As we write this article, our team is in full swing redesigning our application, and one thing that came to mind from our previous MVP. We were focused solely on the old way of working and niched ourselves down to a way of working which we are now seeeing is becoming more and more obselete as each day goes. The role of UX & UI designers has changed, and we're hearing more about designers being involved in the development process than ever before.
Back in the day, a designer would also be involved in some form of coding or actually do it themselves. Those days were the Unicorn days, when employers hired designers who could take their designs to code, and they were better off for it, as the designers paid a lot of attention to the minor details that developers never paid much attention to. Then we moved into an era of specialisation, where designers focused solely on the design part. Yes, they would know some form of coding. Still, it wasn't necessary as employers were looking for people to specialise in a particular area so that other team members could focus on another speciality. Fast forward to today, and now the time of the unicorn has come back again, but this time it is with the help of AI. With so many tools out there that let designers turn designs into code in a short time, we are seeing that designers are being asked whether they can also code the designs. This offers many opportunities to people who have never done it before, but unlike the unicorn, where you had to have some knowledge of code, now you need to be able to write a prompt, but write it well. The quality in your output is how clear and concise your context is in your prompt, and not so much in the technical knowledge (though it does help when you get stuck in a rut with vibe coding tools). Still, the time to take something to production is getting shorter, in terms of the effort, time, and resources needed. This is where the Design Engineer position has come into full force, giving designers the chance to take their designs to code without needing another team or multiple alignment meetings to get them right.
We looked at this in detail when we revised our MVP because the old way of working in Figma and handing over designs is slowly becoming outdated, time-consuming and prone to multiple errors and rework. As companies shift ideas about where to cut resources and use as much agentic AI as possible, I think designers can still keep their jobs. The uptake is massive at the moment, with more and more designers moving to vibe-coding platforms and skipping the design-in-Figma process altogether. There will still be times when designers work in Figma. Still, the doors are opening up more and more, with a lot of work moving towards prompting, and designers are another area moving towards that space very fast, as development has done.
We think that with these new ways of working, workflows will change in organisations dramatically and will see a shift in ownership of each part of the digital product, which is what designers have always strived for. The question is, are designers now ready to move and shift towards this new role, or do they want to stay comfortable in the place where they know best? Designing on a digital canvas has been around since the Photoshop years, and it is still tedious to be a full AI designer. However, the question still boils down to the design team having to learn another skill set to keep alive in this ever-changing career.