On the App Store

The notes I take while researching how AI changes product design. Method, not news, straight to your inbox.

Join the AI Product Club

What I learn building with AI becomes practical notes in the club. Method, not news.

This continues in the AI Product Club

In the 1:1 mentorship we take your product, your portfolio or your AI workflow and work on the real case.

Apply this to your own context

The numbers in this article come from my undergraduate thesis on accessibility in design systems. The full material, with method and open data, is on the study page.

This comes from my research

Touch Grass is live with tokens, components, tests and docs. The portfolio case shows the decisions behind it.

The design system in this article is open source

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Blog: design, product and applied AI

Essays published on Medium and academic research as PDF. These links open outside this site.

Blog

The book is for designers and product teams who want to use AI without outsourcing their own judgment. It covers practical workflow changes, source validation, ethics and the parts of design that still need human review.

A book in Portuguese, in production with Casa do Código, on design, artificial intelligence and safer team workflows.

Design na era da IA (book in Portuguese, in production) | Thiago Xikota

Deciding what AI should help with, and what stays human.

Creative direction

Understanding teams, constraints, and workflow risks before choosing tools.

Context mapping

Using AI to organize evidence without inventing confidence.

Research synthesis

Turning intent into testable UI, content, and process drafts.

Prompting and prototyping

Checking provenance, errors, and hallucinations before work ships.

Source validation

Defining guardrails for data, authorship, accessibility, and impact.

Ethics and safety

The outline can still change. These are the questions guiding the work.

Draft themes

A book in Portuguese, in production with Casa do Código, on judgment, ethics and design workflows with AI.

Design na era da IA

A book in Portuguese with Casa do Código on how designers and product teams can use artificial intelligence with judgment, ethics, and safer workflows.

The books I write about design, artificial intelligence, and the work of the people who design.

Books

Design progress

This longform case study is currently maintained in Portuguese.

Impact beyond the screen

Limits and learning

I am a Forward Deployed Product Designer specializing in AI. I work with the team to understand the problem, design the experience and follow it through implementation.

Interested in working together?

I can help connect strategy, interface, and engineering in work that stays clear after handoff.

Need to turn a product problem into an experience engineering can build?

What the research revealed

All my certificates and courses, with filters and search.

Certificates & Courses

For recruiters and interviewers: I can walk through process, decisions, and learnings in a private conversation. Reach out on LinkedIn.

Work in progress, under confidentiality

Working on a product that needs design direction or AI in the workflow? Tell me what you're building.

Get in touch

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Let's talk

A monthly product newsletter

AI Product Club

Mentorship conversation

Speaking invitation

Research collaboration

Product project

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What happens next?

I will review your message and follow up within two business days. If you need a faster reply, feel free to send an email directly.

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Recent coursework across UX research, accessibility, design systems, AI, and front-end implementation.

EF SET English Certificate (C2 Proficient)

Excel Course

Italian Language Course (Level B2)

Intensive Oratory Course

Design Track

Pixel Init

Power BI Course

Selective Process Course

Character Design Workshop

Selected certifications that reinforce research, product thinking, interface systems, and technical fluency.

Courses & Certificates

Completed the Italian Language Course (Level B2) at the Pontifical Lateran University in 2025, strengthening communication skills and cultural fluency during my academic period in Rome.

Pontifical Lateran University: Italian Language Course (Level B2)

Exchange in Applied Computer Science and AI at Sapienza University of Rome, focused on AI systems, research, and the technical foundations behind modern workflows.

Sapienza University of Rome: Exchange in Applied Computer Science and AI

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from UFSC, completed in 2026.

Federal University of Santa Catarina: Computer Science

Completed a year of high school in Vancouver, improving English fluency and experiencing cultural exchange through daily academic life in a Canadian environment.

High School in Vancouver, Canada

Formal training, international study, and continuous learning shaped around product, systems, and implementation.

Education

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If design is the passion, fixing links is the plot twist.

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I lead The AI Collective's first chapter in southern Brazil and organize hands-on meetups for people building with AI. The launch event, on July 1, 2026, had about 95 sign-ups.

Chapter Lead: The AI Collective Florianópolis

Jornada do Estudante, an app for Brazil's Ministry of Education (MEC) with 14 million users, built at Laboratório Bridge (UFSC). I redesigned the Pé-de-Meia enrollment form so it saves every step, and designed a dedicated screen for each eligibility status.

