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Insights Unlocked
Speed is no longer the constraint in product design—judgment is | Figma's Andrew Hogan
00:47:23
Explore the future of design, AI in product design, and key insights from the State of Design 2026 with Figma’s Andrew Hogan.
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- [00:02]
Nathan Isaacs
Welcome back to Insights Unlocked. In this episode, Jason Giles sits down with Andrew Hogan from Figma to unpack what AI's influence is on the future of design. From shifting roles, round tripping between code and design, design, hiring, and the evolving definition of craft, they explore how leaders can scale quality without losing the human touch. Enjoy the show.
- [00:27]
Podcast Narrator
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
- [00:48]
Nathan Isaacs
Welcome to the Insights Unlocked podcast. I'm Nathan Isaacs, Principal Content marketing manager at UserTesting. Joining us today as host is Jason Giles, User Testing's Vice President of design. Welcome, Jason.
- [01:01]
Jason Giles
Hello, Nathan. And hello all listeners.
- [01:04]
Nathan Isaacs
And our guest today is Andrew Hogan. Andrew leads Insights at figma. His research focuses on the digital product and design industry and the ways the most successful teams work. Previously, Andrew spent seven years at Forrester analyzing the intersection of design and tech. Welcome back to the show, Andrew.
- [01:23]
Andrew Hogan
Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.
- [01:27]
Jason Giles
Andrew. We were just talking. It's one. It's awesome to see you again. It's been over a year, which in AI terms is like a decade ago, and a lot's happened at figma too. So it's just an exciting time to just kind of catch up to get us going. Though, from your perspective at Figma, if you can hold 12 months in your brain, like, what do you feel like are some of the big changes that happen most?
- [02:03]
Andrew Hogan
I think the biggest thing is continuation of trends. Right? There was more software being created before, there is even more software being created now. I think we're probably certainly on an uptick. More people are recognizing that kind of thing. And then always with that comes the recognition that, oh, if we're going to make more things, we really need to think about how we're going to make these things and how are they going to stand out? I think it's funny to see at one point the idea of taste and discernment and design. Oh, is that actually important in a world of AI? And now more people are saying like, oh, yeah, that's actually really critical. If you can churn out 30 things in a minute, which one of the 30 things is good, how are you even going to know? And then also we're now a public company and not much has changed on that front, but that is, that is a real thing somehow. That also happened. I think we also launched four new products to doubled the product line.
- [03:00]
Jason Giles
Yeah, it's Amazing. I mean, congratulations too. I saw the news around the partnership with was anthropic, right?
- [03:10]
Andrew Hogan
Yeah. We launched the ability to go from figma. Well, I mean you could always go from Figma to Claude Code and then now we have the ability to go from Claude Code back into figma. We call it round tripping design and you go in and out, that's part of the design process. Where are you going to explore this? What tools are you going to use? It's really fascinating and amazing to see how much is shifting and there's a lot going on.
- [03:38]
Jason Giles
Well, let's dig into that because we've got a lot to unpack. There's so many reports that have dropped lately. Like a key one which I always look forward to is the FIGMA state of design. So 2026. But we also had the IDC report drop as well around some of the workforce projections. So first question, we are looking at the evolution of the design profession or is this just a complete rewrite of it?
- [04:14]
Andrew Hogan
I mean it's an evolution for sure. Right? You're always thinking about, you know, this, you've done design in a lot of different contexts at a lot of different companies in different times. And I think for many people who've been through a few technology cycles, the sort of the way in which you work always kinds of, you know, changes the materials you have to work with. You always need to think about what's the user, what are they trying to accomplish? Um, and the, you know, the most interesting thing now is how many people are now adopting the, the practices of design who are now prototyping. We had a stat we just released. I'm really excited to be able to share this. 60% of figma makes that were created in the last year were created by non designers.
- [05:02]
Jason Giles
Wow.
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Andrew Hogan
They're, they're, that they're making prototypes in order to convey their intent and what they know and they're doing that in order to get that communicated more clearly with their teams. And so then as a designer you're like, oh wow, I have so much more context to work from because I know things that this person making this, you know, make, you know, that they don't know. But I also probably just learned something about what they think would be really helpful.
