<![CDATA[Stories by UX Collective Editors on Medium]]> https://medium.com/@uxdesigncc?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/fit/c/150/150/1*KmAqkCpmGUlc02cP34BZkg.jpeg Stories by UX Collective Editors on Medium https://medium.com/@uxdesigncc?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 Medium Thu, 07 May 2026 19:01:11 GMT <![CDATA[Collected consciousness, exhausting moment, UX Research with AI]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/collected-consciousness-exhausting-moment-ux-research-with-ai-b9c1911f41c1?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/b9c1911f41c1 Mon, 04 May 2026 08:34:37 GMT 2026-05-04T19:00:39.554Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“So much of our creative communication as human beings so deeply depends on the emotion, connection, and meaningful context created and consumed between the creator and consumer. If I (the author) tell you (the reader) I love you, that’s very different from someone you actually care about, someone you have a history with telling you they love you. Real, true communication between people, especially through art, requires emotion, connection, context, and meaning.

Unfortunately for some, but to the benefit of the rest of us, those are all things that artificial intelligence lacks within the content it generates.”

Collected consciousness →

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

154 Macs since 1983 →

Make me think

  • Do I belong in tech anymore? →
    “You join a meeting with a coworker. Your coworker has enabled an AI tool to automatically take notes and summarize the meeting. They do not ask for consent to turn it on. The tool mischaracterizes what you discuss.”
  • Output isn’t design →
    “Design keeps being misunderstood in our industry. New tools keep promising to generate interfaces faster, move words to product instantly, or collapse design directly into code. The assumption behind them is clear: that design is the act of producing.”
  • Field notes from the in-between →
    “Then AI coding tools showed up. A handful of people started saying something I hadn’t heard before. Not designers should code. Not designers should learn to code. Designers can code now. That’s a huge shift. But I still waited.”

Little gems this week

The most interesting, exhausting moment of our careers →
By Pawel Klasa

The right touch: mapping AI presence to user intent →
By Bradly Zavakos

The most dangerous pronoun in design →
By Pedro A. Brêtas

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

Collected consciousness, exhausting moment, UX Research with AI was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[A fantastic voyage, the illusion of good taste, the art of subtraction]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/a-fantastic-voyage-the-illusion-of-good-taste-the-art-of-subtraction-27f689daddeb?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/27f689daddeb Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:35:13 GMT 2026-04-27T20:44:33.167Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“The invisible walls for designers have been broken down. Maybe we don’t know it yet, but this year is the perfect time to start reframing the influence and vision of product design within and beyond companies.”

Product design in 2026: the beginning of a fantastic voyage? →
By Kike Peña

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Charcuterie: a visual explorer for Unicode →

Make me think

  • Thoughts and feelings around Claude Design →
    “Why fuss around in a lossy approximation of the thing when you can work directly in the medium where it will actually live? If we want to make pottery, why are we painting watercolors of the pot instead of just throwing the clay?”
  • I love AI, but it still can’t design for shit →
    “People. This is basic. You are accountable for your output. The AI does not look bad if your AI slop is on show. You do. Especially if the person the other end knows anything about how these models work.”
  • Expansion artifacts →
    “Every AI-generated output is an extrapolation from that blurry source, vectored toward your prompt, filling in plausible detail where the compression threw information away. The output gets inflated into blog posts and LinkedIn thoughtspam, software platforms, omnichannel advertising campaigns, and movie cameos from dead actors. Chiang compared the gaps and confabulations to compression artifacts.”

Little gems this week

The art of subtraction in a world of infinite features →
By Luis Hermosilla

Learnings from designing open source technology →
By Aly Blenkin

AI is ruining the way you talk about your work →
By Hoang Nguyen

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

A fantastic voyage, the illusion of good taste, the art of subtraction was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[What we behold, the trust-latency gap, designing haptics]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/what-we-behold-the-trust-latency-gap-designing-haptics-de4a2642e948?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/de4a2642e948 Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:47:35 GMT 2026-04-20T11:47:35.886Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“The sentiment of the change brought on by AI has never been more relevant than it is now. Technology has always accelerated, but it feels like we are at an inflection point. Where AI business innovation, AI automation, and AI-driven technological disruption are shaping us faster than we can behold. Whether you like it or not, our tools are shaping us, and we are complicit in their methods and tricks.”

We become what we behold →
By Chris R Becker

Recognizing excellence across the globe! →
[Sponsored] Meet our jury: 14 UX leaders from around the world, united by deep experience and a passion for design excellence. Share your work with industry-shaping professionals, gain international visibility and get recognized! Submissions are open until May 15!