UX/UI Designer: Laboratório Bridge

I organized and hosted the 3rd edition of Pixel Init in 2021: three online evenings, nine speakers from UFSC and from companies such as Google, Nubank and SAP, and more than a thousand sign-ups.

From trainee to president: Pixel, UFSC's junior enterprise

Effectively head of product: handled design and product management and trained a junior product designer. Worked on the activation redesign that reduced onboarding abandonment from 50% to 25% and supported growth from 0 to 100 paying clients.

Lead Product Designer: Multidrop

I worked on end-to-end product journeys at global scale and on accessibility, ensuring WCAG 2.1 AA conformance (focus order, semantics and ARIA) on the screens I designed. Wellhub is a corporate wellness platform with more than 5 million subscribers in 18 countries.

Global Product Designer: Wellhub (formerly Gympass)

I founded Xikota Design. A digital product design and build studio: websites, apps, and design systems, from problem to shipped product.

Forward Deployed Product Designer: Xikota Design

As a Forward Deployed Product Designer at Zyla, I designed and implemented the workout sticker in React Native. For the GPS recorder, I led research, design and the engineering handoff.

Forward Deployed Product Designer: Zyla

Experience

Frequently asked questions

My first version of the Pé-de-Meia enrollment form put everything on one page and increased abandonment. The second split the flow into steps that save progress, so students pick up where they left off when the connection drops.

Public education at national scale

In practice, I was head of product at a German SaaS and trained a junior product designer. I split producer and affiliate into two contexts of the same product. When the guided tour failed, I turned the dashboard itself into the tutorial, with progress in plain sight.

One product, two contexts

End-to-end journeys in the Wellhub app, formerly Gympass, a corporate wellness platform.

Check-in and booking at global scale

A social product published for iPhone, with a documented contribution to product design, visual identity, and motion. The case covers presence, Crowds, channels, and the AI direction without confusing prototypes with releases.

A social network with AI built in

As a Forward Deployed Product Designer, I designed and implemented the workout sticker in React Native. For the GPS recorder, I led research, design and the engineering handoff.

Zyla: design and code in motion

Open the topic you want to explore. My story and the experience behind my work are here.

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from UFSC and an exchange in applied computer science and AI at Sapienza, in Rome.

Today: Xikota Design and The AI Collective Florianópolis. Previously: Zyla (2026), Wellhub (2025-2026), Multidrop (2024-2025), Laboratório Bridge (2022-2025) and Pixel (2020-2023).

Accessibility on a tight deadline, working with engineering, using AI and how I measure results.

Edge cases at Bridge, accessibility in DSGov and Multidrop's design system.

How I make decisions

My story, Japanese culture, community and music.

About me

Design and React Native implementation at Zyla, design systems and research with clear limits.

Capabilities in practice

My background, by topic

Xikota Design

and Chapter Lead of

Forward Deployed Product Designer specializing in AI, with over 7 years of experience. I work alongside product and engineering teams, from understanding the problem to implementation. I research design and AI at UFSC, in Brazil, and I'm writing Design na era da IA, a book in Portuguese forthcoming from the publisher Casa do Código. Founder of

The AI Collective Florianópolis

Frameworks, methods, vocabulary, references, and prompts I use with teams when AI needs to survive real review.

The AI design library I use in real work

Forward Deployed Product Designer specializing in AI

Links

Projects

Social

Talks

Videos

No connection.

Thiago Xikota is a Forward Deployed Product Designer specializing in AI. A researcher at Lemme (UFSC), he co-authored the study on Specification Literacy and structural convergence that received the Best Paper Award at AIMEDIA 2026 in Nice, France. He is the author of Design na era da IA, in production at Casa do Código, Chapter Lead of The AI Collective Florianópolis and founder of Xikota Design, a digital product design and build studio.

How AI is changing the design profession, and what to do to make it work for the people who design. Talk, workshop, panel, podcast or class. Based in Florianópolis, happy to travel, or remote.

What I bring to the stage

Write me with as much context as you have: event or organization, date, venue or remote format, type of participation, topic, audience and conditions. I reply personally.

Hi, Thiago. I would like to invite you for [type of participation] at [event or organization]. Date: [date]. Venue or format: [venue/remote]. Topic: [topic]. Audience: [who and how many]. Conditions: [conditions].

In the published pilot (n=5 per group), interfaces generated without human mediation repeated the same hierarchy. I discuss the role of specification and the limits of that sample.

