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🎨 Do solo makers need a UI/UX designer?

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For solo makers, wearing every hat is almost unavoidable - developer, marketer, support, product… and often designer too.

AI makes this even easier now. You can generate UI pretty quickly, but a lot of products end up relying on consistent, polished AI-generated solutions rather than something truly unique or thoughtfully designed for their specific product.

So I’m curious:

Do you design the UI/UX yourself when building solo?

Or do you think bringing in a designer (even for a few key screens) is worth it?

And if you’re using AI for design, do you feel it’s enough to get you to a good product experience?

Would love to hear how other makers approach it.

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The hardest part for me isnt the UI anymore. its knowing whether the flow actually makes sense to someone who didnt build the product.

 It’s a real pain =)
When you know the flow you’ve created so well, it’s hard to judge whether it actually makes sense or feels convenient for users.

That’s why early users are so valuable, they give you the best feedback.

AI is great at making things pretty. i am still not convinced its great at knowing what should be there.

 How do you approach your UI/UX?

One thing i have learned that users dont care that the UI took you two days to perfect. they care that they found the button they needed in five seconds.

 Nice approach!

Quick UX tests with real users can help a lot. You just sit and watch how they interact with the UI, and then make decisions based on what you see.

   We try to do this every so often. It's fascinating to watch what different people do and don't find intuitive! And oh so painful 🫣

   Yes =( This truth definitely exists!

But it really helps you better understand and analyze the user experience.

it's kinda enough tbh

when starting out, we are just trynna validate the idea and get some traction

so, imo, just build the very basic version of the product and get it to users

it can be redesigned later on, and you can add a few more people to the team

that's what im doing

im designing & building the product with AI, and i will later have a team to work on it if it turns out to be something worth doing for a long time

 Users today are very demanding. I think they’re used to smooth, polished experiences, so even if a product has a great idea, a very basic version might not appeal to them.

I tried doing everything myself for my last project. it worked but looking back, i probably spent way too many evenings tweaking spacing instead of talking to users.

 Yes, that could be the case =D

Do you think spacing really matters that much, or is what matters more whether the product is catchy and actually solves a real pain point?

I would say that if you know the principles, it is not a necessity, but at least, I would like to have an opinion from up to 5 professionals who could give me a feedback for better design.

 Nice idea - having a platform where you can get valuable feedback on your UI designs from experienced professionals could be really useful!

I usually handle the first version myself because product context matters most early. A designer becomes valuable when usability problems start appearing.

 So, am I right that for you the most valuable part of a designer’s work is creating a good user experience first, and only then making the design catchy?

I lean on AI for the base UI but bring in a designer for the key screens that actually need to feel unique. Gets you to good enough fast, but you can usually tell when a product skipped a real designer entirely

 Happy to see that the value of a really good designer still exists in the AI era =D

I would out source taste before i outsource product thinking.

 Are you building any product?

For me onboarding is where i would spend the design budget. if user dont understand the product in the first few minutes, polishing the dashboard probably wont save it.

 Agree 100%! Onboarding is key.
What strategies do you use - interactive onboarding, tutorials, or making the initial experience very intuitive?

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