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Branding Amazonia →

Make me think

  • When moving fast, talking is the first thing to break →
    “When you make speed and “moving fast” the biggest priority on a project or in an organization, the first thing to breakdown is talking to each other. Talking takes time. Consensus is expensive and slow. In a pressurized environment there’s no time to schedule calls, get input from subject matter experts, or resolve key differences of opinion.”
  • One developer, two dozen agents, zero alignment →
    “At this point, in early 2026, all coding agents are designed as single player experiences. But building software isn’t a single player game. [Here] I talk through why we need collaborative AI engineering tools and show how we’re exploring the problem.”
  • Design and engi­neer­ing, as one →
    “The only problem is that building complex digital products is nothing like shovelling pig iron more efficiently at Bethlehem Steel. Yet over a hundred and twenty years later, most of us are still running product teams on a model that was designed for a problem we don’t have.”

Little gems this week

I watched the Manosphere doc; here is how design makes things worse →
By Maria Teresa Stella

Oh, but there’s one more thing →
By Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

Notes from the people building your future →
By Dora Czerna

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

What we behold, the trust-latency gap, designing haptics was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[The erosion of design authority, burnout problems, invisible customers]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/the-erosion-of-design-authority-burnout-problems-invisible-customers-bea8a4866e9b?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/bea8a4866e9b Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:24:42 GMT 2026-04-14T22:04:45.280Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“The excitement surrounding these tools does not come from the design itself. It comes from the collapse of the distance between description and interaction. An interface appears immediately, behavior responds instantly, and possibility becomes visible before structure exists. That is genuinely new. What is not new is the gap between something that looks finished and something that is.”

Vibe coding is accelerating the erosion of design authority →
By Michael Buckley

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Shot on iPhone in black & white →

Make me think

  • Should designers “code”? →
    “There’s a question that never goes away in design: should designers code? My answer has always been yes. But for a decade or so, the complexity of front-end development made it impractical for most. Thankfully, AI coding agents have reopened the door.”
  • AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it →
    “I want to talk about it honestly. Not the “AI is amazing and here’s my workflow” version. The real version. The one where you stare at your screen at 11pm, surrounded by AI-generated code you still need to review, wondering why the tool that was supposed to save you time has consumed your entire day.”
  • The machines are fine. I’m worried about us. →
    “The discourse around LLMs in science tends to cluster at two poles that David Hogg identifies cleanly: let-them-cook, in which we hand the reins to the machines and become curators of their output, and ban-and-punish, in which we pretend it’s 2019 and prosecute anyone caught prompting.”

Little gems this week

Beyond the user: why design needs to widen its circle →
By Dora Czerna

Falling apples and crumbling algos →
By Eleanor Howe

Taste.md: the new tech buzzword →
By Pablo Stanley

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

The erosion of design authority, burnout problems, invisible customers was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[The UX ground is shaking, synthetic users, building perspective]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/the-ux-ground-is-shaking-synthetic-users-building-perspective-1403195ba11b?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/1403195ba11b Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:08:08 GMT 2026-04-06T11:08:08.816Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“To have a perspective is to say ‘no’ to things that are technically possible but strategically wrong. Most products fail not because they lack features, but because they lack a clear stance on what they are not. Every feature added without a clear perspective dilutes the ones that actually matter. Design is an editorial act: the more you leave out, the more weight you give to what remains.”

Perspective →

5 design links a day, curated by the folks from UX Collective →
For people who still believe in the web as a platform for knowledge sharing, long-form writing, and community.

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Ban Ray: Your face is not inventory →

Make me think

  • Your ticket is a prompt →
    “The agents are behaving like the tickets they learned from. The scope-narrowing, the deference to small pieces over whole outcomes, the instinct to fragment before thinking.”
  • Why are executives enamored with AI but ICs aren’t? →
    “Here’s my current posit for why there’s such a big divide: executives have always had to deal with non-determinism and focus on nondeterministic system design, while individual contributors are evaluated by their execution on deterministic tasks.”
  • Take my job, AI! →
    “On the personal side, I’ve become more and more disillusioned with product design. It can be a shit role where you’re stuck between product managers on one side, engineers on the other, “the business” above you, and your actual users below you. What remains is an increasingly cramped space for decisions we actually “own”, which is basically which color lip stick to put on the pig.”

