An Engineer-Entrepreneur's Pursuit to Showcase Authentic Taiwanese Cuisine

Stories

June 24, 2023

A successful engineer by day and an entrepreneur by night, that’s what Derek Ting is.

Derek followed his passion for entrepreneurship and launched FREESTYLE a few years back, a brand with the purpose to help and inspire individuals out there to pursue their own path in life through sharing stories, empowering messages, bold designs, and building a community. But he didn’t stop there.

Without a professional experience in the kitchen or background in culinary, but with a dream of sharing Taiwanese cuisine with more people in the world, he brought Little Ding’s to life.

In an interview with Asian Hustle Network, Derek shared insights into his entrepreneurial journey. Join us as we delve into Derek Ting’s remarkable story, uncovering the secrets to his success and the invaluable lessons he has learned along the way.

DEREK’S JOURNEY BOTH AS AN ENGINEER AND ENTREPRENEUR

I graduated back in 2019 with an engineering degree while working to launch my first real brand/business, FREESTYLE, but I wasn’t always into business or entrepreneurship. Before 2015, I thought that being an engineer was “IT” for me. I thought engineering was everything I wanted and everything I would be doing for the rest of my life so I didn’t even think of any other possibility.

In 2015 I took on my first internship/Co-op after freshman year at IBM/Globalfoundries which was honestly a dream come true for me (I mean what freshman wouldn’t be excited about an opportunity like that?). Little did I know, that experience would change everything for me but in the complete opposite way I thought it would.

Seeing the energy of the people who were there for 20-30 years made me realize I needed to do something else, something different. That was when I read my first book, started taking stocks more seriously, and started trying out a whole bunch of different ventures/ideas/things. And for those of you who don’t know what you want to do yet, it’s okay to not know, but you won’t know unless you go out and try a whole bunch of different things!

Nothing stuck with me until later in college, which was FREESTYLE, but even then I wasn’t anywhere near launch by the time I graduated so I stuck out engineering as a way to support myself while I go on this journey to figure “business” out.

FREESTYLE didn’t take off how I wanted it to and I slowly learned that business in general and then each industry had their own “game” to play but I knew how important it was for me to continue to go through the growing pains. Experience compounds and business principles transfer over to new ventures so it was important I kept going despite not finding “success” so I could keep learning. I don’t believe that I’d be able to do what I’m doing with Little Ding’s today and at the speed we’re going at if I didn’t keep building FREESTYLE.

It’s been 5 years since I started building an actual brand/business and 7 since I started learning about entrepreneurship and I’m only getting started!

Little Ding’s has been something I’ve wanted to build for a long time and the accumulation of all of my past experiences, knowledge, and network is moving us forward and getting us opportunities at a speed that I couldn’t have predicted. It’s been really cool and super mind blowing but again, this is only the beginning, we haven’t even gotten started yet!

I’m blessed that I am also a full-time engineer on the side because being an engineer (specifically in data and analytics), has helped me develop and refine skills necessary in business but not stressed such as the importance of understanding numbers, metrics, and data pertaining to each aspect of the business. Is it hard to do all of the above? Yeah, my entire life at this moment is just work… but I love it.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

In the process of building FREESTYLE and Little Ding’s, I learned that limits are self-imposed.

I’m a huge dreamer, and I love challenges. The process and hardships of entrepreneurship, which are basically personal development, helped me to discover that every time I pushed myself to what I thought was my limit, I could handle more, and once I realized that the playbook was entirely up to me, I went kind of crazy (in a good way of course).

For example, I launched Little Ding’s in October of 2022. We then did ONE small event in November and ONE event in January. How were we able to handle the largest food events on the west coast, back-to-back weekends, and even introduce a new menu item? Because that’s exactly what we did when we did the Water Lantern Festival, into the first and second Foodieland, the first 626 Mini Night Market, the first We Bridge Expo in Vegas into more and more up to now, where within 8 months of even existing, we are coming for the main 626 events in SoCal!

STAYING TRUE TO THE FLAVORS OF AUTHENTIC TAIWANESE CUISINE

My goal with Little Ding’s is to bring Taiwanese food out to more of the world, and so doing that means the food I focus on has to be somewhat relatable between cuisines such as Taiwanese popcorn chicken, where almost everyone has some idea of what popcorn chicken is, but maybe not necessarily Taiwanese popcorn chicken.

