Show notes
In this episode, Craig sits down with Francois Brill, Head of Product at Castos and longtime design collaborator, for an honest and entertaining conversation about what it really takes to build great-looking products in the age of AI. Using Outlier as a live case study, Francois walks through the marketing site and product UX in real time, calling out the small but costly design mistakes that make AI-built tools look generic. From embarrassing mismatched button styles to cognitive overload on ideation pages, this episode is a must-listen for anyone vibe-coding their next SaaS app and wondering why it just does not feel polished.Highlights from Craig and Francois’ conversation:AI-generated design is the new "tell" that your product was built without a designerPicking one mode, light or dark, is almost always better than trying to do bothRounded inputs paired with square buttons is one of the most common and fixable design mistakesColor should guide user action, not decorate the interfaceUX is how something works; UI is what it looks like, and they require different thinkingCognitive overload kills conversion, especially on feature-rich pages like ideation toolsA Design MD file can teach AI your brand system so every output stays consistentCode is cheap now, so the value has shifted to vision, taste, and design thinkingBuilding fast and iterating beats trying to get it perfect the first timeIf everyone can prompt the same thing, standing out requires taste and a real systemResources and Links from This Episode:Clearly Design: https://www.clearly.design/ Francois on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fbrill/ Outlier: https://outlier.so/ Castos Free Tools: castos.com/toolsEmail me: [email protected] Find me on Twitter: @TheCraigHewittIf you feel like Rogue Startups has benefited you, and it might benefit someone else, please share it with them. If you have a chance, give Rogue Startups a review on iTunes. Do you have any comments, questions, or topic ideas for future episodes? Feel free to reach out to me:Twitter: @TheCraigHewittLinkedIn: Craig HewittEmail: [email protected]

