POD 70 - Designing Source by Webflow - Kyle Lambert

In episode 70 of Webflow and Friends, I talk with Kyle Lambert, a senior staff product designer at Webflow who has worked on Source since the start. We begin with the question many people had after Webflow Conf: is Source only for marketers? Kyle explains who it is really for, how you design malleable software where every user can have different views, and why the plan is AI for the first 80% and visual tools for the last 20%. We also talk about starting a new site in Source, what happens to existing Webflow sites, the new headless CMS, extensions, and what he can and can't say about pricing and timelines. Before that, we cover his path from branding designer to Webflow, and why empathy matters when you design tools for developers. Check out Kyle Lambert: https://www.imkylelambert.com/ https://x.com/imkylelambert https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleslambert/ Also mentioned: Timothy Ricks: https://www.timothyricks.com/ Jon Saxton: https://jonsaxton.com/ Nathan Huening: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-ftw/ Source by Webflow: https://webflow.com/source Astro: https://astro.build/ Next.js: https://nextjs.org/ Sanity: https://www.sanity.io/ Loom: https://www.loom.com/ Cursor: https://cursor.com/ Claude Code: https://claude.com/claude-code 🙋‍♂️ About Janne I'm Janne, a freelance Webflow developer and podcast host based in Finland. On this channel, I talk to agency owners, award-winning designers, and experienced builders about the business and strategy side of creative work. I also try out new apps, exciting features and share what I learn from my journey. 🎙️ About Webflow and Friends Webflow and Friends is my interview show for the Webflow community. Every episode I talk to a different designer, developer, or agency owner about how they actually work: what they build, how they price it, what they've changed their mind about, and what's annoying them in the tooling right now. Timestamps 00:00 Is Source only for marketers? 04:53 Webflow Conf, and stitching a stack together 09:35 Intro 10:10 What a senior staff product designer does 13:09 Side projects, and a Loom extension 15:28 The paper cut room, and designers shipping fixes with AI 17:50 Designing for developers 21:52 Empathy, and where it ends 26:17 Back to Source: designing malleable software 30:50 Designing rule sets instead of screens 35:47 First-party views in Source 38:02 AI for the first 80%, visual tools for the last 20% 39:16 Starting a new site, and moving a Webflow site to Source 43:50 Components across Astro and Next.js 46:04 Pricing and timelines 50:30 The new headless CMS 54:23 CMS-backed pages and one unified publish 58:49 Standalone products and extensions 01:03:46 Where to find Kyle 01:04:34 The Finnish Line