- [05:29]
Jason Giles
Right.
- [05:30]
Andrew Hogan
And so at that point your, your job is, is shifting the kinds of things you're doing. You're not prototyping but you're also now working with all this new material. And so it was interesting to see that stat and then think about the projections that IDC recently shared that is a FIGMA study. So I have to say that. But IDC ran a study about the people participating in design and they found it was going to increase. It's much bigger than you would think. We found that in our own study that we also ran independently. It's just, it's one of those things where now more people are involved than ever before. And then as a designer, that does change your job and as a researcher that does change your job. But now you can also be involved in their work in a much bigger way too, which is also kind of exciting.
- [06:27]
Jason Giles
Yeah, I mean, I can imagine there's. Listeners could probably have a lot of reactions to some of those numbers that are thrown out.
- [06:34]
Andrew Hogan
It's true. There are, there are reactions. It goes differently in different contexts.
- [06:38]
Jason Giles
Yeah, you know, from my perspective, my experience, I mean, the power of prototyping, there was, there's obviously the, the direct power of being able to align people and solicit feedback, whether that's internally or, or externally. But I think what is really exciting from a, my perspective, particularly as a leader, is the opportunity, kind of going back to your point of eliciting conversation around the right solution to problems. And you know, have you, as you've talked to others, as I know you do, how should leaders be thinking about, about what we call craft in this world where now, you know, everybody's participating. Not everybody, but a lot more folks than many.
- [07:34]
Andrew Hogan
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a very broad. And you, I mean, you guys see this in research too. There are many more non researchers running research. And you have, you have a very similar kind of challenge. How do you expand what is good good and sort of like help people to realize, you know, maybe it's not so good if we ask a leading question in this way. Maybe it's not so good if we don't give people enough time to respond. You know, the other practices in design are, are very similar in that regard where some people are really good at it and have spent a lot of time perfecting their craft. And then the question is, how do you like, you know, put that, document it, make it systematized so that other people can benefit from that. And you get not all of the JSON magic, right? Like you're not replicable or anything, but you get some of the things that are great about JSON. I'm sure when you are able to like document it in like a design system and more people are able to know, like what is good spacing, what is good hierarchy, like when should you use this particular kind of component? If we go all the way there, how should you even think about a problem? And so you get to like, okay, many more people are now participating because they have a need to communicate, they have a need to use good design practices. How do I replicate this? How do I document it? And that is the job of the leader right now. Because I think sort of turning off the access, I mean, they're going to prototype somewhere in some way. It's just going to. It's like a human need for a certain group of people to make stuff because they have something they want to convey and they want to get done. And you know, I use the research example, but it's also happening across other disciplines too.
- [09:27]
Jason Giles
Right, right. I know the active conversations that we're having internally with my team and this extends to our product organization and even our engineering organization is what does good look like? What is quality? If everybody is participating in developing a solution to these problems, what is that criteria that we can then scale out to say, I don't care whose designing it, but here are the requirements, here are the, Here are the. Either the boxes you need to check or the gates that you need to go through to be able to defend or ensure that what we are going to release to customers at least is going, going through those processes.
- [10:21]
Andrew Hogan
Well. And I think the really fascinating thing is that in really like, you know, healthy, high performing cultures, this is like a really incredible communication method. Right. Because you can convey so much more in a prototype. You can interact with, you can say so much more about why this thing needs to happen. And that sort of expansion, like the idea of demos, not memos, is much better than getting like a written document about what should happen. A short written document with some context and then a demo conveys so much more information. And then the reality is you need to have conversations about the like sort of assumptions and information that's embedded in there, what evidence is behind this. And that's the thing that the leader has to figure out, how to enable that kind of discussion. And that is not an easy task in all places. And it's not easy to convey, hey, this actually isn't quality in certain contexts. That's. I don't want to like understate that.