When thinking about new food items to add, I’m envisioning myself taking a stroll through Taiwan’s night markets and seeing which foods are popular that I remember the taste of and would be easily accepted in the States.

When it comes to testing recipes, I gather a ton of different online recipes and lay out all of the ingredients that are being used to figure out what each ingredient adds to the recipe and then slowly test out the ratios until the taste brings me back to the streets of the night market.

I may not come from a culinary background or know a ton about ingredients but I have good taste buds and I can remember taste even if I didn’t know what made it.

The reality is that, it is a LOT of testing and as much as everyone around me enjoys the food I make and the recipes I created, I myself got a bit sick of them because I ate each item that I tested multiple times a day for weeks before I got the recipes to where I wanted them AND THEN I would continue to adjust as I got feedback from all of my guinea pigs *cough* I mean friends, in Vegas.

It’s a bit easier now because I have a team so I don’t have to eat as much of my own food over and over again but it’s still a lot of testing especially to stay true to the flavors of authentic Taiwanese cuisine.

OVERCOMING HURDLES

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become.
Derek Ting

I love challenges in general so I actively seek them out for us to take on and I think almost every event we’ve done was a challenge because every single one was unique.

But in terms of the challenges we’ve faced where things went wrong or weren’t great for us, a lot of it comes down to the long-term vision and how focused you are on it. We came out swinging when we launched Little Ding’s and crushed our first event. We thought it would be like that for other events too but we were met with two financial losses in a row, one of them being -$2,700 which hurt really bad especially when we’re just getting started and every dollar meant more.

So this is where the long term vision comes in. If I look at the 3-month timeline, we’re absolutely broken. We invested thousands, made some back at the first event, and then dug a deeper ditch with the next two events. If I look at the 6-month timeline, well okay we have Foodieland and 626 Vegas coming up, and we have a good chance of making those losses up at those events. If I look at the 2-year timeline, we should have 1-2 stores open by then with catering clients set and be doing multiple events a weekend.

The more I zoom out, the smaller the stumbles become. Even if they hurt a ton at the time. Another thing I will note is that as a founder or leader, you can’t break… at least not in front of your team. It’s good to be transparent with how business is doing but even in those moments, you have to excite your team.

And there are of course countless challenges with doing outdoor events especially not having done any yourself but those typically come down to how fast you can think on the spot and how well you can adapt to situations which honestly becomes second nature after enough practice.

OTHER VENTURES DEREK IS INTERESTED IN EXPLORING

I have a ton of ideas in my head that I want to eventually build out, including a sister shop to Little Ding’s focused on Taiwanese desserts, a co-working space with incubator access, with access to investors, schools similar to the one founded by the Blue Man Group in Manhattan, universal educational platforms for everyone, and I do want to get into Esports but that one is more of a “for fun” project.

HOW DEREK DEFINES SUCCESS

Success to me has changed a lot throughout the years and a lot of it had to do with the friends I have around me.

Before, success to me was making a ton of money to buy my parents and myself nice things and not having to work anymore. Now, success to me is being able to create without anything holding you back.

Create businesses, opportunities, and experiences for those around you. That’s what I care about and want to do and there’s some debt I have to pay off first but honestly, I think I’ll be successful as long as I can get both myself and businesses in the green because after that, I’ll have some money to do more of the above!

ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OR SKILLS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

The essential qualities or skills I believe every entrepreneur should have or be working on are: communication and vision, humility, adaptability and decision-making, mental fortitude and perseverance, and patience and optimism.

I think the ones I grouped together work hand in hand!

Communication should include vision because your team should always know where you’re going as a company and where they’re going/where they can go within the company. Drop your ego, you don’t know as much as you think you do, and listening can save you time, money, and resources.

Being able to adapt pretty much means making a decision to change on the spot but both are important and practice helps a lot here.

You have to have the mental fortitude to push through because it’s not easy (principles are simple but insanely hard to master).

