Henry Modisett - Designing a unicorn AI startup from nothing
Imagine leading the design of an AI product that skyrockets to a billion+ dollar valuation in under two years…That’s the story of Perplexity and today we get to hear from their founding designer and current Head of Design, Henry Modisett. Some of the highlights from this conversation:What it takes to thrive as a founding designerWhy Henry likes hiring designers who can codeThe challenges of designing dynamic interfacesWhy Henry didn’t want to anthropomorphize the AIThe initial creative direction for the Perplexity brandThe keys to making a consumer product cognitively fastWhy Henry built a mini design system as his very first stepa lot moreSHOW NOTESIvan (CEO of Notion)’s tweet about not having a design systemPerplexity’s incredible brand designer named PhiWe talked about how booking.com is a masterclass in optimizing UIKEY TAKEAWAYSStarting with a design systemBefore Henry had any idea what the Perplexity product would become, he built a component system in React as the first step. The goal was to give himself a toolbox to make it easy to assemble new features. Many components are obvious (ex: you know you’ll need a grid, type system, color system, buttons, etc.). We don’t have to overcomplicate design systems. They’re the thing you invest in to move fast… not the thing you invest in once you have most of the interface figured out.Empowerment through codeWhen you write code, you develop a stronger emotional attachment to the product. You’re also empowered to continually make improvements without having to go through engineers. The more removed you are from what ships, the easier it is to dish blame on someone else for an experience being janky.“Having designers that can code is a hack…quality just happens”Velocity is everythingHenry makes a point to prioritize velocity over exploration, debate, visual design, etc. And a big part of what makes that possible is empowering designers to make decisions. If it’s a UX question, the designer needs to make a call (”go with your gut and if you want to change it later you can”). This is also why having designers who can code is key. Nothing is cemented. You don’t need permission to iterate after something ships.Dynamic UI systemsAt the root of Perplexity are UI systems that display dynamic content based on what the user searches. That means as a designer you can’t possibly mock up all use cases. You have to think about interfaces as slightly abstracted (ex: “entity comparison” which can work for comparing dog breeds, restaurants, etc.). Part of designing a dynamic system is you have to be ok with percentage outcomes. Sometimes the formatting isn’t going to be perfect.You’re designing the system, giving AI the tools to use, and hoping that it works most of the time.
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