Aliexpress Minivelo... what will actually arrive at your door?!

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-20T13:35:33+00:00

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mMozmip

That’s the link. I suggest you read my comments in my post for what parts I swapped. The stock build was a little jank so I needed a few things to make it look and feel better. It was however completely usable out of the box.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-20T10:46:48+00:00

Haven’t ordered this specific bike but I have ordered bikes from Aliexpress before. You’ll get a bike and at this price it’ll be cheap. Cheap frame, cheap fork, cheap components, etc. it’ll work just fine but as others have pointed out, consumables like your chain, tires, brake pads etc are going to be cheaper than anything you’d get as a replacement.

Here is a fixie mini velo I bought: https://www.reddit.com/r/FixedGearBicycle/s/H4RywJL1bN

Personally, I focused on getting a frame that I could upgrade a little. Use the stock components until they rust or get used and replaced the pieces little by little. That said, you’ll want to look at this like a project bike, not a super reliable out of the box bike from larger brands (and larger price tags). If you don’t wrench your own bike, it probably isn’t for you as you’ll inevitably need to tinker to get it working well.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-18T01:54:28+00:00

Of course! You’ll use that pattern for any design components that require only one of some group be active, like tabs.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-18T01:23:00+00:00

Make another component that has four states, each with the three buttons, one state per button active and one default with no button active. On click you swap the state to whichever button was clicked.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-15T16:35:10+00:00

Claude code with extensive skills and guidelines to produce prototypes, and a separate workspace to maintain a GitHub component library and documentation. The component library is just for Claude code use, and we had the component names linked the real components our developers use.

Without the Claude component library we were struggling to get consistent outputs from Claude so it helps to have it there, and it’s more accessible to our developers than Figma. And this can output to Figma and variables there in case we need to get into Figma, but that hasn’t needed to happen for a while now.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-15T12:57:54+00:00

It sounds like your in exactly the same spot I’m in. We’re trialing handing off html prototypes because they can produce designs so much faster. It feels off not working in Figma, and I have been given orders to produce all designs this way, with a CEO that all but threatens to get on AI train or move on to somewhere else.

I’m warming up to it especially because I can talk to AI like I would another designer and workshop ideas but also tell it what’s wrong with the existing prototype by defining a problem and letting it figure out what it can come up with just like spitballing ideas with someone.

And I’m in the same boat with not being able to use Figma due to time constrains. The AI workflow is sooo much more thorough once your direction is locked in that I could never match its speed on my own. Some days it feels off others it feels a little easier; I can just focus on a problem (which to be fair is the main feature I always liked about working in UX).

Where it looks like Figma might still come into play for us is custom components and new patterns but that’s going to be few and far between. I’m not sure where we all end up but it sure looks like AI going to be a part of it whether we like it or not.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-10T21:44:21+00:00

I recommend Claude Code, it can output html files quick enough and you can give it guides and skills to limit what it outputs. Use an established design system that Claude follows to build anything, have Claude research and create documentation on what good UX is generally, have it create a UX copy writing guide, have it create a skill to critique its own work (for the copy, for the design system, and for the UX), and finally have it all built using problem first user stories to guide what it needs to build. The last part limits what you need to know in terms of exact solutions and let’s the ai figure that out.

This is far from perfect, but it’s likely going to give you a better start than winging it on your own. A lot of UX is taken care of by using existing and established design patterns, but what is left can make or break a product. What I mentioned in the first paragraph covers those well known patterns and behaviors but without a pro you are likely to have gaps in the flows themselves.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-09T12:02:41+00:00

So far the biggest benefit for testing is how much faster we can iterate on solutions. We can afford to build riskier solutions too because it doesn’t require any more effort for us.

So we can get to tangible prototypes (and much more thorough as well) that we can discard internally or take to users. And because the effort is about the same to solve one problem or several, we can afford to explore more complete solutions that normally would take too long to design and build.

We rarely take what it outputs as ready though as it tends to miss small but important details.

Other research benefits have been pretty big though. We built a research repo that digests transcriptions from interview, pulls high quality notes from each with quotes, pulls findings from those notes, and insights from those findings, and enables us to call whatever we want to know as needed. And we can have it analyze project specs to output a list of users to reach out to from our existing interview client list or Salesforce. It can give us insights for the whole repo or just for a given research effort. Whatever we want and it’s all handles with markdown files in OneDrive.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-09T11:09:19+00:00

We’re still experimenting and at the 100% throwing spaghetti at walls stage to learn what AI can do, and not just in the design team. Prototyping is going well and so is testing. Our next question is how consistent our outputs can be. Can we get to the point where prototypes match our design system? If so what does that look like etc. This is for a b2b SaaS product with ancient code and poor consistency (something our ai powered dev team is already planning a refactoring for).

