What Julie Zhuo thinks about design
Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product design at Facebook; author of The Making of a Manager; writes The Looking Glass.
Julie Zhuo 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.
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16 dated positions, 2023 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Julie Zhuo has said — not written or endorsed by them.
Our readingThe rule stated most plainly is that an exceptional interface feels obvious to use, with minimalism and novelty treated as means rather than ends. Around it sit claims about who does the work: roles dissolving, mocks giving way to prototypes, and taste defined as telling excellence from mediocrity.
Their wordsSometimes designers will go to great lengths to make a user interface novel, or minimal, or simple. This is the wrong goal. Novelty, minimalism or simplicity are good heuristics for obviousness, but do not mistake the means for the end.
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Their wordsExcellence in design is not just about craft quality. It is about whether a designer is both willing and allowed to create impact.
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Our readingOkay design improves what is put in front of it; excellent design changes what is possible.
Their wordsOkay design improves what is put in front of it. Excellent design changes what is possible.
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsmanagement is just about in my mind having an outcome. So you want to get something done. That's the thing. You have a northstar. You have a vision and you're just trying to figure out how to use the resources that you have to get that thing done.
↗From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now | Julie Zhuoyoutube.com 1st of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsAnd so the main thing that I felt so excited about and this is something I tell my team all the time is we need to dissolve the boundaries of these traditional roles.
↗From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now | Julie Zhuoyoutube.com 5th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordsI find that sometimes when you have like a designer or product manager and let's say I'm an engineer, then when I have a problem like, oh, I need to figure out the product definition, my default will be, well, I've got these people and that's kind of their job description, so I'm just going to delegate that to them.
↗From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now | Julie Zhuoyoutube.com 6th of 22 in this recording
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Their wordswhat you really want is you want to diagnose with data and treat with design. So data is not a tool that's going to tell you what you should build or what the solution is or how we're going to, you know, cure the fact that you don't have really great retention. It's just not.
↗From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now | Julie Zhuoyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording
- 4 months earlier
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Their wordsSometimes designers will go to great lengths to make a user interface novel, or minimal, or simple. This is the wrong goal. Novelty, minimalism or simplicity are good heuristics for obviousness, but do not mistake the means for the end.
↗Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunitylg.substack.com
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Their wordsThe problem with a blank chat box on a blank page is that it violates the first rule of a high-quality user experience: it isn’t obvious what I can do.
↗Conversational Interfaces: the Good, the Ugly & the Billion-Dollar Opportunitylg.substack.com
- 7 weeks earlier
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Their wordsSay goodbye to cycles of mock and doc feedback, and say hello to code-first prototypes with constant iteration (on prompts, models, etc) to answer three key questions.
↗The Death of Product Development as We Know itlg.substack.com
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Their wordsGood taste: taste is the ability to distinguish excellence from mediocrity. The hand can never consistently produce better than the eye can discern.
↗The Death of Product Development as We Know itlg.substack.com
- 16 months earlier
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Their wordsDo not judge a product’s beauty by its aesthetics; judge it by how it made you feel.
↗The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautifullg.substack.com
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Their wordsIf you cannot get a group of people for whom your product is designed for to generally agree that your design is good, it’s not good.
↗The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautifullg.substack.com
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Their wordsObviousness comes from conforming to people’s existing mental models. Don’t waste time reinventing common UI patterns or paradigms unless they are at least 2x better, or you have some critical brand reason to do so.
↗The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautifullg.substack.com
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Their wordsBetter design does not mean more design. Often, the most obvious designs are invisible.
↗The Looking Glass: How to tell if work is beautifullg.substack.com
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsDesign is not the way it looks, or beautiful colors and animations. It's not the brand or the logo. It is how the product works. Designing is the the process of exploring and arriving at a solution. I believe all builders are designers.
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Their wordsThe more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition. Despite having seen thousands of a/b test results for minor design details, I am still regularly surprised and humbled by my intuition being wrong.