- [11:20]
Jason Giles
Yeah, well, and I think it's a, particularly for, for the leaders who have been over the years have been able to kind of speak to point to what is their definition of quality or their bar, their taste to really think, okay, if I'm going to have to scale this. How do I capture that in a way that others can understand, you know, to, like, really be able to, like, set that definition? I think it is driving a lot of introspection. I know I'm just speaking for myself of, like, okay, if I was to write it down that others could ingest and really understand, I'm like, that requires a lot of contemplation and really thinking of, like, okay, what is. How do I kind of capture that?
- [12:08]
Andrew Hogan
Well, and it's not just one thing. So we actually asked, you know, what is craft? We asked people in the State of the Designer survey, and we actually had a pretty split. You know, is it thoughtful problem solving? Is it intuitive user experience? Is it polished visual design in detail? And you could go look at the responses. It's actually a pretty big split. And that's just like the, you know, five or six options we could put in that survey.
- [12:34]
Jason Giles
Right, right, right.
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Andrew Hogan
It is. It is a complex question that I think does have real implications if you're going to make more software because you want people to use the software or the experiences that you create and you want, you know, you want your business to be successful. And if those things are really important and more important than before, this is a really important question to get right and to figure out how to have that conversation within your company in the context that you work in, which is, you know, all of us are in different kinds of situations.
- [13:08]
Jason Giles
Yeah, I. I agree. I was. I was thinking about what this would look like because like I said, we're actually trying to create this definition so that we can scale. Scale this out in a broader way. And I was just reflecting that. Gosh, what I'm writing down now is so contextual to my business, to the culture, to the orientation and like, the, the bias that this particular team or company has versus what it would have been at Ticketmaster or DirecTV or something else. So I think this is a. It's a really just cool call to arms for leaders in the. In the state of where we're at right now. So to take a step back then, you know, why do you think. Why do you think all this is happening now?
- [14:04]
Andrew Hogan
Yeah, so I made the point about more software being created than ever before. And like, folks like IDC or, you know, Gartner are talking about those sorts of topics, and I don't know what the real number is, but I think we can all feel it that there's many more options, many more features being released more quickly. And so when we worked with IDC on this study, about the workforce that would be involved in design. That was one of the big things that they called out. And that would lead to increased competition within greater need to differentiate. How do you stand out if there's more new players coming in? And then also, well, you have an entirely new set of technologies and capabilities that you could integrate. How do you even understand what's possible? Which is very different than when we talked about this topic a year ago. There's even more capabilities. I think we were sort of past the like, let's just dump a prompt box into everything. And all of us are trying to figure out, well, what else could we do other than putting a prompt box on top of this? And then I think there's increasing realization that there's new use cases that can be developed because it is faster and often cheaper to create software now than it was before. So you're like, oh, I could find a way to work on this problem that I've never worked on. And so IDC essentially found that these trends, some people call that Javon's paradox, that's become a really hot topic. You know, as things get cheaper, you find new uses for them. And that then means that if all this is going on, you've got to think about how to make this, like, infrastructure, you know, a system within a company that's repeatable, that's supportive to the groups in it. You've got to think about the new parties that have never, you know, maybe participated in design before, how can they work on it? Which then calls for more people who are skilled at design to help make those things even happen. And it's a really fascinating set of trends. In my head, it's been rolling around as, like, the new design equation, where it is no longer you have essentially increasing people involved, increasing amount of things being created, increasing possibilities, and then working on increasingly more important challenges and more challenges, more valuable challenges. And that equation then drives a huge amount of, like, interest in how you can, you can systematize this. And also not like you lose the magic sometimes. You just have incredible human breakthroughs in this process.
- [16:44]
Jason Giles
Yeah, 100%. So with that context, then, as we think about building out the teams, what are those capabilities that this next generation of companies needs to really be successful? Do you have some perspective on that?
- [17:01]
Andrew Hogan
I mean, I'm going to tell you some stuff from the data, but I think you probably have some reflections from your own experience. And you said next generation of companies, it's also the current generation of companies. Right. I think we're all trying to Build for the future. But you don't just start from zero. You have an existing set of customers, existing products, existing teams. So in the hiring study research that we just did, the demand for designers is up. The hiring managers mostly told us that demand was either steady or rising for their teams. And they told us that they wanted people who could really step into a position and figure out how to integrate a bunch of complex parts and really difficult stakeholders and new technologies and all these things that senior people who have this before are really, really skilled at. That's what you think of. And then underneath that, the demand for junior hiring junior designers was, was significantly below the demand for hiring senior designers. And so I would guess, Jason, that you have been looking for people who have done this before and who are experts at integrating complex systems and have a long track record of experience.
