Rafa Conde - Make your designs memorable

Rafa Conde - Make your designs memorable

From Dive Club 🤿 by Ridd

May 5, 2026 · 59 min · Episode 163

About this episode

In this episode, design engineer Rafa Conde discusses how to create memorable and delightful user experiences in design.

Rafa Conde ( https://x.com/rafahari ) is a design engineer at Retro and one of the most creative designers I know. I still remember where I was when I first saw the video on his personal site ( https://rafa.design/ ) 😂 In this episode we unpack what it means to design experiences that bring delight :) Some highlights: - Finding ways to introduce delight - How to make users feel something - The power of humor in your design - How to lean into video as a superpower - Balancing accessibility and delightful UX - Behind the scenes of Rafa's side projects - + a lot more - Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation 1) — directed by Hideo Kojima, referenced for its fourth-wall-breaking design moments (Meryl’s codec frequency hidden on the game box; Psycho Mantis boss fight requiring the controller to be switched from port 1 to port 2) - Sunlit app — gyroscope-based app for tracking sun position and light direction, referenced as a recent example of surprising UI: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.lonepalm.coloringworld&pli=1 - Retro app — private social network for friends and family (what Instagram used to be); Rafa’s current employer…

People in this episode

Host: Ridd

Guest: Rafa Conde

Topics covered

  • design experiences
  • user delight
  • humor in design
  • video in design
  • accessibility
  • side projects

Keywords

  • design
  • user experience
  • delight
  • humor
  • accessibility
  • video
  • Metal Gear Solid
  • Retro
  • apps

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Retro

Products: Sunlit app, Retro app, Splat app, Hand Mirror app

Books & works: Metal Gear Solid

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