Design Table Podcast

Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
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  • Design
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Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.

  1. 5d ago

    5 Signs You're About to Be Replaced as a Designer

    Your manager asks you to build a design system. It feels like you're in demand and people appreciate your product design skills. Right?! Maybe. Or maybe it's the first step toward a company that thinks it doesn't need you anymore. Lots of product designers have that uneasy feeling that they're next... towards the exit. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about the signs that you're about to be replaced at work, whether by AI, another designer, or someone in a completely different role who thinks they can 'do the UX' themselves. Like always, they skip social media drama and base everything on their combined 25 years of working experience. For example, Nick makes the case that a design system can work against you at a low UX maturity company, because once every rule is written down, your higher-ups starts wondering if AI or a developer could just design the UI instead of you. Tyler pushes back with a practical piece of advice: ship new components inside real features, test them there, and only then promote them to the system, instead of maintaining a Figma library that's only partially built in code. From there they get into visibility. Tyler shares advice his mentor gave him; that half the job is doing the work while the other half is being your own cheerleader. You have to be visible and vocal! There's something on saying "we" so you can share wins without sounding like you're bragging, too. They also talk about moments where they themselves missed the signes. Nick was once denied a promotion for not having enough internal visibility, and Tyler tells the story of spotting meetings with local design agencies on his manager's Google Calendar while he was still on the team. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why being asked to build a design system can be a warning sign at low UX maturity companies🔸 How to ship new components through real features instead of a Figma library nobody implements🔸 Why a dedicated design system team makes your job safer🔸 What to document on every feature so you always have the receipts🔸 How saying "we" lets you share wins without bragging🔸 What to do when you stop getting invited to meetings🔸 Why a simple weekly work journal or Trello done column protects you🔸 The engineering team habit of a weekly Confluence wrap-up posted in Slack🔸 What it means when your company starts talking to design agencies🔸 Why non-designers prototyping with AI is an early warning sign🔸 How AI-led design is just the engineering-led organization in a new mask Chapters00:00 Daylight saving time is terrible UX01:53 Signs you're about to be replaced02:42 Sign 1: "Build us a design system"06:13 Who should approve new components08:31 Why Figma-only design systems fall behind10:42 Designers who only deliver screens12:53 Keep the receipts on every feature14:57 Be your own cheerleader16:36 The "we" trick for showing your value19:18 Sign 2: The meeting invites stop22:35 Keep a weekly work journal23:54 Engineering's weekly wrap-up habit24:57 Sign 3: They're talking to agencies25:59 Sign 4: Non-designers start prototyping27:37 AI is engineering-led design, again29:11 The one takeaway Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  2. Oct 21