The last one is patience where you have to be patient with the results of your work since it might not show up for years and that plays in with optimism because you have to see that you will succeed (the “light”) otherwise you might need to re-evaluate your current trajectory.

CONNECT WITH DEREK

IG:

Derek Ting – @duhricehero

Little Ding – @littledingscafe

FREESTYLE – @frstyleofficial

Websites/Blogs:

Little Ding’s – littledingscafe.com

Little Ding’s Blogs (Medium) – @littledingscafe

FREESTYLE – frstyleofficial.com

FREESTYLE Podcast – Spotify

News

Love, Bonito x Asian American Girl Club Present the ‘TrailBlazer’ Collaboration

Love, Bonito and Asian American Girl Club have joined forces to launch the TrailBlazer Collaboration—a tribute to Asian American women breaking barriers, redefining leadership, and inspiring future generations. This campaign celebrates five extraordinary women, each donning a unique limited-edition Love, Bonito x Asian American Girl Club blazer that serves as a true reflection of their confidence, resilience, and identity.

Meet the Trailblazers:

Ally Maki – Actress, Advocate, and Founder of Asian American Girl Club, Ally embodies power and purpose in the RuchedReady® Rachel Blazer—made for the woman who rolls up her sleeves and gets things done

Sherry Cola – Comedian, Actress, and Storyteller, Sherry embodies authenticity in the Alya Boxy Crop Blazer, a reflection of her bold humor and vibrant energy.

Amanda Nguyen – Astronaut and Founder of Rise, Amanda exudes resilience and advocacy in the RuchedReady^®Lapelles Soft Blazer, a symbol of strength and justice.

Michelle Kwan – Olympic Figure Skater and Diplomat, Michelle showcases her grace and determination in the RuchedReady^® Classic Regular Fit Blazer, a nod to her unwavering spirit both on and off the ice.
Paravi – Popstar and Actress, Paravi brings her dreamy vibes and fearless creativity to the RuchedReady^® Aera Slim Blazer—because bold artistry deserves a bold fit.

The Trailblazers (from left to right): Michelle Kwan, Ally Maki, Sherry Cola, Amanda Nguyen, Paravi

A Mission-Driven Collaboration

“At Love, Bonito, we share a common mission with Asian American Girl Club—to champion and uplift Asian American women in spaces where they have long been underrepresented,” said Dione Song, CEO of Love, Bonito. “This Trailblazers collaboration is a tribute to the trailblazers shaping industries, breaking barriers, and inspiring communities worldwide.”

A Pin with Purpose

Every detail in this collection carries a deeper meaning. Each blazer from the collaboration comes with a custom pin set representing a trailblazer’s journey:

The Phoenix – A symbol of resilience and rebirth, reminding women of their power to rise after every challenge.
The Sakura – Representing renewal and growth, celebrating transformation and new beginnings.
The Ginkgo – A timeless emblem of endurance and strength, honoring those who stand firm in adversity.

Now More Than Ever

“Asian American women have always driven powerful change, though our stories have often gone untold,” said Ally Maki, Founder of Asian American Girl Club. “Through Trailblazers, we’re affirming that our impact and leadership across all industries has always been—and will continue to be—undeniable.”

Join the Movement

Discover the TrailBlazer Collection at https://www.lovebonito.com/us/global/trailblazers-aagc

About Love, Bonito:

Love, Bonito is the leading female-founded fashion brand in Southeast Asia, dedicated to empowering women through thoughtful, versatile designs. With a deep understanding of the modern woman’s needs, Love, Bonito creates timeless and functional pieces that blend style with confidence. More than just a fashion brand, Love, Bonito is committed to fostering a strong, supportive community—championing women in every stage of their journey through representation, storytelling, and purpose-driven initiatives.

About Asian American Girl Club:

Asian American Girl Club (AAGC) is a cultural force and community-driven brand dedicated to amplifying the voices and experiences of Asian and Asian American women. Founded by actress Ally Maki, AAGC creates space for connection and representation through fashion, media, and storytelling. With a mission to break stereotypes and celebrate identity, AAGC is more than a brand—it’s a movement empowering the next generation to be seen, heard, and unapologetically themselves.

