grammarlyFeb 3, 2026

From Idea to Demo in Two Days: Inside Superhuman’s 2025 Global Hackathon (opens in new tab)

Superhuman’s 2025 hackathon brought together nearly 500 employees to prototype innovative product features by leveraging cutting-edge AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor. By integrating AI-driven agents and keyboard-centric workflows, teams demonstrated how rapid experimentation can bridge functional gaps across mail, documentation, and collaboration platforms. The event highlighted a significant shift toward "vibe-coding" and accessible development, where cross-functional teams and non-engineers could ship functional MVPs in just 48 hours. ## Superhuman Command Everywhere (SCE) * This project extends the Superhuman Mail Command Center to the browser, allowing users to trigger Grammarly features, set reminders, and snooze items from any web page. * The tool enables keyboard-only navigation for AI agents; for example, users navigate Grammarly’s Proofreader cards using "J" and "K" and accept or dismiss suggestions with "E" and "D." * Developers used AI tools to quickly interpret an unfamiliar codebase, allowing engineers without frontend expertise to "vibe-code" a working MVP within a few hours. ## Whiteboarding in Coda * This feature introduces a native canvas within Coda documents where users can draw freely, add shapes, and import images for brainstorming and diagramming. * The prototype includes an AI diagramming tool that generates editable visual versions of diagrams based on plain-text descriptions. * Built by a solo team member with no formal coding background, the project utilized Claude Code and Cursor to focus on UX refinement and smooth interactions rather than just technical functionality. ## Superhuman Listening * This system centralizes fragmented customer feedback from tools like Gong, Salesforce, and Zendesk into a single, queryable source of truth. * By linking unstructured data to product roadmaps in Coda, the tool helps sales engineers and product managers determine if specific customer feedback is already being addressed. * Technical challenges included using LLM APIs to extract urgency and sentiment, though the team noted the difficulty of filtering "noise" from high-volume sources like Zendesk tickets. ## Inclusive Language Agent * Developed by a team of linguists, this agent identifies non-inclusive phrasing or unconscious bias in professional writing. * The goal is to provide real-time suggestions that improve workplace culture and customer trust by making word choices more inclusive and intentional. The results of this hackathon suggest that AI-assisted development tools are significantly lowering the barrier to entry for complex product builds. For organizations aiming to accelerate innovation, encouraging "maker" identities across all departments and utilizing AI to bridge technical skill gaps can surface high-value solutions that traditional product cycles might miss.

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figmaDec 6, 2023

Come together: A multiplayer guide to great meetings | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Great meetings are intentionally designed collaborative experiences, not merely calendar events or “glorified emails.” The article argues that successful meetings depend on four pillars: purpose, preparation, participation, and follow-up. Both facilitators and participants share responsibility for creating focused sessions that use everyone’s time and strengths effectively. ## Meetings as Designed Experiences - Meetings often fail because they lack a clear purpose, adequate preparation, active participation, or follow-up. - Effective facilitators design an experience that helps the team collaborate and accomplish concrete goals. - Participants also play an important role in making meetings purposeful and engaging. ## Before the Meeting: Plan for Success Preparation creates the conditions for inclusive and productive collaboration. ### Define the Meeting’s Goal - Clarify whether the meeting is intended to: - Track progress - Make a decision - Share information or insights - Build context across a team - Choose the meeting format based on its purpose. - Shishir Mehrotra’s framework groups meetings into: - **Cadence:** recurring staff meetings, standups, and project syncs - **Catalyst:** decision forums, product reviews, and design critiques - **Context:** all-hands meetings, off-sites, orientations, and one-on-ones - The right category helps determine the questions, participants, and structure required. ### Prepare and Share an Agenda - Circulate an agenda before the meeting, ideally a day in advance. - Include pre-read materials such as: - Project briefs - Documentation - Sketches - Other background information - Use an existing template rather than starting from a blank page. - FigJam templates can structure the discussion, collect participants’ ideas and questions ahead of time, and organize meetings around prompts or “provocations.” - Successful formats can be saved as reusable shared templates, while AI can help generate customized meeting structures. A practical meeting recommendation is to define the intended outcome first, then choose the appropriate format and share enough context for participants to contribute before the meeting begins.

