--- title: Speaking url: "https://mahdif.com/speaking/" --- # Speaking I talk about designing and building products with AI, as a designer who still ships the code. To invite me, email hello@mahdif.com with the event, the date and who will be in the room. ## Talks ### My actual Claude Code workflow as a designer How I design and ship production software with coding agents. The real setup, the taste file that keeps the output from looking generic, and where a person still matters. *For: Design teams, design engineers and product people.* - [My actual Claude Code workflow as a designer](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-actual-claude-code-workflow-as-a-designer.md) - [How I shipped my first iOS game without shipping AI slop](https://mahdif.com/blog/how-i-shipped-my-first-ios-game-without-shipping-ai-slop.md) - [People told me my site looked AI-generated](https://mahdif.com/blog/people-told-me-my-site-looked-ai-generated.md) ### Build your own tools Analytics I can talk to, a dashboard for my coding agents, an LED screen that shows my token usage. Building your own tools got cheap, and it changes how you think about product. *For: Builders, founders and design engineers.* - [Peeko is open. The first thing it did was lie to me.](https://mahdif.com/blog/peeko-is-open-the-first-thing-it-did-was-lie-to-me.md) - [I built an interface for tmux, and I called it muxo](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-built-an-interface-for-tmux-and-i-called-it-muxo.md) - [I hacked a birthday-gift LED screen into an AI token usage monitor](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-hacked-a-birthday-gift-led-screen-into-an-ai-token-usage-monitor.md) ### My website's first reader isn't human People now ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude instead of Google. How I rebuilt my site for AI agents, and how an event organizer found me through Gemini. *For: Designers, marketers and founders.* - [My new website wasn't designed for humans first](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-new-website-wasnt-designed-for-humans-first.md) - [I built a version of myself](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-built-a-version-of-myself.md) - [The chat on this page is now a product](https://mahdif.com/blog/the-chat-on-this-page-is-now-a-product.md) ### Building disposable UI AI rarely gives you one answer. It gives you nine. Why I build a small page to judge the options, make the call, then throw the page away. *For: Designers and builders working with AI.* - [Building disposable UI](https://mahdif.com/blog/building-disposable-ui.md) ### From a chat on my site to a product I built a chat so my site could answer questions while I slept. Two months of evals later it became Sondo. What it takes to make AI answers right, and what each one costs. *For: Product people and founders building with AI.* - [The chat on this page is now a product](https://mahdif.com/blog/the-chat-on-this-page-is-now-a-product.md) ### Designing a marketing site, on camera Claude Code gave me 13 designs and I rejected all of them. Why the taste still has to come from a person, and how I handed my redesign back to agents to build. *For: Designers and design engineers.* - [Designing a marketing site, on camera](https://mahdif.com/blog/designing-a-marketing-site-on-camera.md) ### My joke website made $150 A joke site built in ten days, launched to two likes, then saved by a Product Hunt launch I forgot about. What a silly project teaches you about shipping. *For: Builders, indie makers and founders.* - [My joke website made $10. Then it made $150.](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-joke-website-made-10-then-it-made-150.md) ### Designer, founder, acting CEO First designer at Ronday, then acting CEO. Founder of DesignQA, then the one who shut it down. What designers bring to running a company, and what they get wrong. *For: Founders and design leaders.* - [Ronday case study](https://mahdif.com/case-studies/ronday.md) - [DesignQA case study](https://mahdif.com/case-studies/designqa.md) ## Formats - **Talks.** 20 to 45 minutes, demo optional - **Panels.** Panels and fireside chats - **Workshops.** Hands-on, for design teams - **Podcasts.** Audio, video or livestream Based in the Bay Area, open to travel or remote talks. ## Short bio Mahdi Farra is a design leader and design engineer with 17 years of experience building products. He designed subscriptions at Meta, led design at Ava and Ronday, where he later served as acting CEO, and founded DesignQA, an AI devtool. He writes about designing and building with AI at mahdif.com. ## Long bio Mahdi Farra is a design leader and design engineer with 17 years of experience building products. Most recently he was a Staff Product Designer at Meta, where he designed subscriptions for Facebook and Meta AI. Before Meta he founded DesignQA, an AI tool that turned UI bugs into code fixes. He was Head of Design at Ava, which builds captioning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. At Ronday he joined as the first designer, grew the design team to six, helped prepare the deck for the company's $7M seed round, and later stepped in as acting CEO. He designs and ships production code, increasingly with AI, and builds his own tools in public, from Peeko, an analytics tool you can talk to, to Sondo, the AI that answers questions on his site. He writes and records videos about all of it at mahdif.com. ## Headshots - [Outdoor, 1024px JPG](https://mahdif.com/images/speaking/mahdi-farra-headshot.jpg) - [Studio, 1024px JPG](https://mahdif.com/images/speaking/mahdi-farra-headshot-studio.jpg) - [Glasses, color, 2048px JPG](https://mahdif.com/images/speaking/mahdi-farra-headshot-glasses.jpg) - [Glasses, black and white, 2048px JPG](https://mahdif.com/images/speaking/mahdi-farra-headshot-glasses-bw.jpg) ## Writing behind the talks - [Building disposable UI](https://mahdif.com/blog/building-disposable-ui.md) - [People told me my site looked AI-generated. So I designed it 12 more times.](https://mahdif.com/blog/people-told-me-my-site-looked-ai-generated.md) - [My joke website made $10. Then it made $150.](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-joke-website-made-10-then-it-made-150.md) - [The chat on this page is now a product](https://mahdif.com/blog/the-chat-on-this-page-is-now-a-product.md) - [Designing a marketing site, on camera](https://mahdif.com/blog/designing-a-marketing-site-on-camera.md) - [Peeko is open. The first thing it did was lie to me.](https://mahdif.com/blog/peeko-is-open-the-first-thing-it-did-was-lie-to-me.md) - [How I shipped my first iOS game without shipping AI slop](https://mahdif.com/blog/how-i-shipped-my-first-ios-game-without-shipping-ai-slop.md) - [I built an interface for tmux, and I called it muxo](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-built-an-interface-for-tmux-and-i-called-it-muxo.md) - [I replaced Google Analytics with an analytics system I can talk to](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-replaced-google-analytics-with-an-analytics-system-i-can-talk-to.md) - [My laptop is closed and the agents are still working](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-laptop-is-closed-and-the-agents-are-still-working.md) - [I hacked a birthday-gift LED screen into an AI token usage monitor](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-hacked-a-birthday-gift-led-screen-into-an-ai-token-usage-monitor.md) - [I built a version of myself. Most people tried to break it.](https://mahdif.com/blog/i-built-a-version-of-myself.md) - [My new website wasn't designed for humans first](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-new-website-wasnt-designed-for-humans-first.md) - [My actual Claude Code workflow as a designer](https://mahdif.com/blog/my-actual-claude-code-workflow-as-a-designer.md)