Credits: Love, Bonito x Asian American Girl Club

Mar 23, 2025
3 min read

News

Tariffs Hit Home: How Asian American Communities Bear the Brunt

While Trump claims tariffs will significantly impact the countries they target, experts argue that consumers and businesses will bear the brunt of the consequences.

Research by The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates that price levels may rise to 2% this year, equivalent to $3,000 per average household. Another report from D.C. stated that the new tariffs on China affect about 14% of U.S. imports and may raise costs to $25 billion annually. As the tariff war escalates, everyday consumers will face even higher prices.

Asian American communities and businesses are particularly vulnerable. In New York’s Chinatown, 28% of residents already live below the poverty line. With many companies relying on imports from Asia, owners are uncertain about their survival.

Mott Street in Manhattan's Chinatown (Image source: NBC News) — *Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown (Image source: NBC News)*

“Here in Chinatown, especially, we have many elderly residents on fixed incomes,” says Edward Lau, owner of a traditional medicine shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. With 90% of his stock sourced from Hong Kong and China, he worries, “If it gets very expensive, their spending power will be lower. Chinese immigrants will ultimately be harmed the most.”

Taylor Chow, owner of American Tai Wah Trading Corp, adds, “The Chinese community in Chinatown has been hit hard most because we consume a lot of imported ingredients. A lot of products only come from China. Even if manufacturers try to move their production line to Vietnam, to Malaysia, to Singapore, it’s not that easy.”

Supply chain disruptions and rising costs are straining small Asian American businesses. Since the community depends on these shops for cultural goods, they, too, will feel the pressure.

Mei Lum, owner of Lum’s Store, the longest-operating business in Manhattan’s Chinatown, explains, “Our working-class community here in Chinatown is definitely, in these circumstances, always being hit the hardest. And a lot of them have told me that their solution to mitigating these circumstances has been to eat those costs and only raise those prices by a smidgen, just to make sure they’re affordable for the people that frequent their establishments. How long can they sustain that?”

*Mandy Lau helping a customer pick ginseng (Image Source: The Chronicle)*

The erosion of these businesses could lead to cultural loss, impacting food, traditions, and ceremonial products. Lucas Li, whose family runs Lion Trading in San Francisco, specializing in feng shui and spiritual supplies, says, “When they get expensive, it makes it harder for Chinese people, for their families to maintain those traditions and do it at the proper steps. When customers shop at local businesses and small businesses, they’re not just buying a product, they’re basically investing in the community, supporting families, and protecting our traditions.”

Large online retailers like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress are also affected. While it is unclear how much product prices will rise on these e-commerce platforms, experts predict delivery delays and price hikes due to tariffs. Youssef Squali, an analyst at Truist Financial, notes, “The vast majority of these orders are valued less than $800, which means all or virtually all of them are going to get caught in that.”

Ultimately, Asian Americans may feel the greatest impact. As Linda Chao, a resident of Oceanview, states, “When there are tariffs, it won’t fall on China, it’ll fall on us. It can’t be helped. I also don’t have time to go and protest. I feel there’s nothing we can do.”

Sources: NBC News, The Chronicle, AP News, University of Virginia, The Guardian

Mar 14, 2025
3 min read

Design

How to use Midjourney AI in UI design

As AI increasingly makes its way into the UI designer’s toolkit, Midjourney is fast becoming one of the most popular image generators.

With a simple text prompt, you can use Midjourney AI to create custom digital artworks, whip up an app screen, design individual UI elements, and generate colour palettes—all in a matter of seconds.

For UI designers, this can really accelerate the ideation process and help you expand your own creativity.

So how does Midjourney AI work? And how can you leverage it in the UI design process? Let’s take a look.

What is Midjourney AI and how does it work?

Midjourney is a generative AI tool created by Midjourney, Inc.—an independent research lab based in San Francisco.

Midjourney AI generates images and digital artworks based on text prompts. If you enter a prompt asking for an image of a mermaid swimming underwater surrounded by marine life, Midjourney will generate four versions for you to choose from. The more specific your prompts, the better—but we’ll get to the art of prompt-writing for Midjourney in a later section.

