For years it has been faster to make mockups and prototypes of software than to send it to production. As a result, software design teams could stay “for” engineering. Now AI coding agents make development 10x faster, making the traditional software development process on its head.
In my thirty years From working on software, the design teams that I was part of, usually operated “for” our software development counterparts. Developed by existing code bases, technical debts, performance and infrastructure restrictions, designers can quickly work in mockups, wireframes and even prototypes to imagine what we could or should build before time and effort was invested to actually build it.
While some software engineering teams could Shipping in daysIn most (especially larger) organizations, building new functions or redesign apps for months cannot take in quarters or years. So there was enough time for designers to explore and repeat. This was also reflected in the ratio of designers and developers in most companies: an average of one designer for every twenty engineers.
When designs moved to the production engineering phase, there would (hopefully) be a lot back and forth for unanswered questions, new problems that were discussed or to construct the requirements. Much of this load fell on engineering when they met Edge cases, things that were missing in specifications, differences between the devices and more. However, what it contributed was that the process to build and launch something often took longer than the process to design it.
AI coding aids change this dynamic. About several of Our companiesSoftware development teams are now “ahead” on design. To be more specific, collaborate with AI agents (such as Enlarged code) Support software developers to go from concept to working code 10x faster. This means that new functions will be code at a fast and furious pace.
However, when software is encrypted in this way, it (currently at least) has the UX painting and thoughtful integration into the structure and purpose of a product. This is the work that designers did in advance, but now have to “clean up”. It is as if the development process has been reversed. Designers used to prepare functions with mockups and prototypes, then engineers should clean them up to send them. Now, engineers can cod functions so quickly that designers are those who go back and clean up.
So scary time to become a designer? No. Great time to be a designer. Instead of waiting for months, you can start working with working functions and ideas within a few hours. This states everyone, whether it is a designer or engineer, an opportunity to learn what works and what doesn’t. In essence, fast iteration software and the build, use/test, learning, repeating loop just turned around, it didn’t go away.
In Pertlexity design Talk to Sutter Hill Ventures, Henry Modisett described this new state as “Prototype to” produce “instead of” to build design “. Sounds good to me.
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