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Jason Giles
Yeah.
- [18:22]
Andrew Hogan
Is that true?
- [18:23]
Jason Giles
I will say yes. And I'm also looking for. I'm just going to call them AI natives because, and I know the jobs report doesn't say this per se, but I just kind of like, I'm old, right? Like, when the Internet came, you had people with that kind of orientation that were entering in the problem, the way they were approaching problem solving. Solving. And I think there's a little bit of inertia that I'm having to, to kind of manage with like the traditional way of, of thinking. So I do think, and I know, like, it's. It's a hard ask, like, you know, to actually think of AI natives, but to really bring in that perspective. Now, of course, to bring somebody seasoned and to really be able to articulate, like, the defensibility of the decisions that AI influenced, that becomes super critical.
- [19:25]
Andrew Hogan
But what you're really talking about, there is a mix. And that I think is like a really good recommendation for everybody to think about, because you're both in trouble if you, if you're looking for people who have only ever worked in a generative AI world and you're in trouble if you're only working, looking for people who have done something for 10, 15 years. And I heard there's this amazing anecdote that I heard of the value of having someone come in and say, hey, I just learned this, like, amazing new thing that I could do. And like, I'm just like, do. I don't even know why I'm doing it. I'm going to show this whole team. And that often comes from someone who is just so excited to be learning something new versus someone who is like, I've been through this before. I'VE seen this. I kind of know how to approach it. And it does show up in the data. What shows up in the data is a demand for AI like proficiency with the tools and with designing AI native products. Hiring managers are definitely looking for that. Both of Those were over 70% but nobody knows how to look for that right now.
- [20:29]
Jason Giles
Right.
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Andrew Hogan
You know, like how, how do you test someone's AI tool proficiency when the tools also change completely? Are you just asking them like, do you use figma make and do you like it? And so you end up with hiring managers looking for like side projects and other like other. Other indicators signals.
- [20:47]
Jason Giles
Totally.
- [20:48]
Andrew Hogan
Which of course makes it hard as a hiring manager to even sift through the pile of, you know, applicants that you have.
- [20:55]
Jason Giles
Yeah. Anyway, all the, all the AI generated
- [20:58]
Andrew Hogan
resumes that also a thing. So we need some software to make it so you could sift through the AI generated revenues that are resumes that are being generated by the software.
- [21:09]
Jason Giles
Yeah, yeah. With those numbers though, I think it's interesting because so the one. It's encouraging like, hey, like there's they're hiring and maybe they're hiring. We're hiring senior at this point because bringing in that capability and being able to point and shoot in this context makes sense. But if you. I will just speak for myself as I talk to designers out in the industry. I don't feel like they feel like we've, like we're in this place where there's opportunity. Do you kind of get a, any kind of sense of what the disconnect there is?
- [21:46]
Andrew Hogan
So I think there's a couple things that are potentially happening. One of them is, you know, a comparison to other, other sorts of context that they've experienced. So you know, in, in past years, one of them is sort of the, like the, the point that you and I just talked about where it's, it's hard for hiring managers. So the sort of experience of applying and trying to get through a process is also probably more difficult. And you know, it's, there's, there's everyone. Whenever there's technological change, there's sort of uncertainty about what skills do I need and how is this all going to work out. So I think that's a, that's part of it. It honestly showed up in the data too. Like, you know, hiring managers would say they're at their company, the demand for hiring designers was up, but they didn't necessarily perceive that the overall market itself was, you know, doing great. So it's like they're in their context, they knew that they were hiring, their belief about the broader context was not as good. And there is certainly some, you know, feelings based interaction between those things and, and you know, if you know people who are looking, it's, it's a tough, it's tough. They're, they're not feeling great about the overall situation. Even as there's all this evidence that the demand is up. There's, you know, the taste is more important than ever. Discernment is more important than ever. The skills that, that are being valued are, it's certainly very high for you know, AI, AI design, designing the products, changing the process to incorporate AI. So it's like this confluence of factors that I think is, is not making people feel maybe as good as they should based on what the data would say and that, you know, that's the magic of qual and quant. Maybe the magic in that context is not the right one. That is the value of qual and quant to bounce those two things off of each other.