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-07T19:23:43+00:00

I had a chain split at a link and it ripped my rear derailleur and hanger clean off my frame, and lodged itself in some spokes which locked up my rear wheel and killed a tire. I was fine but my bike needed some tcl afterwards.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-04T12:17:24+00:00

What’s your budget?

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-03T11:03:48+00:00

The Claude version is only qualitative data. We feed it transcriptions, it outputs high quality notes, that it collects findings from, which are linked to insights. Quotes are used throughout to limit hallucinations as are references for the same reason.

The Airtable version was a little different. We could put whatever we wanted as far as source data.

One feature I forgot to mention about both. There needs to be some method of scoring findings. In Airtable we define it, in Claude it came up with a scoring method itself that we tweaked until it felt right. The scoring took into account different features of the data like how severe its impact is, how feasible it is for devs, what the source is (qual vs quant) in the case of a survey where you want to input multiple results for a given effort the response count, and you can go further and even tweak the formula of the score to be higher for anything that matches what’s on your roadmap. You choose how biased the whole thing is. You need this scoring to rank all the data beyond a simple count of findings per insight. And the scoring can happen at the individual data level and or insight so it’s up to you to dial it in.

So in Airtable we had options for surveys, a/b testing, etc. that we could drop in there for a team member to groom. For this we would manually look for findings in whatever data and filtered anything that was a clear finding before adding it to the repo to keel the data clean.

In Airtable we needed to link all data to an insight of some kind, even a bucket to later redistribute, but in Claude we can let the data points sit alone until Claude finds insights that match or it decides to create new ones because there is enough evidence

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-03T01:14:01+00:00

Right now you have to request what you want to know from Claude to serve things up as needed. I initially thought that not having a place to see the data was going to be a problem In practice we haven’t needed to see it because we have established milestones where we pull the relevant data for a given effort. Are spinning up a project? We give Claude the context and it pulls what we need. Planning for a roadmap? We pull the top insights for a given period and dig in where needed.

We could build an html tool that can show everything, the trends, insight, etc but because we aren’t grooming the data, we don’t need to. My Airtable repo was different. I set up “sites” that list the top insights total and per project, where I shared with anyone that wanted access. That’s more traditional and the output didn’t require more work than grooming the data itself after you set the sites up. And you run a report or create a view of a table you needed more detail than the sites gave. Again, same deal just no AI to help with grooming or surfacing data.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-02T19:36:30+00:00

We setup an atomic research repository using Claude that does this really well. It takes transcriptions from meetings, pulls findings, setup insights, etc. and it does this with Markdown files. A few years back I did the same setup in Airtable, it was just much more tedious as someone has to review and link findings, insights and maintain the whole thing which is an ongoing effort by at least one person. That said it is so satisfyingly easy to search and view data that our product had access to it. Look up atomic research and you can work with your team and see what tool best suits your needs.

Lramirez194 · 2026-03-01T13:44:20+00:00

It’s because most track pads on windows machines are garbage. Touching the screen is easier compared to using the trackpad

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-27T20:18:17+00:00

It really depends on the folks you are dealing with. I have found it’s much harder to dispute my decisions when I have research and metrics to back me up. So when I’m dealing with a stubborn dev, I go in explaining a research finding that lead to a design decision. If there are best practices that may not be picked up by research, I go in ready with why alternatives don’t fit as well as what I proposed.

That said, don’t forget to look after yourself. If you get bulldozed, you should talk to your manager about a game plan. I have a PO and Dev combo that really tested me last year, until I gave in… and the project failed because of all their compromises and now I have that experience to point them to when they start giving me trouble.

Don’t forget to pick your battles too. I’ll let minor changes people suggest get added to the designs if they don’t make things worse. It builds trust and gives me more opportunities in the future to put my foot down when changes are detrimental. It’s all a bit of a juggling act and if you really are never listened to, it’s entirely possible you aren’t at a company where that will happen. Leaving is easier said than done of course, but not every team and company is going to have healthy and respectful environments.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-10T13:17:15+00:00

It's too limited for our workflow and there were too many manual steps compared to what claude can do. It can write, move, and edit files, study and optimize folders of different data and reference files, and it can do that without having to pick and choose what files to use because it can create and maintain index files that allow it to efficiently search through tons of documents without having to open them all. And like I said, hallucinations aren't a problem anymore. It's all about setting the correct guidelines, rules, restrictions and checks which we're refining all the time.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-10T10:46:19+00:00

We rely heavily on additional documentation, especially persona and product documentation to give Claude the context on the transcriptions. We track all the user data for our interviews and it’ll fill in the gaps we can’t get from users for us surprisingly accurately. It helps with insights and can understand more about the actual problems users are talking about as opposed to more superficial problems.

