Archive - Design Decisions

Designing a Product with AI: The Decisions I Still Had to Make

ISSUE 95: a few decisions that mattered much more than the code

Nov 2 • Bear Liu

October 2026

A Netflix Designer Roasted My Portfolio. Here's What I Changed

“I like your website, by the way.” A potential client said that to me on a sales call.

Oct 29 • Bear Liu

15:13

The screens you never demo

ISSUE 94 / The mistake itself was small. What made me leave was a system that offered no way forward and no explanation.

Oct 25 • Bear Liu

Consistency is the cheap part

ISSUE 93 / The interesting part is the handful of places where they do not.

Oct 18 • Bear Liu

How to Tell If Your Paid Feature Is Strong or Fragile (Raycast Teardown)

I open Raycast a thousand times a week, and I still only use it in the simplest way.

Oct 18 • Bear Liu

18:18

Muscle memory is a moat

ISSUE 92 / Linear teaches its keyboard shortcuts in much the same way: inside work you were already doing, never in a tutorial.

Oct 11 • Bear Liu

You control who is in the room

ISSUE 91 / Clearing the space turned out to be the easy part. Deciding what gets it, when two things want the same hour, is harder.

Oct 7 • Bear Liu

Where Does Trust in a Product Come From?

3 Lessons From Wise

Oct 5 • Bear Liu

14:52

September 2026

An AI product needs one front door

ISSUE 90 / Four ways into your AI feature will not get you four times the adoption. It usually gets you no habit at all.

Sep 27 • Bear Liu

I Built an App with Claude Code in 20 Days. Most of the Work Wasn't Code

Three things matter in product design now: taste, judgement and care for details.

Sep 23 • Bear Liu

11:55

A platform’s value hides in the median

ISSUE 89 / Raycast has 2,500 extensions, and that number tells you almost nothing about whether the platform underneath is healthy.

Sep 20 • Bear Liu

How Founders Should Pick a Designer?

Hire for Judgement, Not Screenshots

Sep 16 • Bear Liu

6:53

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