    Will AI Replace UX Designers? Vibe Coding and UX Jobs in 2026 | Feat. Danny Hope

    Has any of the following ever happened to you? Your product manager shows you ten screens they vibe coded over the weekend. Or, and this is probably even worse, your CEO wonders out loud why you need a product designer at all now. Situations like this is what makes designers quit. At the same time, others feel like they can suddenly build anything. Both sides have a point, which makes it hard to decide where you stand. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick sit down with Danny Hope, founder of UX Brighton and one of the most experienced voices in UX today. They discuss what AI is doing to UX jobs in reality and what designers can do about it. No doom-and-gloom or super hype. Instead, they stick to what's happening based on conversations with designers on the job. Danny shares how he was made redundant from a developer-heavy company partly because "we've got Claude Design now", and how AI creates a new problem for designers: you're still accountable for the design even when other people ship those designs without you. Tyler explains his team's rule for AI prototypes: anyone can make one, but it goes through the same design review as anything else inside the company. They also get into ambition. Danny uses the 'skateboard versus car' analogy to rethink the MVP, Tyler explains why his team says MLP instead, and Danny makes the case for pass/fail criteria as a core skill for briefing both teams and AI tools. Tyler opens up about measuring design impact in fintech, where sales cycles run from six months to two years. Then it gets candid. Tyler argues design systems have made products overly consistent and killed some craft. Danny counters that commoditization is how the industry moves on to bigger problems, from WordPress to £5 logos to nicely indented CSS. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why some designers feel displaced by AI while others feel more capable than ever🔸 How Tyler's team lets anyone prototype without losing edge cases and flows🔸 Why AI-made designs create a responsibility problem for UX people🔸 What it means to be more ambitious with AI, using the skateboard vs car analogy🔸 How MLP (minimum lovable product) can fix, or be abused just like, the MVP🔸 Why pass/fail criteria are a key skill for briefing teams and AI tools🔸 How to measure design impact when sales cycles last up to two years🔸 The North Star metric approach Tyler uses so small wins ladder up🔸 Why human-to-human service could become a company's biggest advantage🔸 Why whiteboards and paper sketching are making a comeback for Danny🔸 How side projects can represent you better than a portfolio🔸 What design systems and commoditization have taken away from craft Chapters:00:00 Thanksgiving and our second guest01:40 How UX Brighton started in 200804:16 The two camps of vibe coding07:08 Laid off because of AI design tools10:32 Tyler's rule for everyone prototyping12:00 Who owns it when anyone ships designs13:23 Craft vs strategy: which do you love?16:59 Designing human-to-human service20:33 How to get more ambitious with AI26:19 MVP, MLP and the skateboard vs car31:07 Pass/fail criteria for designers and AI34:22 Measuring impact on 2-year sales cycles40:40 Why whiteboards and paper are back42:42 Have design systems killed craft?47:58 Why handmade work keeps its value52:29 UX Brighton dates and tickets UX Brighton conference, Friday November 6 at the Brighton Dome Concert Hall: https://uxbri.org Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld #uxdesign #productdesign #aiindesign

  3. Oct 14

    How a Product Design Director Uses AI to Explore 10 Ideas At Once

    Design school taught us you should explore before you settle on a solution. In reality, most designers sketch two or three options, pick one, and hope nobody asks about edge cases or anything outside of the 'happy flow'. Now that prototyping is so much more accessible, going wide has never been easier. With that in mind, why are so many designers still designing for that happy flow only? In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick talk about conceptual range and depth: going wide to find better design solutions before going deep one that one solution to bring it up to standard. They take down the "double diamond is dead" takes you read everywhere else and focus on the real day-to-day workflow of a modern product designer. Tyler walks through his full process, step by step. He asks Claude for ten variations of a concept in a single prototype with a toggle to switch between them, shares it live with engineering and product, and narrows down from there. Before making any prototype, he maps the flow and edge cases in FigJam. Then he uses a GitHub connector to check his ideas against the real app, and the Figma agent to turn screenshots into design system-ready files for handoff. Like always, Nick is more reserved. He shares what he learned from the Interface Craft course, why context switching while AI works is exhausting, and the risk of anchoring too hard on the design you already have. On one project, it took a developer with a completely fresh idea to break the team out of weeks of going in circles. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 What range and depth mean and why you need both to land on a good solution🔸 Why engineers now want designers to own edge cases and error states🔸 How Tyler prompts for ten design directions in one clickable prototype🔸 What to do while you wait for AI to build, without burning out on context switching🔸 How to push similar-looking variations further until they become truly different ideas🔸 Why Tyler never skips a journey or flow map in FigJam before prototyping🔸 How a GitHub connector lets you check ideas against the real product and scope what fits in two weeks🔸 How to get a full list of edge cases per screen before engineering has to ask🔸 How the Figma agent turns prototype screenshots into design system ready files for handoff🔸 Why new components still need real pixel pushing and craft🔸 The risk of only improving what already exists, and when to start from scratch🔸 How to apply all of this to last episode's hero section challenge Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld #productdesign #uxdesign #aiprototyping

  4. Oct 7

    The One Way to Get Better at (And Still Enjoy) Product Design When AI Does Half the Work