Midjourney works within the Discord platform. Discord is an instant messaging app, commonly used to create communities where users can chat via text, voice, and video. Discord essentially facilitates communication between the user and the Midjourney bot.

Midjourney uses two key machine learning technologies:

Large Language Models (LLM): this is how Midjourney understands and interprets the text prompts provided by the user.
Diffusion Models (DM): in very simple terms, this technology converts random visual noise into a meaningful image. You enter a text prompt, which sparks a field of visual noise. The AI then progressively removes that noise in incremental steps, eventually resulting in an image that resembles what you’ve asked for.

Now we know what Midjourney is and how it works, let’s drill down to some key functions and features.

What can Midjourney AI do? Key features

Midjourney’s core function is to convert text prompts into images. This allows you to generate unique digital artworks and graphics in a range of styles.

You can guide the image generation process by applying custom parameters to your prompts. You might specify a certain aspect ratio, for example, or a particular style such as ‘watercolour’ or ‘flat design’.

You can also customise the quality of your images by specifying, within your prompt, a value for the rendering quality. You might specify ‘q 1’ (that’s the default quality level) or request that images be rendered to a higher quality by specifying ‘q 2’ in your prompt.

Once you’ve entered your prompt, Midjourney will give you four different image versions. You can choose to upscale a particular version, which will increase the size/dimensions of the image and also improve the quality.

Beyond image generation, Midjourney serves as a great source of community and inspiration. You can share your creations and browse images created by others, allowing you to see what’s possible with Midjourney and sparking ideas for your own work.

How to get set up on Midjourney AI

To use Midjourney AI, you’ll need to create both a Discord account and a Midjourney account.

If you’re not already a member, first head over to the Discord platform and follow the instructions to create your account. Once you’re signed up, join the official Midjourney Discord server by clicking the ‘Accept invite’ button.

You’ll then find yourself in the “Getting started” channel, where you can create your Midjourney account (if you haven’t already done so) by clicking “Get your Midjourney membership” (visible in the chat):

This will take you to a separate page, the Midjourney showcase, where you can click “Sign up” in the bottom left corner to create your Midjourney account.

Once you’re signed up and logged in to Midjourney, you can navigate back to the Midjourney Discord server and enter one of the so-called “newbie” bot channels. You’ll find available newbie channels on the left-hand side.

You can then enter your own prompts into the chat box to start generating images.

At the time of writing, Midjourney is no longer offering a free trial for new users. If you want to start prompting, you’ll need to sign up for a paid subscription.

How much does Midjourney AI cost?

Midjourney offers four price tiers:

Basic Plan for $10 per month or $96 per year with an annual subscription (that’s around €9 per month / €89 per year)
Standard Plan for $30 per month or $288 per year with an annual subscription (that’s around €28 per month / €267 per year)
Pro Plan for $60 per month or $576 per year with an annual subscription (that’s around €55 per month / €533 per year)
Mega Plan for $120 per month or $1,152 per year with an annual subscription (that’s around €111 per month / €1,066 per year).

For more information about each price tier and what’s included, visit the official Midjourney pricing page.

How to use Midjourney AI in UI design (with example prompts)

Midjourney can generate custom visuals in a matter of seconds—making it an incredibly interesting tool for UI designers. You can use Midjourney to quickly create screens and individual UI components, come up with themes, styles, and colour palettes, and generate unique digital artwork.

Note, however, that the graphics you create with Midjourney won’t necessarily be directly usable—and working with Midjourney doesn’t eliminate the need to create your own screens and elements using the usual UI tools like Sketch and Figma. If you generate an app screen with Midjourney, for example, you’ll still need to actually create that screen from scratch yourself.

Where Midjourney really comes in useful is helping you to explore different ideas and concepts and gather inspiration. You might use your AI-generated artwork to inspire mood boards, kick-start an ideation session, or serve as a guide for certain layouts or colour schemes.

With that, let’s consider some examples of how to use Midjourney for UI design.

