Design lead for Claude: The design role is being split into two distinct modes.

@claudeai Same split is happening in PM. One mode: define the problem, understand the user, make the bet. Other mode: iterate, spec, validate. AI is accelerating mode 2 which is actually making mode 1 matter more. The judgment work gets more valuable when the execution work gets cheaper.

@claudeai Saw this split happen building AudioWave. One designer prototyping in Figma, another stress-testing flows with real user data. Speed doubled once we stopped pretending it was one job.

@claudeai these people have obviously never worked for themselves.

@claudeai The design process we've been embracing for the last decade was mostly to mitigate risk in engineering. That risk doesn't exist in the same way anymore so that design process shouldn't exist in the same way either. Exactly why I started

@claudeai love and need more of @jenny_wen clip farming on my tl

@claudeai Real talk. Appreciate you sharing this 🙏

@claudeai Two modes, two bottlenecks. Mode 1: vision (what should exist). Mode 2: taste (knowing when it's right). Classic discovery → mock → iterate conflated both — execution time was how you learned which was which. AI dissolves execution. The split was always there. Now it's visible.

@claudeai why dont we have the time as designers? are being hunted by somebody? who is going to replace us? people who have no idea of design and programming but know how to write a prompt? yeah i dont think so

@claudeai Splitting design into two modes at a product like Claude is the right call — the UX for casual chat and the UX for deep research are fundamentally different problems and shouldn't share the same visual language.

@claudeai @grok Summarize

@claudeai This split makes so much sense. The 'help me think' mode and 'just do the thing' mode are genuinely different and mixing them was always the friction point.

@claudeai Agree

@claudeai Splitting Claude's design role into two modes is the right call — the thinking tool UX and the chat UX are genuinely different problems and forcing one design language on both has been the biggest friction point for power users.

@claudeai Awesome conversation 🙌 thank you @lennysan

@claudeai Not sure if you seen but can you look at your twitter messages. I have some work im looking at getting done

@claudeai i want more design hacks, not enough alpha here