Sometimes, you have to be comfortable saying, “This working relationship isn’t working for me.

Mustofa Al-Ameen Mustafa — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 23:17:58 +0000

I almost walked away from a project recently.

Not because I couldn’t do the work.

Actually, I was doing the work. Designing screens, making changes, thinking through the UX, trying to understand what the client wanted.

But somewhere along the line, things started getting frustrating.

I’d design something based on the brief, send it over, and sometimes the response would be:

“This isn’t what I requested.”

Then I’d look back at the brief thinking, Wait… what did I miss? 😅

Sometimes the request would change. Sometimes I’d be asked to make something look like an existing design. And with every new round of feedback, I started realizing that the problem wasn’t necessarily my ability to design.

It was communication.

Expectations weren’t always clear. Feedback wasn’t always easy to translate into a design decision. And eventually, the project started taking more energy than it should.

That experience taught me something I probably should have learned earlier:

Being a good designer isn’t enough.

You have to know how to manage a client.

You have to ask better questions.

You have to document decisions.

You have to set boundaries.

And sometimes, you have to be comfortable saying, “This working relationship isn’t working for me.”

I’m still figuring out freelancing.

But every difficult project teaches me something the easy ones never could.

This one definitely did.

AI didn’t replace my design process. It changed how fast I could execute it.

Mustofa Al-Ameen Mustafa — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 22:11:12 +0000

AI didn’t replace my design process. It changed how fast I could execute it.

I’ve been experimenting with AI tools in my UI/UX workflow, and one thing has become clear:

AI is great at generating ideas.

But knowing what to build, what to remove, and why a user should care is still the designer’s job.

My workflow has started looking something like:

PRD → User flows → Wireframes → AI-assisted exploration → UI design → Prototype → Testing

The biggest win isn’t “AI designed this for me.”

It’s moving from an idea to something tangible much faster.

The tools are getting better every month.

The interesting part is figuring out how designers can actually use them without losing the thinking behind the work.

I’m still experimenting.

What’s your experience been like using AI in your design or development workflow?

DEV Community: Mustofa Al-Ameen Mustafa

Sometimes, you have to be comfortable saying, “This working relationship isn’t working for me.

AI didn’t replace my design process. It changed how fast I could execute it.