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figmaOct 11, 2023

Shishir Mehrotra’s 10 rules for leading great team meetings | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

The post argues that effective teams deliberately design two products: what they deliver to customers and the workplace experience that enables employees to do their best work. Shishir Mehrotra frames this employee experience as a system of named, known, and templated rituals—especially meetings. Great teams use different meeting types intentionally and create durable rhythms that keep ambitious work moving. ## Rituals as the “Employee Product” - Company culture becomes tangible through recurring behaviors and rituals. - Strong rituals share three traits: - They are explicitly named. - Employees learn them early. - They follow a repeatable template. - Teams do not need to invent every practice themselves; they can borrow proven rituals from other organizations. ## Three Types of Team Meetings Mehrotra and meeting expert Elise Keith categorize meetings into three groups: - **Cadence meetings** - Examples include staff meetings, stand-ups, and project syncs. - They recur with the same participants and maintain forward momentum. - Their core question is: **Are we on track toward our goals?** - **Catalyst meetings** - Examples include decision forums, product reviews, and design critiques. - They are intended to change direction or resolve important questions. - Their core question is: **Did we reach an answer?** - Too many catalyst meetings can exhaust teams. - **Context meetings** - Examples include all-hands meetings, off-sites, orientations, and one-on-ones. - They establish shared information, insight, and relationships. - Their core question is: **Are we better enabled to do our jobs?** ## Sustaining Long-Term Goals - Mehrotra uses John F. Kennedy’s moonshot as an example of the power of cadence. - Kennedy reinforced the decade-long objective with a weekly meeting involving NASA’s leadership. - Regular meetings can maintain progress on ambitious goals, but they often feel repetitive or obligatory. - Teams should therefore design engaging rituals that make recurring meetings feel purposeful rather than like a chore. - The article points readers to meeting templates and a ritual toolkit for practical examples. ## Practical Takeaway Treat meetings as designed team products, not unavoidable calendar events. Choose the right meeting type, define its purpose and success question, and establish a clear, repeatable ritual that supports the team’s long-term goals.

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figmaJun 17, 2020

How to get closer with your developer | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Bringing engineers into product design early helps teams uncover technical constraints, explore better solutions, and move faster. Rather than waiting until designs are polished, designers should use early, exploratory collaboration to expose assumptions and edge cases. The post recommends partnering closely with one engineer through ideation using straw man mocks, brainstorming, and clearly defined questions. ## Technical Knowledge Improves Ideation - Engineers can identify technical constraints and unexpected edge cases early. - This input helps designers avoid solutions that seem promising but are difficult or costly to build. - Early collaboration does not eliminate creativity; it makes ideas more thoughtful and grounded. - Sharing unfinished work can be more productive than protecting designs until they appear complete. ## Establish a Close Engineering Partnership - For Coda’s Packs Tables feature, Helena Jaramillo worked closely with one engineering partner, Gil. - Packs Tables connected services such as Spotify, Google Calendar, and Gmail to Coda documents. - Because the feature had to work across multiple APIs, close engineering collaboration was essential. - The broader team was involved, but having a consistent partner enabled faster brainstorming and continuous feedback. ## Start with Straw Man Mocks - Straw man mocks are quick, rough visual proposals intended to generate discussion rather than finalize a design. - They should: - Be fast to create, since early assumptions are often incorrect. - Ask more questions than they answer. - Present multiple directions instead of prematurely narrowing to one solution. - Designers should first imagine how the feature might work if it were easy, then test those assumptions with an engineer. - Useful questions include: - What assumptions or misconceptions are we making? - What are we overlooking? - Which directions are interesting? - Which directions are technically difficult, and what trade-offs would they involve? ## Brainstorm Through Visualization - Early brainstorming should involve both designers and engineers, not just a finished design review. - Teams can use wireframing kits, high-fidelity components, paper sketches, iPads, or screen sharing. - During Packs Tables, Helena and Gil used whiteboarding to explore UI ideas and clarify potential problems. - The goal at this stage is alignment and exploration—not polished interface design. ## Define Key Questions - Key questions act as principles for making later decisions. - They help teams address foundational issues before debating individual solutions. - Answering questions about constraints, resources, priorities, and desired outcomes makes detailed decisions easier. - Helena and Gil recorded their key questions in a Coda document and reviewed them with the engineers involved in the project. Designers should treat engineers as creative partners from the beginning of a project. Rough mocks, shared brainstorming, and agreed-upon guiding questions create a faster path to feasible, thoughtful solutions.

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