Writing

Thoughts on product design, AI, and craft.

Delight in the Age of AI

Surface delight and deep delight are both human territory. AI compresses the middle — the functional, usable layer. Succeeding designers will operate across both ends.

ai-first-designproduct-design

Product Design in the Age of AI

AI is doing to software what the printing press did to manuscripts and desktop publishing did to typesetting. The barrier to making software has never been lower.

aiproduct-designindustry

What Coco Chanel Can Teach Us About Product Design

Applying Coco Chanel's famous advice about restraint to product design. What you remove often says more than what you include.

designcraftphilosophy

Slow by Design: why AI's speed demands human slowness

Have we confused acceleration with innovation? Maybe we're losing the skill of slowing down to think.

aidesigncraft

Designing at warp speed

A reflection on Figma Config 2025, the shift from AI fear to creative partnership, and the tension between speed and intentional craft.

designaifigmacraft

Video Games and the future of AI User Interfaces

Drawing parallels between the evolution of video game interfaces and the trajectory of AI user interfaces.

aiuxgaminginterfaces

Broad Strokes to Fine Lines - moving between high and low fidelity design

The irreplaceable value of starting with lo-fidelity designs, and resisting the urge to move into polished UI too early.

designprocesscraft

Diverging and converging with AI

How AI can be our co-pilot across both divergent and convergent stages of the creative process.

aidesignprocess

Lessons from an Unpopular Digital Assistant

What Clippy's failures can teach us about designing modern AI assistants.

aiuxassistants

©2026 Ben Rowe · San Francisco, California · hello@ben-rowe.com · +1 (510) 269 3435

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