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Google’s design update, hidden feedback, and music as a mood regulator
May, 2025
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👋 This is The Pipette – a monthly newsletter for product builders with links so good their ideas warrant a reply, a forward, or even a discussion in real life.
- Design – Google’s upcoming design system update, Material 3 Expressive, was leaked last week. It features bold pastel colors, playful layouts, and seems geared to attract a younger audience. Because it’s an update to material design, it still has a flat design foundation, but there’s more flair with squiggly accents and mixed fonts. As usual, the internet is deeply divided about whether it’s an improvement – see Reddit for opinions.
- Artificial Intelligence – A beautifully illustrated guide shows how AI can ID a cat. It gradually shows how a neural network is built and trained to perform tasks like identifying an animal from a photo. There are lots of gorgeous animations that explain the process along the way. If you like this kind of visual explanation, check out the Quanta YouTube channel, which has videos like this one about Turing machines!
- Leadership – We all need feedback to improve, but it can be difficult to get it directly, especially as leaders. This hidden feedback remains unsaid, implied, or not surfaced through the proper channels to reach leadership. Start looking out for the signs of this kind of feedback, like a lack of interest in meetings or increased micromanagement. From there, you need to create a safe environment, seek out others’ opinions, and invest in the relationships above, below, and around you.
- Engineering – One of the cardinal sins in the age of AI is using it to outsource your thinking entirely. Relying on it too much, especially for the hard parts of software engineering, like system design, algorithms, and business logic, takes away a necessary part of our growth as engineers and problem solvers. The pain we experience when having to chip away at a challenging issue makes us internalize and retain that information. It’s also worth keeping your coding skills sharp by setting a limit for when you reach for AI tools, tweaking/playing with suggestions to understand them, and solidifying computer science fundamentals.
- Psychology – Emerging research has shown that music can be an effective mood regulator, right up there with mainstream forms of treatment. One study found that people listening to music at home are 11 percent happier and 24 percent less irritable. In addition to improving your mood, the right music can help you perform better at most tasks, from creative pursuits to chores. Silence is still your best bet if you are studying, especially something challenging.
- Workforce – Okta’s CEO believes that AI will create more demand for software engineers over time, not less. This has happened before with other technological advancements (competition sets higher standards despite increased productivity) and is known as Jevons paradox. There’s plenty of data and decision-making from other CEOs to point to the opposite conclusion, but maybe we’re still in the adjustment phase? Fingers crossed there.
- Design – godly.website is a highly curated design inspiration site. In their words – “only the best of the best”. Some key differences compared to competitors like Dribbble or Behance – each item has a GIF that previews the website, and they only feature real, live projects—no hypothetical concepts or redesigns of someone else’s product.