Use Midjourney AI to generate app screens

If you’re designing for mobile, Midjourney can help you ideate layouts and designs for various app screens. If you’re designing a dating app, for example, you might try the following Midjourney prompts:

/imagine a vibrant and fun login screen for a dating app, with an eye-catching background, username and password fields, and buttons for login and social media sign-ins
/imagine a user profile screen for a dating app, featuring a large profile picture at the top, user bio, interests, and match percentage displayed in a clean layout
/imagine a match screen for a dating app, showing potential matches with profile pictures, a brief bio, and buttons to like, dislike, or super like
/imagine a chat screen for a dating app with a clean interface, message bubbles, timestamps, and an input field at the bottom

Create UI components such as icons, buttons, and logos

Perhaps you want inspiration for the finer details of your app or website. In that case, try using Midjourney AI to create individual UI components such as icons, buttons, and logos. Here are some prompt examples to guide you:

/imagine a set of modern buttons for a mobile app, including primary, secondary, and disabled states, using a black and white colour scheme
/imagine a collection of minimalist icons for a mobile app, including icons for home, search, messages, settings, and notifications
/imagine a sleek and modern logo for a dating app, incorporating elements of connection and love, with a vibrant colour scheme

Generate theme and style concepts

In the early stages of the design process, you might focus on coming up with an overall visual style for your website or app—and Midjourney can help with this, too. Specify your vision or initial ideas and let Midjourney bring them to life.

Consider the following prompt examples:

/imagine a light mode theme for a productivity app, featuring white backgrounds, soft grey UI elements, and navy blue highlights
/imagine a dark mode theme for a music app, with black backgrounds, dark grey UI elements, and neon pink highlights
/imagine a vibrant and colourful theme for a creative design app, with bold colours like orange, pink, and teal, playful typography, and dynamic UI elements

Create custom website imagery

Imagery plays an important role in UI design, helping to reinforce brand identity and enhance the visual appeal of your website or app.

Whether you want to create cartoon-style illustrations, abstract artwork, or realistic images of products, places, or people, Midjourney can generate custom imagery that reflects your brand and vision.

Here are some examples of how you might prompt Midjourney to generate images for different use cases:

/imagine a stunning hero image for a tech startup website, featuring abstract technology elements and a modern cityscape in the background
/imagine a set of custom illustrations for a health and wellness website, featuring people doing yoga, eating healthy, and meditating
/imagine a unique background image for a creative agency website, with abstract shapes and vibrant colours

Generate colour palettes

Perhaps you want help coming up with the perfect colour palette, or you’ve already got a colour scheme in mind and want to see how it looks in practice. Again, Midjourney is an excellent source of inspiration here. Simply specify the kind of look and feel you’re aiming for and Midjourney can generate multiple colour palettes accordingly.

Consider the following prompt examples to guide you:

/imagine a pastel colour palette for a wellness app, featuring soft shades of mint green, blush pink, lavender, and light grey
/imagine a bold, split-complementary colour palette for a fitness app, comprising three colours
/imagine a monochromatic colour palette for a finance app

How to write effective prompts for Midjourney AI

As with all generative AI tools, the quality of the output depends on the quality of the input. In other words, it’s up to you to tell the AI what you want—and to master the art of prompt-writing for the specific tool you’re using.

Here are some tips to help you write effective prompts for Midjourney AI:

Start each prompt with the /imagine command, followed by a description of what you want the AI to create.
Keep it simple and specific. To quote the official Midjourney guidelines for prompt-writing: “The Midjourney Bot works best with simple short phrases that describe what you want to see. Avoid long lists of requests and instructions.”
Specify what you want the image to include, rather than what you don’t want it to include. Even if you specify “no flowers” in your prompt, the AI will likely only focus on the word “flowers” and therefore create an image that does indeed contain flowers. If you absolutely want to exclude something from the image, use the “no” parameter. For example: – – no flowers.
If necessary, specify your desired aspect ratio using the following parameter: – – ar [value]. If you wanted to generate an app screen, you could specify – – ar 16:9.
Use the stylize parameter to control the level of artistic flair that Midjourney injects into each image. If you imagine that the default level, 2500, gives you a medium level of stylization, you can dial it up or down by specifying values higher or lower than 2500. If you wanted to generate an image of a garden that’s more realistic than artistic, you might specify – – stylize 500. If you wanted to create an image of a garden that looks magical and fantastical, you might specify – – stylize 3500.
Use the quality parameter to adjust the level of quality and detail in the image. – – q 1 is the default, so work from that value to dial the quality up or down.