- [23:49]
Jason Giles
As you, as you talk to designers like we, we talked about some of the criteria of like hey, as hiring managers I'm looking for folks with this fluency. Are there just some of the basics that you're recommending design teams to be focusing on to really have that experience? And
- [24:10]
Andrew Hogan
yeah, I mean I think a really strong design system has never been more important. Right. If you're going to scale and have more people participating, having them work from a strong foundation and then that means who are the designers who can help you design design systems? That's, that's a certain kind of profile and a certain kind of person that does that work, likes that work, you know, is, is valuable at that work. I think the other one is just like sort of play and exploration and the desire to do that is really important right now. Which is, you know, some, I feel like some people just do do this. They just find these pockets of time and, and then they're just like I just, you know, I did this in this completely different way than we've ever done it before. I don't know why, I just thought I would try it. And you know, they're often like banging stuff out in Figma make that you didn't think that you could do or wouldn't think to do. And those people are really valuable right now too. And they're often, they often have like side projects that you're like trying to, they're doing and you're like as a leader should I be letting them do this is even good.
- [25:22]
Jason Giles
I, it's so funny. I literally. So I talked to one of my writers today and I told her, I said, hey, guess who's using the most figma make credits on our entire team. She. She looks a little sheepish and she's like, is it me? And I said, yeah, you know, I'm like, and that's awesome. And I'm like, tell me more about this. She's like, well, I find that like if one I can get people on the same page really quickly and when at the beginning and so this alignment, I'm like, oh, perfect. She's like, but I think in narratives and I used to have to wait for designers to kind of build this thing but now I can just quickly whip something out. So I'm like that's perfect. Awesome. But then she said, and I'm building an app. And I'm like, oh, tell me more. And what she told me was not about the app. It was what she has learned as she's tried to do this. The mistakes that she made. Oh, I did. I should have focused on this. I got back to your. Your point. Like, oh, I should have really thought about like the, the design system and how. But the learning that that takes from natural curiosity. Clearly I never asked her to build an app. And so I just. It was such a great example of maybe the mind shift and mindset that I think is going to be really important these days.
- [26:48]
Andrew Hogan
I mean it's an incredible story. It's exactly what like we. The sort of thing that we see and you know, we have this stat. 56% of non designers are doing a lot of design tasks and they're just, they're just stepping out of there. Whether they a writer, you probably think of her as a designer too. Whether they're a product manager, whether they're a marketer. They're just like stepping out into things that they haven't been able to do before because the accessibility is there. And then you usually end up with an appreciation for the other field that. That wasn't there before or maybe wasn't the depth of understanding was. It's really hard to make a design system. It is a complex. You see why they are so valuable, the people who make them and why design systems are so valuable. When you try to do something either without it or make your own or. And I just think that's a, it's a really interesting thing about work today where you have access to these other fields that, that it doesn't make you an expert in those other fields.
- [27:55]
Jason Giles
Yeah.
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Andrew Hogan
But it makes you able to have better conversations about them.
- [27:58]
Jason Giles
Well, and what's.
- [27:59]
Andrew Hogan
And I love that. I love that example. You.
- [28:01]
Jason Giles
Well, yeah, and what's interesting too is that like, in the process of playing with these tools, sometimes not only appreciation for the other disciplines and the arts, but also, like, there are some things that you can't skip. Like, you know, it's so easy to go into these tools and be like, oh, create this, this experience. And I want it to do this and this and this. And then you realize, oh, wait a minute, I need to think about what are the. Who are, who am I designing this for? What are the requirements? You know, what are the. What is the scope, what. And you know, I think it's also reinforcing firsthand of like, some of the fundamentals of product design to have an appreciation for. Yeah, you know, like, the tools make it easier, but there's still fundamental things that need to happen as part of this. And just because maybe it's easier to do, you just kind of can't skip it.
