Hi designers!
Welcome to the 29th edition of the CUxD newsletter – a curated set of learnings, inspiration, resources, and tips. I’m Clément, Internal Community Lead, and I’ll be writing to you on behalf of CUxD every week.
If you’re not familiar with CUxD (Cornell User Experience Design), we’re a centralized community for UI, UX, and product designers at Cornell. We learn and grow together both professionally and socially!
Want to be more learn more about UX design?
Table of Contents
Learning time - Integrating AI
Every week, we’ll explore a topic in design. This week, we’ll talk about integrating AI into your design workflow. Not to replace your work, obviously, but to help you explore faster and to think wider.
Use AI for early ideation
You know that “blocked” feeling you get when starting a new project? AI is great at helping you get past the blank canvas. You can:
Generate rough ideas, directions, or concepts
Explore multiple variations quickly
Use it to diverge, not finalize
Think of it like a brainstorming partner, not just a solo designer that does it for you.
AI helps you ideate and brainstorm
Generate content & copy
Instead of spending time finding the perfect label for a button or searching for that Lorem Ipsum Dolor text, use AI to fill in placeholder content and draft microcopy. It’s particularly helpful to automatically to generate text for errors, empty states, or other lists, especially when those messages are similar to all the other ones on the web.
You can use Figma’s “Generate text” feature as seen below:
Leverage AI to automate the manual parts
Turn ideas into quick prototypes
You don’t need perfect fidelity to test ideas. AI tools are great at “one-shotting” prototypes where you can test out your most creative designs, and even create interactive apps! Tools like Replit, Claude Code, or Cursor can help you translate your rough ideas into something visual.
Use AI to transform your ideas into reality
Explore iterations
Staring at the same mockup for hours? Has your client told you to “make it pop” too many times? Or simply out of creative juice? A great tool you can use is Variant, a pretty new website that instantly generates unique and creative layouts starting from an initial design. Compared to other AI tools that simply generate content based on your text query, the strength of Variant lies in copying your existing ideas, and simply reformulating them into other patterns that inspire you.
Variant.com can create lots of different iterations to explore ideas
Internships
NY, $28 - $39 / hr
NY, $15 / hr
NY, $15 / hr
NY, $39 / hr
Remote, $20 / hr
Advice from a fellow designer
About
Hello! I’m Reinesse Wong :) I’m majoring in Information Science (Data Science concentration). I’m originally from Westchester New York.
Fav Figma shortcut
My fav figma shortcut is not actually a shortcut but the cursor chat feature (/) which lets you type in chat with other people online in your design file. If you type in a forward slash you can start chatting with other people and it’s definitely helped me at 2 am when I find a fellow designer up late working on our prototypes or mid fidelity designs.
Previous work experience
Prev. Tech & Data Intern @ Wells Fargo
Prev. Consultant for Philadelphia Inquirer @ Design Consulting at Cornell
Prev. Data Analytics Intern @ Build4Good (New America)
Prev. Consultant for TextQL @ Design Consulting at Cornell
Prev Data Analyst @ Engineers for
Proudest design project
My proudest design project was working as a product designer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, which is a news company based in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It was very rewarding to think outside the box in redesigning their mobile app and ideate on new gen-z features. We were able to go in person for a design crit in the company and meet with design and product head which was an insightful experience.
Advice
Don’t be afraid to explore your interests! I originally started off at Cornell as a premed biological sciences major however pivoted to tech my sophomore year. Joining a design consulting club helped me explore my various interests in product management, data science, product design, and consulting. Although I am pursing data science as a career, design taught me a lot about product sense, understanding stakeholder values, and working in product management methodologies.
Design inspiration
Some cool designs for your dopamine hit!
Outro
That’s all for this week!
Have any feedback or want to see something on the newsletter next week? Email us at [email protected] or reply directly to this email.
See you soon,
Clément @ CUxD