Most importantly, be prepared to experiment. The more you use Midjourney, the more intuitive the art of prompt-writing will become. You’ll start to get a feel for what works and see how different words, phrases, and parameters influence the output.

Ethical considerations when using Midjourney AI

If you’re using Midjourney AI (or indeed any AI tools) throughout the design process, you must take care to use it responsibly. Here are some of the most important ethical considerations to bear in mind.

Intellectual property and copyright

When generating images with AI, be careful about replicating existing images or artworks created by other artists or designers. You might use a famous logo for inspiration, for example, but you wouldn’t want to emulate the style too closely to the point of copying.

Deceptive and misleading content

This is like the visual equivalent of fake news—creating image-based content that deliberately deceives, misleads, manipulates, or spreads misinformation. Don’t do it!

Stereotypes and bias

It’s well-documented that AI can and does perpetuate harmful stereotypes and biases. As a human user, you must be diligent about actively looking out for such biases and taking steps to mitigate them.

Strive to generate images that are inclusive and representative of diverse groups. If you generate an image that doesn’t feel inclusive or could potentially exclude or harm certain people, don’t use it. You can learn more about the importance of designing inclusive content in this guide.

As a general rule: always review AI-generated content with a critical eye, and use your better judgement. As a human user, it’s your responsibility to consider the impact of any content you create—and to ultimately decide what makes it into the public domain.

The takeaway

Midjourney AI can generate custom images in seconds, making it an excellent tool for gathering inspiration, sparking your own creativity, and ideating and exploring different design concepts, layouts, and styles.

Whether you use it to generate fully-fledged app screens, individual UI elements, impressive artworks, or colour palettes: Midjourney AI is a powerful addition to your UI design toolkit.

Ready to get started with Midjourney AI? Experiment with different prompts and use cases, explore other Midjourney users’ creations, and be mindful of the ethical considerations we’ve laid out in this guide. You’ll soon be generating images like a pro!

Mar 13, 2025
12 min read

Design

What is UX design?

What does UX stand for? Learn more about what UX means, why it’s so important and what defines good UX.

“UX” stands for “user experience.” It describes the quality of the experience an end user has with a specific product, service, company or brand.

Although it’s often talked about in relation to digital products, like apps and websites, UX can relate to anything that an end user can interact with or encounter.

Take the example of going into your local bank to open a new account. If the process is quick and simple with clear instructions, easy-to-find information and friendly customer service, you’d come away feeling like you had a good user experience.

The same goes for ordering something online or using an app on your phone. If you’re able to accomplish your desired tasks with minimal effort, you’ll find the user experience to be a pleasant one.

UX doesn’t relate to one specific thing. It’s the sum of all the smaller parts that determines whether the overall encounter between the product/service and the user is a positive one. You can think of it as the impression the user leaves with and whether or not they’d be keen to repeat the experience. To learn more, keep reading.

What is user experience (UX) design?

If UX describes the quality of a user’s encounter with a particular product or service, UX design is the process of creating and shaping these experiences, with the goal of making them positive, pleasant and valuable for the end user.

UX design isn’t about how a product looks; that’s just one aspect of the overall user experience. It’s about ensuring that the product is logical, functional, easy to navigate and generally user-friendly.

There are 5 elements of UX design to consider:

Strategy: Deciding which objectives the product should meet, including both end user goals and client/business stakeholder objectives.
Scope: Fleshing out the details of the product, determining which features and functionality it should offer.
Structure: Mapping out the structure of the product, considering how users will navigate from one point to the next and what information they’ll need to move around the product and accomplish their goals.
Skeleton: Drilling down to the finer details of how each page should be structured and which elements (buttons, menus and other content) will go where.
Surface: Considering the user’s sensory experience of the product, defining how the product will look in terms of colors, imagery, spacing, typography and so on. This is where UI design comes in.

Where does the term “UX” come from?

The term “UX” was invented by Donald Norman, a cognitive psychologist who started working at Apple in the early 1990s. He took on the role of User Experience Architect, making him the first (known) person in history to have UX in their job title.