- [28:57]
Andrew Hogan
How do you want them to feel? And in order to know how you want them to feel, you need to know where, what they feel before they're using it, you know, some sense what they think of as success afterwards. You all of a sudden then go, well, maybe I should talk to some people who use this thing, right? Maybe, maybe I should put it in front of them and see what they say. Maybe I should then iterate based on the thing that I've just heard. You know, whether it's in code, whether it's in figma, whether, you know, I just, it's so funny because you basically end up going, oh, I should probably run like a full sort of design process and do all of the steps that. And it's really valuable. And then, then you go, oh, maybe I could ask better questions. Oh, maybe I could. Maybe I could think about this animation a little bit better maybe in it. I just think this is, this is why you end up with the logic that we have, which is design is everyone's business. You know, you could probably say research and customer understanding is everyone's business. And you, you kind of can't skip it, even though you thought maybe you could if, if you were outside of these fields before. You have an appreciation for it when you start doing things that are adjacent to why it's important. And yeah, and more things are going to be made and some of them are not going to be very good and they're not going to understand the customer or the user and, and then we're going to interact with things that really do get it because they were made by somebody who lives in that context and. Or fully understands it. And you're going to be like, wow, this is awesome. I need to tell everyone I'm willing to pay for this. I. I'm just like, I'm fascinated by the moment that we're in, and it makes me so excited about design and research and all of these kinds of related fields because you just. Once you interact with things that don't work very well, you start to appreciate the things that do.
- [30:55]
Jason Giles
Yeah. And. And it kind of touches on. So one, when I saw the report, one of the things I cringed at a little bit was this. Oh, was the. Here, because you asked, you know, what does craft mean to you? And I was like, okay, what a great question. And then. And I don't want to judge, but it was like a large portion was like, oh, it's. It's the fit and finish. It's how it feels.
- [31:28]
Andrew Hogan
Yeah.
- [31:29]
Jason Giles
And. And I appreciate that. Like, don't get me wrong, but what we're talking about, like, when I think of craft, is the craft of problem solving. And I was hoping more were like, yeah, you know, like, can you talk a little bit more about those findings? And.
- [31:47]
Andrew Hogan
Yeah, yeah. So in this data designer study, we did ask, what do you think of as craft? And I hinted at that. I've hinted at that in. Earlier in this interview and in the rest of this conversation, we also asked about what are the skills that you're hiring for? And at the top was visual design, which is kind of exactly what you're talking about here. And I think one of the reasons why that appears is because those are the things that are often skipped that actually, in totality, if they're intentionally done, create a feeling in using a product that is, I think, bigger than the details. I can see from your face you disagree. And I think that's okay because we did. We did. We offered room for that in the question. But I just wouldn't skip over something that you innately know how to do that other people do not, maybe know as well. And I think if you. If for some people, if they reduce it to polish and fit and finish, you know, that kind of diminishes it. Um, but I also think there's something to be said for like, the exact right animation and feeling, the exact right typography, the exact right, you know, color palette that are things that are very difficult to automate and replicate because they're so innate to you. And what you've done that you sort of like, oh, this is, of course, this is important. Of course this is. And I think for a whole lot of other people, those are very new, different, difficult skills. But I don't know what you think about any of that.
- [33:26]
Jason Giles
I will grant you, and I like your explanation. Here's why I have the visceral reaction is because actually, AI is pretty good at making something convincing looking, and it sounds confident, like the writing is good, like the interaction patterns make sense. And so my big fear, just personal fear, is that it can lull you because it looks good and it is good. And I'm just so afraid of designers thinking like, oh, this is the value I'm getting. I, you know, I take it the last, you know, 20% to really get, make that emotional connection. I'm like, but is it doing its job?