    Every designer wants sharper craft and better taste. But with the new tools generating close to all of your work, it's tempting to skip the design fundamentals entirely. I mean... who knows anything about gestalt or color theory anymore?! Also, social media is full of hot takes claiming UX is dead and the double diamond is over. None of this or the above helps you to enjoy your job as a Product Designer. Luckily, there's a better way. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick continue their series on becoming a modern, in-demand product designer with part two: improving your hard skills. They skip the hype and focus on how you get better at the output, whether you like building everything by hand or running 20 directions in parallel. Tyler makes the case for learning the fundamentals the slow way first, so you can art direct the tools instead of just trusting whatever they come up with. He shares how he uses Figma's agent to apply a design system to his mockups, and why talking through a problem with ChatGPT for 30 minutes is part of his discovery. Nick is much more skeptical and explains why reviewing an AI-generated 80% version can be more exhausting than designing it yourself. They also agree on a very boring answer: repetition. Copy the designers you admire, make something every day, and build a playground of experiments that shows off your range. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why junior designers need to nail hard skills before leaning on AI tools🔸 What AI design tools still get wrong, from happy path flows to generic styling🔸 Why the journey map is the one step you shouldn't skip🔸 How a branch-and-merge workflow could make code the source of truth for design🔸 Why repetition and daily design challenges still beat every shortcut🔸 Why one to two year goals beat a five year plan🔸 How a playground page with 52 experiments helps you stand out, especially as a freelancer🔸 How Tyler uses Figma's agent to apply components, spacing, and variables from a design system🔸 Why the double diamond isn't dead, it's on steroids🔸 How talking a problem through with ChatGPT turns into personal discovery🔸 How Nick and Tyler's opposite working styles show up everywhere, down to a broken dishwasher🔸 This week's challenge: a portfolio hero section with no centered layout that works in English, Spanish, and German Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  5. Sep 30

    The Best Way To Get Product Design Experience When You Have None

    Junior product designers know what it is like. To get a job you need experience; and to get experience, you need a job. How do you break free of this annoying circle? The internet is full of generic suggestions that do not really get you anywhere. Luckily, there's a better way. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick tackle the experience-job circle mentioned above. They skip the tired advice of redesigning a famous website and focus on what gets you real clients, real work, and real proof. Tyler makes the case for doing free work the right way, from pitching local businesses a redesign in exchange for a testimonial to building a home services website before you even reach out. Nick explains why good outreach makes things easier for the other person, and shares the Loom and FigJam combo that gets him a reply almost every time. They also get honest about timelines. Bootcamps promise a new career in weeks. Nick puts it closer to two years and Tyler caps it at one year if you're willing to make sacrifices. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why free work in exchange for a testimonial beats another pet project🔸 How to pitch a local business without sounding desperate🔸 Why freelance-style experience translates to in-house roles🔸 What Dan Mall gets right about cold outreach, and why Don't Make Me Think applies to your pitch🔸 How answering an A or B question with option C landed Nick a client🔸 Why building the website before you pitch speeds up the sale and lets you charge more🔸 How offering to do the job until they find someone can make you the person they keep🔸 Why small, unscalable gestures like handmade cookies or a printed portfolio get you remembered🔸 The two-minute Loom that gets Nick a reply and an invite to talk almost every time🔸 Why vibe coded pet projects can hurt your portfolio, and when a playground page still works🔸 How long it really takes to land your first paying design job Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  6. Sep 23

    Your Product Design Setup - How To Go From Idea To Live Prototype In Just a Few Clicks

    Imagine you found a bug on your client's website. Back in the day, you'd have to get that issue on the agenda and agreed on before even starting to work on it. Today, Nick's website fix went live twelve seconds after he clicked 'sync', and the whole setup costs about twenty-five dollars a month. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick kick off a ten-episode series on how to become a modern, in-demand product designer. They start with the foundation: setting up an environment that helps you get an idea off the ground and into a working prototype fast. It is a modern product designer's way of doing things now. Tyler explains how connecting analytics tools through MCPs gets you a project baseline the same day, and Nick shares why faster data still means you have to think about whether it's the right data. They also break down how designers can capture and act on ideas, from Nick's Granola and Zapier pipeline that scores every meeting red, orange, or green to Tyler's scheduled Claude recaps that catch what he missed in Slack and Jira. Nick closes out with the exact hosting, GitHub, and Claude setup he uses to push changes live. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why connecting analytics through MCPs cuts your baseline research from weeks to a single day🔸 Why faster access to data doesn't help if you're filtering it wrong🔸 What a funnel actually is and how it overlaps with a customer journey🔸 How to match your design to a buyer's mindset so you don't spook them or oversell🔸 How Nick vibe coded a baby tracker for his newborn twins, and why every designer needs a setup that turns an idea into a link in minutes🔸 How to capture ideas automatically with Granola, Zapier, and Slack🔸 How Tyler uses scheduled Claude runs for a daily catch-up, a weekly recap, and one-click vibe coding prompts for open design tasks🔸 The exact stack Nick runs: hosting, GitHub, VS Code, and Claude, plus why Claude Pro is enough to start🔸 Why you still need to learn the rules of design before you can break them Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  7. Sep 16