Explaining the origins of UX, Donald Norman said:

“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction and the manual.”

What is the difference between UX and UI?

If you’ve heard of UX, you’ve probably also heard of UI. The terms are often used together but it’s important to be clear on the difference between them.

UX is a much broader term, covering everything that influences how a user feels when they use a product or service. It’s a comprehensive discipline that involves research, analysis, and understanding user needs.

UI stands for “user interface”, which is the point of interaction between an end user and a digital product. It’s a more narrow discipline that involves the visual design of the screens, buttons and other touchpoints you might use to navigate an app or a website.

The way the user interface (UI) is designed has an impact on the overall user experience, so UI is an important part of UX.

UX	UI
Stands for “user experience”	Stands for “user interface”
A broad discipline	A narrow discipline
Involves the quality of the experience as a whole	Involves the design of the user interface
Concerned with research, analysis, and understanding user needs	Concerned with visual design

You can learn more about the difference between the two, as well as how they go hand-in-hand, in this guide to UX vs. UI.

Why is UX important?

UX is important for two reasons: business value and human value. Let’s look at both.

The business value of UX design

If you have a positive experience with a product or service, you’re more likely to use it again and become a loyal customer. You might even recommend it to friends and family. That’s great for the brand reputation, which ultimately determines whether or not the product or service is successful and profitable.

On the flip side, a negative user experience leaves a bad impression of the product, service or brand. If it’s less than satisfactory, you’ll be inclined to go elsewhere, like a competitor with better UX.

Wherever there are two similar products or services offering the same functionality, the one with the best UX will always win out. UX is therefore crucial for winning and keeping customers, developing a positive brand reputation and, ultimately, for driving profit and business growth.

In sum, the business value of UX design includes:

A competitive edge in the market
Increased sales and revenue
Higher conversion rates
Better word-of-mouth marketing
A strong brand reputation
Improved customer loyalty and retention

We compiled some interesting statistics about the business value of UX, like the fact that 66% of customers are willing to pay more for a great user experience.

The human value of UX design

In addition to being valuable to businesses, end users also value good UX even if they don’t know it. UX influences whether we enjoy an experience or not and whether products and services are efficient and easy or frustrating and difficult.

In addition, UX determines whether products are accessible and inclusive for as many users as possible. Whether they are disabled, come from a different place with different needs, or have different requirements, good UX make products and services accessible for all.

What defines good UX? The fundamental principles of UX design

Defining good UX can be tricky. It’s not down to one specific thing. There are seven principles of UX design that all designers should follow. They are:

User-centricity — Design products and services in a way that centres the user’s needs and helps to solve their problems.
Consistency — This can mean keeping your designs consistent across all pages, screens, and products within the same product family. It can also mean meeting the user’s expectations for the kind of product you’re designing.
Hierarchy — This includes putting more important elements in more prominent positions in both a site’s information architecture and in the visual hierarchy.
Context — Consider the circumstances in which your products of services will be used and how that will effect the user experience.
User control — Give the user the right amount of control over their interactions with a product, such as being able to reverse or undo errors to a text message without throwing the whole user experience into disarray.
Accessibility — Ensure your product or service is accessible to as many users as possible, including people with disabilities or in other environments.
Usability — Usability relates to how easy a given product is to use and it’s influenced by things like:
- Learnability – how easy it is for a user to learn how to use the product for the first time.
- Efficiency – how quickly and seamlessly the user is able to complete their goals and tasks.
- Memorability – how easy it is for the user to jump back into the product after not using it for a while.
- Errors – how many errors does a user typically make when using the product.
- Satisfaction – how pleasant or enjoyable is the product to use.

What is the UX design process?

The UX design process focuses on identifying and solving a problem for a specific target audience. It includes:

Conducting user research to understand who you’re designing the experience for and what problems they need solving.
Narrowing it down to one problem and coming up with potential solutions.
Designing the chosen solution.
Making prototypes to test and validate the design, i.e. to make sure it will actually solve the user’s problem.
Developing the prototypes into a fully-fledged product or service which people can use.
Continuously improving the product/service (and thus the user experience) based on continuous testing and feedback.

Mar 13, 2025
8 min read