Little gems this week

Every designer on my team ships the same quality now →
By Hoang Nguyen

AI is rewriting the rules; Language is following →
By Dora Czerna

The long and short of telephone progress →
By Neel Dozome

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

The UX ground is shaking, synthetic users, building perspective was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[Design engineers, UX Design’s demise, forget your “lovable” products]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/design-engineers-ux-designs-demise-forget-your-lovable-products-37030d024887?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/37030d024887 Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:38:32 GMT 2026-03-30T08:38:32.251Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“Despite the title proliferation, there is a shared DNA. Design Engineering lives at the intersection of visual design and front-end development. Not simply being good at both, but a distinct discipline focused on the space where design decisions meet technical implementation.”

The design engineer symptom: what a rising job title reveals →
By Anna Lefour

AI for UX Design — Nearly 1,000 Designers Trained →
[Sponsored] Join designers from companies like Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and LinkedIn who have taken Designlab’s AI for UX Design program. Learn practical AI workflows across UX tasks, continuously updated as tools evolve. Next cohort starts April 17.

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Fran Sans Essay →

Make me think

  • So where are all the AI apps? →
    “So, skeptics reasonably ask, where are all the apps? If AI users are becoming (let’s be conservative) merely 2x more productive, then where do we look to see 2x more software being produced?”
  • The political use of operating systems →
    “Choosing an operating system means not only choosing the stack of our virtual life, but it also means adopting a particular perspective, prioritizing certain needs and choosing the way we interact with technology.”
  • Some things just take time →
    “Trees take quite a while to grow. If someone 50 years ago planted a row of oaks or a chestnut tree on your plot of land, you have something that no amount of money or effort can replicate. The only way is to wait. Tree-lined roads, old gardens, houses sheltered by decades of canopy: if you want to start fresh on an empty plot, you will not be able to get that.”

Little gems this week

What AI exposes about design →
By Alessandro Molinaro

When AI experiences fail, who is held accountable? →
By Dolphia

You can’t design what you won’t maintain →
By Rita Kind-Envy

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

Design engineers, UX Design’s demise, forget your “lovable” products was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[Google Stitch, design maturity guide, livable products]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/google-stitch-design-maturity-guide-livable-products-b782d75bd39b?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/b782d75bd39b Sat, 28 Mar 2026 07:05:01 GMT 2026-03-28T07:05:01.151Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“I woke up this morning to see Figma stocks had plummeted by nearly 12% as a result of Google formally launching its Google Stitch AI design tool. I was in a 1:1 call with my manager today, and she was telling me about how she thinks something big is brewing. She was there during the rise of Figma when the majority of the design market was still using Sketch.”

Google says “Vibe Design” is here, but it didn’t pass my vibe check →
By Elvis Hsiao

Introducing Mobbin for Animations →
[Sponsored] The world’s largest mobile & web design reference library just got better. See how world-class apps use motion to guide, delight, and create seamless experiences — now live on Mobbin.

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Matchbook Book: the archive keeping a lost design legacy alight →

Make me think

  • How to make sense of AI →
    “During times of upheaval, the attention economy creates large incentives for people to prey on fears in order to advance their followings. You should expect to see plenty of content that are perfectly tuned to go viral. All such content is for the author’s benefit, not yours.”
  • The 49MB web page →
    “I went to the New York Times to glimpse at four headlines and was greeted with 422 network requests and 49 megabytes of data. It took two minutes before the page settled. And then you wonder why every sane tech person has an adblocker installed on systems of all their loved ones.”
  • The last quiet thing →
    “Your thermostat has opinions now. Your television requires a login. Your car updates itself overnight, and sometimes when you start it in the morning, the interface has rearranged itself, as if someone broke in and reorganized your dashboard while you slept.”

Little gems this week

Are games really “dumbing down”? →
By Rita Kind-Envy

A designer’s field report on the Iconic blind spot in AI world models →
By Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

The first fruit of the Google-Apple AI pact →
By Neel Dozome

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

Google Stitch, design maturity guide, livable products was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[The last interface, sycophancy in AI, design is how it wins]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/the-last-interface-sycophancy-in-ai-design-is-how-it-wins-3dbcb61e6c87?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/3dbcb61e6c87 Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:22:13 GMT 2026-03-16T22:17:54.528Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“At the end of February, a report by Citrini Research caused major shockwaves through the software industry, sending the stock prices of heavyweight SaaS organisations like Atlassian and Slack to nosedive. The Citrini Report follows AI’s current trajectory and projects that 2028 will bring a self-inflicted corporate doom loop: AI makes software so cheap to build that SaaS companies will cannibalise themselves out of business.”

