The design process is dead. Here’s what’s replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude)
Source
Lenny Rachitsky
Author
Lenny Rachitsky
Date
Terms in this piece · Glossary
context window — The maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.
Why it matters
A frontline account from Anthropic's Claude design lead on how AI is collapsing the discovery-mock-iterate loop, what an AI-native design/build stack looks like day-to-day, and why conversational interfaces may outlast the hype — useful context windowThe maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.Full definition → for anyone building AI-native products.
Key quotes
“This design process that designers have been taught,
we sort of treat it as gospel, that's basically dead.”
Jenny Wen
“You as a designer actually do not have the time
to make these beautiful mocks anymore.”
Jenny Wen
“A few years ago, 60 to 70% of it
was mocking and prototyping,
but now I feel the mocking up part of it is 30 to 40%.”
Jenny Wen
“It's not just designers who are feeling like,
oh yeah, we have to keep up with engineers
I think even engineers are like,
how do we keep up with ourselves?”
Jenny Wen
“the way that you really lose trust
around quality and releasing something early
is if you release it early and then nothing ever happens.”
Jenny Wen
Chapters
00:00Introduction to Jenny Wen
04:23Why the traditional design process is dead
06:33The two new types of design work
10:00How widespread this shift will be
13:00Day-to-day life as a designer at Anthropic
18:45Jenny's AI stack
20:03Why Figma still matters for exploration
22:25Advice for working with engineers
24:19How to maintain craft, quality, and trust in the AI era
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