Insights by Mihai Bâlea

AI has entered product design at both ends of the process and barely touched the middle. Discovery now runs through AI research synthesis and synthetic participants, generation runs through prompt-to-prototype tools, and the design phase between them is the only part of the sequence that produces output that somebody can be held to. That distinction matters because generated design output becomes usable only where a system enforces constraints rather than documenting them, and enforcement is the part that most teams have not built. This article uses a three-zone model, discovery, design, and generation, to locate where AI-assisted product design breaks down inside a funded team.

Product design and UI/UX design are not the same service. UI/UX design is the craft of the interface: information architecture, user flows, visual direction, design system foundations. Product design in software development is the phase that runs before a build and decides what gets built, whether it is technically feasible and what it will cost. It is delivered by a trio of product manager, UX designer and software development lead, and it ends in a validated, estimated, buildable scope rather than a set of screens.

The success of any product hinges on how well it meets its users' needs. Crafting a product that genuinely addresses these needs begins with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). An MVP is designed with just enough features to appeal to early adopters while collecting essential feedback for further improvements.

In the dynamic world of startups, launching a full-scale product can be a risky venture. Enter the MVP, or Minimal Viable Product — a lifeline for testing the waters before taking the plunge. But where does UI/UX, the powerful design duo, fit into this equation of building MVPs?

Remember that episode from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. when Chandler decides to go into advertising and wants to create a new and innovative slogan for cheese, saying “Cheese. It’s milk that you chew.”? Very much like the cheese slogan, wheel and the login page, some things just don’t need to be reinvented.