Design Review: Marvin Schwaibold on AI, Craft, and Product Design

Key Takeaways

• AI has changed the tools, not the iterative nature of design. Marvin uses Figma as a sketchpad, then moves quickly into tools such as Codex and Claude Code to create testable prototypes.
• Designers remain responsible for quality. AI can produce complex work and code, but people must set direction, judge what looks right, and edit the results.
• Break complex work into smaller tasks. AI is most effective when designers understand the problem and explain it in manageable steps.
• Prototypes speed up collaboration. Working demos help teams understand and evaluate ideas faster than written specifications alone.
• A strong interface guides attention. Prioritize one main user goal, reduce clutter, and reveal information progressively.
• Interaction details matter. Responsive, intuitive animations and controls can communicate craft and make products easier to use.

Marvin’s Background and Shopify Work

Marvin previously co-led Molly, a Brooklyn design studio that worked with clients including Collins, Apple, and Google. The studio focused on web and product design, content strategy, and carefully crafted interactions.

At Shopify, Marvin leads a product design studio working on important product surfaces, including the admin experience, Sidekick, and the mobile app. The team is helping modernize Shopify’s interfaces while exploring how merchants can use AI conversations to manage their stores.

A key direction is to bring relevant actions directly to merchants—for example, suggesting a product-description improvement and letting the merchant apply it through a Sidekick conversation.

AI-Enabled Design Workflow

• Use Figma to make ideas visible, especially when motion or behavior is hard to describe in words.
• Give AI visual references, sketches, screenshots, and clear instructions.
• Test prototypes early, then expose adjustable parameters so designers can refine behavior directly.
• Treat AI as a patient collaborator: iterate repeatedly, compare results, and explain what needs to change.
• Use AI to explore work that might previously have been too costly or time-consuming to prototype.

Marvin illustrated this with a grass-shader project. After an initial result missed the mark, he and AI broke the scene into components, clarified the terrain’s depth and shape, and exposed controls for grass length and wind. The process showed how understanding the underlying system—and adjusting it directly—can improve results.

Website Reviews

Nstack

• Strengths: The site drops visitors directly into an interface that appears to be the product; its retro, playful style is distinctive.
• Issues: The page feels crowded, and it is unclear what users should focus on or do first.
• Suggestion: Make the product’s main purpose and primary action clearer, and reduce competing elements.

Skill Sync

• Strengths: The core offering is relatively easy to identify.
• Issues: Small typography and dense feature details make the page hard to scan. Some animations add decoration without clarifying the product.
• Suggestion: Organize the offering around a few core benefits, explain each with purposeful visuals, and let users explore deeper details rather than compressing everything into tabs.

Instaplay

• Strengths: The product offers an appealing way to create and play games.
• Issues: Visitors may think the site is mainly for browsing games, while the key action—creating a game—is not prominent. Requiring sign-in before users can experience their creation weakens the first-use flow.
• Suggestion: Clarify the creation experience, let users reach the “aha” moment before asking them to sign up, and make navigation more intuitive.

Mintlify

• Strengths: A clean, professional presentation; strong typography and spacing; a clear primary action; and credible customer logos.
• Issues: Some feature headlines are too small or compete with visuals. Repeating the same background animation reduces its impact.
• Suggestion: Keep the strong, restrained layout while making important messages easier to notice. Structure the homepage as a clear sequence of key topics.

Nullify

• Strengths: The example videos appear well made and demonstrate the product’s potential.
• Issues: The headline is difficult to parse, the product’s purpose is not clear enough at first, and video examples are hard to browse. Scroll-jacking and awkward controls make the page feel sluggish.
• Suggestion: Explain the product plainly near the top, showcase videos prominently, make them easy to open and browse, and preserve natural scrolling.

Instinct

• Strengths: The site quickly communicates its focus on lunar and aerospace technology, and real footage builds credibility.
• Issues: Some animations take too long to reveal their meaning; certain carousel controls are restrictive; and some interior pages feel inconsistent with the homepage’s typography and art direction.
• Suggestion: Make key visual moments faster and clearer, use consistent typography, and ensure carousels support natural dragging and scrolling. Marvin also recommended the open-source Blossom Carousel as a useful starting point.

Practical Design Principles

1. Decide what users should understand or do first.
2. Remove elements that compete with that priority.
3. Use visuals to explain the product, not merely decorate it.
4. Make interactions responsive and easy to interrupt.
5. Let users scroll and navigate naturally.
6. Use AI to explore more options—but curate the results with a clear design standard.
7. Keep experimenting: reference good work, sketch unclear behavior, and iterate until the experience feels right.