- [34:12]
Andrew Hogan
You know, I think we're saying sort of the same things, and I think the reason I think we're saying sort of. So that makes total sense. You're afraid of people sort of turning off their critical thinking or just letting it kind of like, go, go along. I think the thing I would consider is that when you can pull it through from the beginning of who is this for? How do I want them to feel? How do they feel? You know, before they're using it and after they're using it, what problem is it really solving? And when you can pull that through to all of the other decisions, I think you get to something that's more powerful. And so I think we're actually saying some similar things.
- [34:52]
Jason Giles
I just hope designers who understand that that's their job is to be.
- [34:59]
Andrew Hogan
They might have to, to pull that, but they might, they might have to tell people. They might have to tell people that, hey, you haven't actually solved this core problem. You're asking me to polish this thing up for you so we can ship it. But there's actually something bigger here. And I think that's part of where leadership comes in at trying to create the context for people to know enough to be able to ask those questions, to have the room to ask those questions, to know that they have the permission to ask those questions. And I think it's a valid concern, like, are you just going to get, you know, prototypes that you're asked to polish up, or are you going to be able to go back to, like, the fundamental assumptions of the problem you're solving and the person that's using it? And it's possible that, you know, these, that designers, researchers may have to reach further up and influence the process earlier through, you know, there's all kinds of stakeholder things and influencing and all of those things that actually become really important that I just think you might have to do in order to influence more than just like the last 20%.
- [36:11]
Jason Giles
Yeah, I think the good thing about the survey results on that particular one that tweaked me a bit was that it reminded me I've got a job to do, you know, like, as a, as a design leader.
- [36:23]
Andrew Hogan
And do you, do you not want it to be like, is it, would you prefer it if the answer had been zero percent think of. Because we also asked for top three. So to be fair, like, you know, people had an option of choosing this and other things. Should, should the polish not actually appear as one of the top couple things? Is that, is, would that be better? And I, I gen. I don't, I don't know the answer.
- [36:47]
Jason Giles
I mean, just me personally, it would have been nice because I, I have spent the past, she's coming on 30 years trying to articulate that design does not equate fit and finish and polish, you know, and so that was just a little bit like, really like the, and I get it. It's a, the question was around craft, not what is design. But yeah, you know,
- [37:22]
Andrew Hogan
I get your point. I totally get the point. And then I feel the pain of like, the, you know, the work that basically all of design has done to like, expand this to the thing that we know. I do think it's more understood than it was in the past that design is much bigger than fit and finish. But I also know that people get given a prototype and say, hey, can you polish this up so we can ship it? Yes, that is a real thing. That absolutely happens.
- [37:47]
Jason Giles
And don't get me wrong, like, I'm the first one to appreciate the thoughtfulness of like, the emotional experience on the interaction. It's just, yeah, it, it got so much attention for so long that, yeah,
- [38:04]
Andrew Hogan
you know, it's, it's in there. Visual design was the top skill. You know, the, the, your craft, the visual polish was one of the top three results. I think, I think if I was to, I, I, I'm not going to tell you to feel differently, but I think if I was to just give you one thing to hang on to, it's that it's not that it doesn't matter matter. It's probably just like your feelings about not wanting people to sort of lose the influence. Designers, researchers, other people who care deeply about like, the human condition. And how people feel to lose the influence over the whole process in pursuit of. And I think that is worth everybody listening, thinking about and talking about that. It isn't that you sort of like, throw this other part of it away, is that it's. It's something bigger, too. And it's potentially even the search for what is a good answer, which might also include polishing things up to make sure that they do everything they need to do. Because if that doesn't happen, it also feels bad.
- [39:11]
Jason Giles
Yeah, 100%. I think we're aligned. I think we.
- [39:16]
Andrew Hogan
I think that's why I. I don't think we're actually that misaligned. I think it is more like a. It's a. It's a reality of the context that we all work within that, I think, is, you know, going to be ongoing.
- [39:28]
Jason Giles
Agreed. Okay, so let's get back to some of the other findings. You know, I, I was mentioning beforehand that we. We actually are about to release a study too that talks about confidence that design designers have in what they're actually delivering. And one of the interesting findings was that earlier in the process, they're actually feeling really confident about, like, the AI generated solutions. But as you get later on into the process, they're like, oh, the confidence starts to fade and to circle back around then, like, what are your thoughts on should we be afraid of that false confidence that this AI potentially introduces?
