Interview with Shane Levine
This past Monday, Shane and I went live on X and chatted all things NYC, getting into product design, and designing for AI at Captions.
The backstory here is a classic NYC one. Shane and I met at an event on Thursday last week, after following each other on X for a while. Then on Monday we recorded, and now we’re here. These types of things are in my mind what makes NYC so great, and more generally, what makes the creative and tech scene so great. Shoutout to Shane for setting this up! Cross-posting some excerpts from Shane’s blog here as they relate to some of the writing I shared before, as well as writing that’s still in drafts!
Checkout the entire post (and others) on Shane’s blog ‘Design for Builders’
Checkout the live recording on X
Environment as a design tool
Living in Manhattan has been transformative for Midas's design process, but not in the way you might think.
Being in-person with his team at Captions is game-changing: "I love all my coworkers. They're so smart, so good at what they do. Just seeing the type of work they do is extremely inspiring."
But NYC's real value isn't the stimulation, it's the processing time.
"You take in so many stimuli day-to-day subconsciously. The job is letting yourself process those stimuli."
His solution: the West Side Highway. Running, walking, and giving his brain permission to calm down and process the day.
"Things that I might've subconsciously taken in need their fair share to find their way somewhere in the neural net of my brain, settle, and come out when it's the right time."
The curiosity engine
What drives exceptional designers? Midas traces it back to a simple system:
“Look at people where you want to be. Figure out what they were doing at your age. Obsess over it while doing what you personally care about.”
But the real key is following rabbit holes with "childish curiosity and almost naivety."
Whether it's a random color that catches your eye, an interaction that feels perfect, or a technical limitation that sparks creativity, the magic happens when you lose yourself for hours exploring something that genuinely interests you.
"That's what I do on a philosophical life level, but it's also what I do day-to-day with designs. I make one flow and think, 'I like this one part.' How can I make the entire flow just about that part?"
Using AI as your design critique partner
Here's where it gets interesting. Midas uses AI not just for generation, but as a feedback mechanism.
When designing paywalls (where every pixel affects conversion), he feeds the design to ChatGPT with full context:
Where it's shown in the app
The target audience
User types they hope will convert
Then he prompts it: "You are a super senior staff product designer with a background in data analytics who founded your own company..." and asks for a critique.
"Pretty often, something good comes out of it."
He also uses AI to simulate user experiences, writing scripts that test different user inputs and interface responses to understand the full range of what users might see.
The future of vibe designing
Everyone talks about vibe coding with Cursor, but what about vibe designing?
Midas sees a shift happening. Early AI tools did 10-15% of creative work while humans did the rest. Now that ratio is flipping AI does the majority, humans provide the crucial 10-20% of taste and direction.
"As AI gets better at predicting human input, less interface might be required in applications."
This means designers need to think differently:
Instead of rigid flows, design for ranges of possible UI states
Use AI to simulate user journeys and understand what experiences could look like
Focus on the minimum and maximum interface that users might see
"My job is changing from designing fixed flows to figuring out the range of UI that users could possibly see."
Checkout the entire post on Shane’s blog ‘Design for Builders’
Checkout our live recording here on X