Structural convergence: what specification changes in AI-generated interfaces

Designers building product with AI agents, with judgment and human review. Current tools as the vehicle, principles as the subject.

From design to shipped product

What I learned auditing public design systems (277 non-conformities in my thesis, top grade) and helping bring Wellhub product screens to WCAG 2.1 AA conformance (focus order, semantics, ARIA).

Accessibility as an acceptance criterion

The argument I am developing in the book Design na era da IA, in production with Casa do Código.

The designer career in the AI era

Public education product for the Ministry of Education's national student network.

Bridge - MEC

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Confidential case study

DSGov, the Brazilian government's design system, failed 8+ WCAG 2.1 AA criteria. I fixed it in code with the devs: semantic HTML, ARIA and focus order, without changing a single pixel of the spec. The clarity came in the invisible layer: keyboard navigation, screen readers, states that announce themselves properly. Accessibility isn't compliance. It's a design tool.

Constraints force clarity

At Bridge, on a platform with 14 million users, the Pé-de-Meia student benefit had 8+ possible eligibility statuses, 6 of them genuinely ambiguous. A good share of helpdesk tickets boiled down to "I don't understand my status". At Multidrop, the context switcher was buried in settings, so users worked in the wrong context without noticing. I design for the scenarios most people ignore.

Edge cases at scale are millions of people

At Multidrop, I built the design system from scratch: color, spacing and type tokens, the grid, governance shared with engineering. It was the precondition for two very different user types to coexist in one product. A good design system changes how the whole team makes UI decisions, not just how the screen looks.

Systems outlast screens

What this site collects, why, on what legal basis, and for how long. Written straight from the site's code.

Privacy

I'm Thiago, a product designer born and raised on the island of Florianópolis, in southern Brazil, in a Japanese-Brazilian family (yonsei, fourth generation). I like understanding how things work and questioning what seems obvious. I spend my days turning messy problems into products people can actually use.

I started in design in 2019, before AI became a mandatory topic. Since then I've worked at Wellhub, Multidrop and Laboratório Bridge, where I helped design a platform for Brazil's Ministry of Education used by millions of students. I earned my degree in Computer Science at UFSC, with an exchange in applied computer science and AI at Sapienza, in Rome.

Today I work as a Forward Deployed Product Designer specializing in artificial intelligence. I work closely with product and engineering teams to turn problems into working products. At Zyla, I designed and implemented the workout sticker in React Native and took the GPS recorder through research, design and engineering handoff.

I'm also the founder of Xikota Design, my design studio, and I lead The AI Collective Florianópolis, the first chapter in southern Brazil. I do research at UFSC, I'm writing a book (on its way with Casa do Código) and, in my free time, I teach Japanese music to young people at the local Japanese association.

Explore some of my highlight projects that showcase my design approach and problem-solving skills.

Featured Projects

I designed the experience and interface of a landing page for an organization that brings international students to Rome. I organized its introduction, language selection and contact paths.

Academia Canônica

With product managers and engineers at Laboratório Bridge, I redesigned journeys in the MEC app: a form that saves each step, eligibility screens and administrative patterns. The Bold and DSGov audit was part of my undergraduate thesis.

Jornada do Estudante: MEC's app used across Brazil

As a volunteer graphic designer, I created printed materials for the Kadampa Meditation Center in Florianópolis. The flyer and sign share the same identity, activities, contact details and QR code.

Kadampa Meditation Center (CMK) Florianópolis

In a project shared by three junior enterprises, I structured the flows and designed the interface of a nutrition-label system, from entering ingredients and quantities to reviewing and exporting the table.

EuTech: nutrition facts platform

I connected visual identity, Instagram communication and the interface design of a retro-game store. The archive shows the catalog, search, filters, product page and printed order materials.

Kanto dos Jogos: retro games e-commerce

I designed the visual identity and materials for a credit-service campaign. The archive contains the logo, poster and social post, with a shared visual language and direct contact calls to action.

Libera Já: identity and campaign

Zyla first: design and React Native for an AI-powered running app. Then, more work on products, design systems and accessibility.

Featured: Zyla, where I worked on design and code for an AI-powered running coaching app. Explore more of my work on digital products, design systems and accessibility.

Selected product work

Zyla: design and code in motion

Yankee: a social network designed as a system

Multidrop: onboarding abandonment cut in half

Jornada do Estudante: MEC's app used across Brazil

More case studies

Wellhub: end-to-end journeys and accessibility

PariPassu: a design system from scratch

Archive