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Show HN: Can AI Help Designers Ideate Better? We Spent 5 Wks Finding Out

May 24, 2025 - news.ycombinator.com
The article discusses an experiment conducted over five weeks to determine if AI can assist product designers during the discovery and ideation phases of the design process. The team evaluated various tools used for discovery, such as Mobbin, Dribbble, Pinterest, Twitter, and Behance, and analyzed typical design thinking workflows. They also reviewed prototyping and idea-capturing tools to build lightweight AI workflows using different LLM tools and frameworks. The result showed that AI could significantly enhance design thinking, particularly for junior and mid-level designers, by facilitating faster idea generation, design critiques, and creative merging.

From this research, the team developed Moonchild, a discovery-stage design ideation tool. Moonchild generates thoughtful UI concepts from minimal prompts, provides structured critiques in response to design questions, and merges styles, flows, and interaction patterns from various sources. It outputs Figma-ready screens and UX flows quickly. The tool is available in private beta, and the team invites feedback from product designers, PMs, and UX professionals involved in early-stage work, offering early access with the code 'hackernews'.

Key takeaways:

  • AI can significantly improve design thinking, especially for junior/mid-level designers, by offering faster idea generation, design critiques, and creative merges.
  • The experiment involved mapping tools used for discovery, breaking down design thinking workflows, and reviewing prototyping tools.
  • Moonchild is a discovery-stage design ideation tool developed from the research, which generates UI concepts, provides design critiques, and merges styles and interaction patterns.
  • Moonchild outputs Figma-ready screens and UX flows quickly, and is available for private beta testing with early access using the code 'hackernews'.
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