design 11
- The design engineer, who can bring a design's vision to life in code, is still maybe the most important role there is right now.
- Designers should own the quality of the output rather than rely on their agents to determine it.
Derek Briggs
Designer and developer. Principal designer at Shopify; before that head of design at Hypermode (with Kevin Van Gundy, acquired) and, in 2024, Director of Design at Clerk.
Derek Briggs did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
What Derek Briggs says most about
AI agents 3
- A codebase is the most important context an AI agent has, and letting many different models add to it without consistent patterns leads to trouble.
- Designers should own the quality of the output rather than rely on their agents to determine it.
management 3
- Less and less leadership is needed these days, because LLMs and AI tooling give so many answers instantly.
- Deadlines either let work stretch out to fill the time or force a project to be descoped to meet an arbitrary date.
hiring 2
- Companies waste their time hiring many specialists to own every area when that expertise can be deployed horizontally through Markdown files.
- Hire the right people and do not question what they do: velocity and pride both go up.
LLMs 2
- Today's LLMs should not be treated the way yesterday's were, because they are good at doing what you want without much being asked of them.
- Less and less leadership is needed these days, because LLMs and AI tooling give so many answers instantly.
product management 2
- A redesign should reach users step by step, accepting inconsistencies on the way, rather than be built behind a feature flag and flipped over in one day.
- Shipping something without any data on its success leaves no way to know whether it was the right thing for the company.
taste 2
- Taste and craft should be documented as simple markdown skills that every designer's and engineer's agents use, so that greatness happens by accident.
- Anyone can see that one design looks better than another; what makes a good designer great is being able to say what the difference is.