Ask the Expert in Product Design with Koji Pereira

Koji Pereira is a design leader with over two decades of experience. He has launched 0-1 products like Files by Google, Camera Go, Android TV Data Saver, YouTube Go, Google my Business, Google+ and Lyft Pass. Koji has worked on large product redesigns like Orkut, Google News, Neon, and Lyft Business Portal, as well as launched important features to a wide audience like Immersive Video Tweets, Profile Search on Twitter.

He is currently leading design and research at Sigma Computing and recently appeared on The CPO Club podcast to talk all about How Empathy Elevates Product Design In An AI-Obsessed World.

This November, he’s made himself available to spend one hour answering your toughest questions about product design. You might be struggling with:

• How great design can impact businesses and products
• Simplicity vs. feature creeping
• Balancing user feedback vs. innovative points of view
• Why details matter
• Designing for scale
• Starting with user experience and working backwards toward the technology
• Applying user research and design feedback loops

Whatever your challenge may be, we want you to bring your toughest product design questions so we can help equip you with the knowledge to make the best decision for your product.

Timestamps

4:15 – What’s changed in Product Design since you started over 25 years ago?

8:20 – What is the difference, between a product designer and product manager? And how can these two roles work together without encroaching on each other’s tasks?

12:00 – Is the design role going through a consolidation phase after a fragmentation of expertise?

15:15 – Will we see specialist roles disappear?

22:10 – What are your thoughts on using AI in the design workflow just to be more efficient versus using AI to navigate upwards on more strategic roles and more strategic conversations?

27:40 – In an AI-driven world, user experiences will increasingly be personalized based on usage. This means that product functionality and usability could be defined as users interact with it. How do you see the role of UX research and discovery in this new context?

29:40 – If AI replaces junior Product Designers, how will future designers gain experience in this role and gain the skills for higher level roles?

32:00 – What’s the best approach for designers to collaborate with engineering teams when working on AI-driven products?

34:30 – How are you striking the balance between keeping a product simple and easy enough to use while adding new features as requested by customers or your team?

38:30 – Why don’t we see more CDOs or VP-level design roles?

44:00 – As a VP of Design yourself, do you see overlap with CTO or CPO roles?

47:30 – What are some overlooked design details that can make a big impact on user experience?