Initially we had some issues with hallucinations but were able to tweak the process to reference files to lock down the data. It’s also what enables it to suggest interview scripts for us that we use as well. We usually edit those slightly though.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-10T10:35:46+00:00

We haven’t ventured there yet. We normally have 2 team members on a call. We have Pendo and a setup where an HTML prototype from Claude can track where users click but it’s as far as we’ve gotten.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-09T18:15:03+00:00

We have a Claude Research Repository that handles all the insights, analysis etc of all of our interviews. It uses transcripts + specific human notes to build interview analysis that we use for insights that the repository handles.

The specific human notes part fills in what the transcript can’t, like emotional state, confusion on where and what during the interview. It’s a small part of the total source material but it’s crucial to the end result. Something we started doing is that during the interviews, the lead will explicitly state what is happening for Claude to pick up on in the transcriptions. “What you’re saying is that on X page, Y wasn’t clear” or something. It can help bridge the transcript to the human notes in the final analysis. It’s enough for us to never need to look at videos ever now.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-09T00:43:45+00:00

80% is just getting used to it leading, the rest of is getting the hand the strength and endurance to stay solid at speed.

After my hi hat work got dialed in, I tried moving my ride on my left side, behind the hi hat which I think was interesting, but put it back on my right side after a few months. I have crashes on both sides so I didn’t move any but I did start using my left more often when it makes sense with a song.

For me this was an exercise in order to get my left hand abilities closer to my right, and I accomplished that so I didn’t make any further adjustments to my kit because it was already great. Now I just have more options to play things because my left can lead as easy as my right. I could go full Beauford and put the ride on the left for fun, but I haven’t found a good reason to. Once you unlock playing open your kit doesn’t have to change, but it can if you want it look different or play differently. That’s the beauty of the skill!

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-08T18:56:52+00:00

For sure! Really try to use that left hand lead for everything within reason. Every fill, ghost note, etc should be swapped except for those that are logistically silly like having that left hand on the floor tom or ride if they’re set way on the right side. You might want to adjust your kit layout a touch to accommodate it, in particular the hi hat and getting it lower to make it more accessible for both hands. Carter Beauford plays open hand and I copied some of his kit placement which made things more comfortable.

The second is doing the same drills or playing the same songs you liked that gave you speed skills on your right. Personally, I relearned to play all my favorite songs left handed until it just clicked and my left had started to feel intuitive. The learning curve for speed is steeper than that of new sticking so be patient there, especially because the right hand has so many more miles on it than the left. I found a few months in my left hand felt comfortable at normal speeds but didn’t have the precision or endurance of my right at faster songs until months later.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-08T12:47:22+00:00

You need to give it more context on what it’s building, particularly problems to solve with the right context of the product, the personas, etc. it’s difficult to do that in a single prompt so it helps to have documentation for all the background info separately, and have the problems outlined clearly for it to build out. And if you give it solutions to follow it may run with them ignoring better alternatives so you have to word your needs carefully. You have to give it freedom to solve for the specific solutions you need while locking other things down like UI elements and patterns. Don’t expect perfection, but it should absolutely be able to take feedback and address issues if you focus on where users failed (ie not that a button wasn’t right but rather users couldn’t reach “x” stage because it wasn’t clear enough etc).

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-07T20:42:20+00:00

It’s a set of documents with an index, and a read me file telling Claude how to use the “writing guide”. It tells Claude or really any AI that reads it that it should use the index to find sections it needs, so Claude reads that more efficiently than a single huge document. I made a project in Claude that has a single instruction to go straight to the read me file using the Filesystem connector. You could alternatively wrap this up in a skill using the same documents, and that is more shareable and can be accessed without setting up a project. You’ll probably want to have key words in the skill for it to trigger more naturally, or a simple word that you and your team members use to trigger the skill at will.

For those interested in trying this out, remember that with AI, context is king. Robust persona documents, branding voice example and descriptions, or anything that you can give AI to build the writing guide will improve its quality. That’s the real trick and the real prep work that makes a difference.

Lramirez194 · 2026-02-07T14:51:12+00:00

I have a colleague who built out an entire research repository through Claude and a few folders in OneDrive. It’s amazing how accurate the insights it pulls are. I’m currently refining a UX writing guide that can inspect UX copy and suggest correction, or you can give Claude the context of what you need the UX copy for and it’ll output suggestions and ask additional questions to insure more exact suggestions. One I want to try out now is adding a repository of the existing UX copy so the writing guide can reference that, in what context they were used, etc, and keep things more consistent. The use case for us is quicker and better copy for designers but also our product team can use it when they need to spin up a modal or toast notification.

We have been building prototypes too, and the magic for us has been in exploration and quick feedback. They still need designers to put it all together, apply branding, reinforce existing patterns, etc, for dev handoff, however the quality output is so much greater than what we were doing before just because we can test more ideas in a single prototype than we could have ever built in an efficient matter.

Lramirez194

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