- [40:24]
Andrew Hogan
I think we should be thoughtful about it. And there's a lot of words you could pick there. Right. I think, for one thing, it's enabled people to have better conversations than they could ever have before. Right. If you run like a supply chain and you can now tell people that this particular part of the process would be so much better if it worked more like this prototype that I have just given you. And I think it really goes back to taking that person's input as the same sort of comment or feedback that they would have put in a form before, but it would have been so much less fidelity about the problem they were actually having. And then you could potentially say, well, what about this? And you could actually watch them prompted, and you could actually, like, hear almost do like a research interview as they're building, like a new version of a prototype or as they're refining it. And so it's not so much that we should pause using this capability. I think it's that we should be thoughtful about using both the outputs and the part. The process and the, you know, all of the other steps of it. And so I think that's why I use the word thoughtful. And that goes for the people listening to this. That goes for the people who do not listen to this and who are potentially not being super thoughtful about how they're approaching it. Because I think that's what you're trying to create is just a little bit of, like, inquiry and consideration and digging potentially with, you know, user customer research to, to shape it. Because I, I don't know that it's so bad that something looks like it could be real in some ways that actually lets you look at it in the full context that it would be used in and allows people to not be distracted by the other things that are going on. I know there's many different schools of thought on this, whether you should be in wireframes for longer, whether it should look more polished or not. But I think it just gives you like a communication tool to get like depth, real depth with somebody that maybe you wouldn't have gotten before.
- [42:34]
Jason Giles
Well, and ironically, to bring it back to craft. I'm going to kind of call my own bullshit. One of the most amazing experiences that I had in my career was I was at Xbox. We're designing the, the platform and we had design developers on staff, sat right with the designers. What that meant was that multiple times a day we push the build up onto the TV with our remote controls and we felt it. And those ideas that we thought felt good. And maybe, you know, in a wireframe or whatever, we're like, oh, this, this doesn't flow actually, or this. I'm getting, I'm getting lost. Okay, let's, let's go. And so.
- [43:20]
Andrew Hogan
And now everybody can do it, Jason. And that is like in. But you got to be thoughtful.
- [43:26]
Jason Giles
Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Because it can elevate the craft in that.
- [43:31]
Andrew Hogan
Right? You have to be thoughtful. You have to know that there are going to be a lot of iterations. You have to know that the thing that you sort of like land on is maybe not the thing in the end. This is why I think that the idea of design round tripping is so important because you took it to code, back to design in the same way that you're now able to do, except you can do it a lot faster with many more iterations, you can learn a lot more. And I think that's something to be harnessed by people who are like, willing to be thoughtful about it.
- [44:03]
Jason Giles
I love that. And I 100% agree that the speed that these allow us to do and the fidelity, it's just fluid now. And so I think it changes the way that we think about the possibilities of these the conversation, the collaboration, whether that's with each other, with our developers, or with customers. And that's incredibly exciting. Okay, Andrew, once again, I really, really enjoy the opportunity to talk. The report that you've put out, the findings that we're seeing, you've just really brought it to life. And if some of our listeners want to find out more about the state of design in 2026, how would they go about that?
- [44:56]
Andrew Hogan
Figma.com reports there's multiple studies that we've dropped. I post on LinkedIn a lot. Almost none of it is AI generated. Most of it is deeply proofread by AI. But I try really hard to handcraft all of those words and letters and I would love to interact with people there. I just love talking about research like it's just an incredible opportunity and thing for all of us to reflect on our context and the broader context and industry we work in. So love to interact with people there. And yeah, maybe check out config later this year too.
- [45:33]
Jason Giles
Amazing. Will do, Andrew. Thanks once again. And with that, we'll let you go.
- [45:38]
Andrew Hogan
Thanks for having me.
- [45:40]
Podcast Narrator
Want to keep the conversation going? You can find the the show notes@usertesting.com podcast if you haven't already, don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or Google Play, so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed today's show, please share it with a friend or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And until next time, this is Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing.