of Paper. He underscores the importance of solving specific user problems and maintaining a narrow focus to ensure product-market fit.

[06:24] Steven Haney: "When you're making a product, you really need to start with a narrow focus on I'm solving for this person very specifically their problems."

Haney discusses the strategic shifts and how Paper evolved to include features like shaders organically based on user needs rather than a predetermined roadmap.

[10:10] Rid: "In order to take this leap, you probably had some core differences... So what were some of those pillar differences..."

[11:28] Steven Haney: "...proud of the mission of bridging the gap between design and development."

Vision for Handoff in Paper

Haney presents a unique approach to the handoff process, leveraging Paper’s foundation of using actual HTML and CSS. This ensures that designs are not only aesthetically consistent but also functionally accurate when transitioned to production.

[22:06] Steven Haney: "You can copy out the shader, for instance, or entire layouts, you can copy them as images, you can also copy them as React... the code that you're looking at is literally exactly the same code that's running right here."

This seamless integration aims to eliminate discrepancies between design and development, ensuring that what is designed is what gets implemented.

Community and Product Evolution

With a rapidly growing user base of 20,000 on the mailing list within nine months, Haney emphasizes the importance of community feedback in shaping Paper. He acknowledges the challenges of managing high expectations and the necessity of continuous improvement.

[28:40] Rid: "I've been building something that people have absurdly high expectations for and a ton of muscle memory and, you know, feature requests."

Haney discusses upcoming features designed to streamline workflows, such as improved file organization and collaborative tools that facilitate stakeholder input without compromising design integrity.

[50:08] Rid: "I have a crazy feature idea for you... organize the mess and then shines a light and highlights just the things that are relevant for stakeholders."

Strategic Direction and Long-Term Vision

Looking ahead, Haney outlines Paper’s mission to enhance creativity in the design space and support designers in an increasingly competitive job market. He stresses the balance between solving immediate user problems and maintaining a long-term vision for the company.

[42:06] Steven Haney: "Stay attached to your problems. The problems you're trying to solve is way more important than your current solution."

Haney believes that by remaining user-focused and adaptable, Paper can continue to evolve and address the dynamic needs of the design community.

Conclusion

The episode concludes with Haney expressing gratitude for the support from the design community and reaffirming Paper’s commitment to empowering designers. He encourages listeners to join the Paper community and participate in the ongoing development process.

[53:11] Steven Haney: "I want to be out in the open. I want to be gathering feedback from designers. I think that's the fastest way to make things that are useful is to be out in the open."

Host Ridd wraps up by acknowledging the innovative approach Paper brings to the table and the potential it holds for transforming design workflows.

[54:31] Steven Haney: "We're so user oriented. This company exists to help designers."

Notable Quotes

• Stephen Haney [00:00]: "The reason handoff isn't solved is because no one gets hired or fired based on handoff."
• Stephen Haney [03:06]: "The designer's job isn't to produce the finished code UI and the engineer's job isn't to figure out the design."
• Stephen Haney [05:23]: "Shaders are like the final frontier in UI development... You're just given this canvas and it is fully up to you to figure out what to do with it."
• Stephen Haney [14:10]: "There's a hunger in the design community right now to break out a little bit."
• Stephen Haney [22:06]: "You can copy out the shader, for instance, or entire layouts, you can copy them as images, you can also copy them as React."
• Stephen Haney [42:29]: "Stay attached to your problems. The problems you're trying to solve is way more important than your current solution."

Key Takeaways

1. Redefining Designer Roles: Haney emphasizes the evolving role of designers as decision drivers and facilitators rather than merely UI producers.
2. Innovative Tooling with Shaders: Paper’s integration of shaders allows for unprecedented creative freedom and seamless transition from design to production.
3. AI as an Assistant: AI in Paper is designed to enhance and accelerate the design process without taking control away from the designer.
4. Focused Product Development: Success lies in addressing specific user problems with high-quality solutions before expanding the tool’s capabilities.
5. Community-Driven Evolution: Continuous feedback from a growing user base is crucial for Paper’s ongoing development and success.

Final Thoughts

Stephen Haney’s insights into the development of Paper shed light on the future of design tools, highlighting the importance of creativity, seamless workflows, and user-centric innovation. Dive Club offers a comprehensive look into how Paper aims to revolutionize the design process, making it an essential listen for designers looking to stay ahead in the ever-evolving landscape of design technology.