The last interface →
By Heenesh Patel

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Grainrad: Free WebGPU-powered ASCII, dithering, and retro effects at 60fps →

Make me think

  • Designing AI experiences people actually use →
    “For decades in SAAS, products reduced ambiguity. Users supplied constrained inputs, and the system handled the output. It’s never been Minority Report cinematic, but it was predictable. AI-first interfaces invert that sequence.”
  • Do AI-enabled companies need fewer people? →
    “So something real is happening: startups are genuinely smaller than they used to be, even as they’re raising bigger seed and series A rounds. They’re also hiring more slowly as they grow, and in some cases they’re shrinking.”
  • I don’t know if my job will still exist in ten years →
    “In 2026, I’m not sure the software engineering industry will survive another decade. If it does, I’m certain it’s going to change far more than it did in the last two decades. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to carve out a lucrative niche supervising AI agents, or maybe I’ll have to leave the industry entirely. Either way, the work I loved is going away.”

Little gems this week

The color statistic that’s been wrong for 80 years →
By Kevin Muldoon

What happened to the car designed for women, by women? →
By Daley Wilhelm

Design is not just how it works. Design is how it wins. →
By Elaine

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

The last interface, sycophancy in AI, design is how it wins was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[Product ethics, AI adoption theatre, an architecture that no longer exists]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/product-ethics-ai-adoption-theatre-an-architecture-that-no-longer-exists-094ed55f2e6c?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/094ed55f2e6c Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:11:44 GMT 2026-03-09T15:35:16.634Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“In the last week of February 2026, something unusual happened. A sitting US president took to social media to brand a private technology company a political threat. The Secretary of Defense designated that same company a supply chain risk, a classification previously reserved for foreign adversaries. And hours later, a rival AI lab swooped in and took the government contract that had just been refused.”

Product ethics have never mattered more →
By Dora Czerna

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Obys’ Design Books: showing design in ways the screen never could →

Make me think

  • Nobody gets promoted for simplicity →
    “I think there’s something quietly screwing up a lot of engineering teams. In interviews, in promotion packets, in design reviews: the engineer who overbuilds gets a compelling narrative, but the one who ships the simplest thing that works gets… nothing.”
  • A design turn →
    “Designers are anxious. Layoffs have not let up, AI has seemingly trivialized our magic skill of making things, and practicing designers describe the assembly-style nature of software design as soul-crushing.”
  • Are AI productivity gains fueled by delivery pressure? →
    “That gap between “looking done” and “being right” is exactly where the extra professional pressure begins to mount. This is really caused by the way we still measure knowledge worker productivity — by the sheer number of artifacts they produce, rather than the outcomes of the work.”

Little gems this week

You’re still designing for an architecture that no longer exists →
By Adrian Levy

The world’s cheapest compliment →
By Pedro A. Brêtas

When design teams get rid of writers, nobody wins →
By Nick DiLallo

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

Product ethics, AI adoption theatre, an architecture that no longer exists was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]> <![CDATA[Something big, surveillance by default, agentic UX principles]]> https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/something-big-surveillance-by-default-agentic-ux-principles-1e1ac87458d8?source=rss-8863cbbfbca7------2 https://medium.com/p/1e1ac87458d8 Mon, 02 Mar 2026 08:56:59 GMT 2026-03-02T22:38:58.163Z Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“I’m a firm believer in Josef Müller-Brockmann’s principles of designing with intentionality. At the same time, I’ve watched the same demos Shumer has. I’ve felt that initial rush of adrenaline when viewing the insane capabilities of each AI model, with each release dropping my jaw to the floor.

But after hundreds of hours of actual implementation, the reality looks a lot more like a shifting burden.

We are mistaking the speed of generation for the speed of completion.”

Something big “might” be happening →
By Elvis Hsiao

Editor picks

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Letters to a young creator →

Make me think

  • Design docs considered harmful →
    “Ask yourself how many design docs at your company get updated after implementation starts. If the doc were genuinely useful as a design tool, you’d update it as you learn. Nobody does. The doc’s job was never to guide the implementation. Its job was to get sign-off.”
  • How I’m dealing with the pressure to adopt AI as a designer →
    “You wouldn’t adopt a new approach or tool without being sure it had a positive outcome for your work. AI is no different, and it doesn’t get a free pass just because the discourse is louder.”
  • If code is cheap, intent is the currency →
    “When an agent can produce hundreds of lines in minutes, and the engineer driving that agent can have fairly minimal involvement in the actual writing of the code, the intent of the change becomes the most important factor in communicating what that code is for, why it exists, and how it fits into the larger project.”

Little gems this week

Field study: prototypes over mockups →
By Édouard Wautier

The craft of the instruction →
By Amber Bouabdallah

A love letter to the Pokédex →
By Daley Wilhelm

Tools and resources

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

Something big, surveillance by default, agentic UX principles was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

]]>