    The Business Side Of Freelancing - How Nick Prices, Gets Paid, and Builds A Buffer

    Nick's first freelance invoice was for six hundred euros, quoted with a straight face, even though he half expected the client to talk him down. In this episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick dedicate the full conversation to the business side of freelancing, the part that never makes it into a portfolio case study. Nick walks through how he landed his first clients without ever doing cold outreach, why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down, and the pricing structures he actually uses: fifty-fifty splits, milestone billing, and prepaid hour packages. They also get into the financial mechanics most new freelancers never think about, like paying yourself a fixed monthly salary regardless of what comes in, setting aside fifty percent for taxes, and building a six-to-eight-month buffer before you can call yourself safe. Nick closes out with the exact tech stack he runs his business on, and why he's kept it deliberately boring. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 How Nick landed his first freelance clients without ever doing cold outreach🔸 Why he said yes to everything for two years before niching down to SMBs and early-stage startups🔸 The pricing structures that actually work: fifty-fifty splits, milestones, and prepaid hour packages🔸 How to quote your first project when you have zero pricing reference point🔸 Why Nick pays himself a fixed monthly salary and sets aside fifty percent for taxes🔸 How big your buffer should really be before you can call yourself a safe freelancer🔸 The exact, deliberately boring tech stack Nick runs his freelance business on Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

  8. Sep 9

    Design Quick Fire Round - Job Titles, Email Design, and Why AI Made Us Less Proud Of Our Work

    Nick's biggest newsletter open rate was fifty percent when his list was small. Now that it's grown, he's happy with thirty, and neither of them can fully explain why. In this quick-fire episode of The Design Table Podcast, Tyler and Nick answer a stack of rapid questions on product design and careers, each in under five minutes. They cover why email and newsletter design remains such an underrated skill, why designers keep leaving the field entirely to open restaurants and ninja warrior gyms, and how AI has shifted the job from pushing pixels to writing planning documents and doing discovery work. They also debate the statement "AI has made me faster but less proud of what I create," argue over whether job titles actually matter, and swap their favorite misconceptions people have about product design, before Tyler explains why he's stopped justifying his design decisions to stakeholders altogether. In this episode you will learn: 🔸 Why email design is underrated, and how newsletter design differs for personal brands versus enterprise brands🔸 What it means when your open rate drops as your list grows, and why click-through rate might matter more🔸 Why some designers are leaving tech entirely to open restaurants and gyms, and what carries over with them🔸 How AI has shifted design work from pushing pixels to planning and discovery🔸 Whether "AI made me faster but less proud of what I create" is a fair trade🔸 Why job titles matter more for a freelancer's SEO than for an in-house designer's ego🔸 Why Tyler doesn't explain his design decisions unless he's pushed on it, and why that works Subscribe to The Design Table Podcast https://www.designtablepodcast.com/subscribe Resources to help you level up your design career: Get your portfolio and career strategy reviewed with a Design Table Audit https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/design-table-audit Download the Product Design Blueprint https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/product-design-blueprint Join our UX and product design community https://www.designtablepodcast.com/products/ux-and-product-design-community In need of support? Take a look at our resources https://www.designtablepodcast.com/learn More about Tyler and Nick Tyler: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/tyler-white Nick: https://www.designtablepodcast.com/hosts/nick-groeneveld

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About

Get a seat at the table and build the design career you want. This podcast is for designers looking to break in, level up, and take control of their careers—whether you're freelancing, climbing the corporate ladder, or just trying to get noticed. Every two weeks, we dive into career fundamentals, design best practices, and the hottest topics in the design community.

Information

  • Creator
    Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    69
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Nick Groeneveld, Tyler White
  • Show Website
    Design Table Podcast

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