There was this line in this newsletter from Peter Diamandis, where he says that AI can make us Superhuman.

I've been feeling superhuman for a while now - ever since I started coding with AI assistance in late 2023.

Things really hit the stride for me last year, when I realized I could code the Spark prototype end to end - both the front end and the back end, completely with AI.

Spark is simple to use - you upload a video and out comes a completely finished course, along with quizzes and study notes.

But there's a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes.

It took me 8 months and countless iterations to get the output close enough to what I felt comfortable enough to label as an "Alpha".

Without AI though, it might have taken 10x the time or worse..never even gotten completed in the first place.

Did I feel superhuman after that? Yep.

But does it end there? No :)

This is where the story starts.

Here's a screenshot of the currently live version of Spark:

When we first launched the product…between myself and my team, we loved our baby.

It was an echo chamber:

Me: "Doesn't it look great?"
Leena: "Yeah, definitely."
Janaki: "Yes, very smooth."

Thankfully, it wasn't long before we showed it to the outside world.

Here's what a potential customer said:

"I love the product, Vaidy. But the user interface... it looks from the 1980s. Can you fix it?"

1980s... What?!

Beauty lies in the beholder's eyes. And the beholders who matter are our customers. Not ourselves.

Now - what does it take to create a beautiful user interface?

1. Great taste: The designer needs to have a discerning eye for stunning interfaces.

2. Fantastic observation: A hawkish eye to zoom in and spot even the smallest issues in the design, while at the same time zoom out and look at the whole thing at 10,000 feet and notice any mismatches in how everything fits together.

3. Imagination: It's great if I can spot a great design when I see it. But to bring originality to my work, I need to be able to ideate new designs in my own head.

4. Working with design tools: Once I've got the idea, I need to be able to visualize it with design tools.

5. Front end coding: Once the visual design is ready, I need to be able to convert that into working code, so that my users can experience the design while using my product.

With respect to taste and observation skills (in UI design), I would grade myself as average.

Imagining new interfaces, visualizing and building them out? Let's just say, it's not my cup of tea 🙂

Since I barely have only 2 of the above 5 skills needed to even attempt to build beautiful user interfaces, I've always felt handicapped to do this on my own.

What do we do in these situations? We delegate: hire someone full time or outsource to a competent professional.

I reached out to a professional designer for a quote. Here's what he sent me:

We're a bootstrapped company. While it's critical for us to have a better UI, it still didn't feel right investing that much money on the project.

Here's the thought I had: "Have I already given this my best shot with AI?"

The answer was "no". And so there I was, with the ball back in my own court.

I decided to take on the redesign myself.

It's not the easiest decision to make, when staring at a mountain in front of you, that you need to climb all alone.

Correction: It wasn't just me. It was me with AI.

That was early Feb. Just over a month ago.

I think we've made some decent progress since then.

Take a look :)

Did you like it? I certainly do. And thankfully, this time around I'm getting better feedback from folks outside our team as well 🙂 

And so far..it's been quite light on my pocket. About $100 in AI tokens.

That's less than 3% of the quote I got from the designer.

Are we done though? Nope.

It's still a far cry from what my designer friend Manish would describe as "beautiful".

Another mountain. Another day :)

But do I feel even more superhuman now, than I did a month ago? Absolutely.

PS: In one of my upcoming posts, I'll dive deeper into how AI helped me compensate for my design skill gaps.

PPS: By the way - we also snuck in another big feature along with the UI upgrade. Did you notice it in the screenshots above? :)