Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - August 13, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - August 13, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  We're gorging on borrowed trust with AI interfaces. So the magic
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  is just a mask for incompetence? Exactly, and we need to look at
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  how that borrowed confidence actually costs us.
• 0:13
  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. Leadership By Design is on Thursday and
• 0:18
  Friday, September 17 and 18 and tickets are available now! And
• 0:21
  while you're at it, get caught up on UX fundamentals with five
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  minute UX at five em UX dot com. The Feed & The Thread is
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  available online at feed and thread dot com to submit your
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  feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and threads
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  delivered right to your pocket.
• 0:42
  We're designing interfaces that look confident while hiding how
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  little they actually know. That gap between appearance and
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  ability is widening, and it's changing how users judge
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  competence. Dan Maccarone at UX Design.cc warns in "We’re
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  gorging on borrowed trust and it’s going to cost us." that
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  we're borrowing trust we haven't earned. He describes teams
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  adding fake loading animations to make AI seem thoughtful, a
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  move that trades honesty for perceived depth. Humans
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  naturally link confidence with skill, a heuristic that models
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  exploit by delivering wrong answers with smooth fluency.
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  Unlike people who hesitate after failing, these systems often
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  double down, which erodes the very trust we need to sustain
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  long-term engagement. Nick Babich tests Claude Design at UX
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  Planet in "Can Claude Design Really Create a Good iOS App?"
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  to see if it can truly build usable iOS apps. While the tool
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  handles design systems better now, it still stumbles on
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  complex interactions and subtle experience details. It works as
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  an assistant for generating structure, but it lacks the
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  nuance required for polished user journeys. We can use it to
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  start, but we still need human judgment to finish. Francesco
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  Michelini shows how to build interactive three-dimensional
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  clusters in "Creating an Interactive 3D Cluster with
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  Three.js, TSL and Three Start" at Codrops. He uses Three.js and
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  WebGPU to turn basic shapes into organic, responsive visuals that
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  react to user input. This moves beyond standard web graphics
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  into high-performance rendering that feels alive. It's a
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  technical roadmap for designers who want their interfaces to
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  feel dynamic rather than static. Other articles today from CSS-
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  Tricks on accessibility warnings and UX Design.cc on how death
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  models thinking.
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  Designers are building interfaces that look confident
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  while hiding how little they actually know. That gap between
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  appearance and ability is widening, and it's changing how
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  users judge competence. Over on r/UserExperience, someone is
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  looking at custom bid friction. The idea is that specific design
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  choices can stress buyers during transactions. It's not just
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  about having too many fields. It's about the cognitive load of
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  making a decision when the interface feels uncertain. We're
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  seeing a tension where necessary input creates anxiety instead of
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  clarity. If the form looks complex but doesn't explain why,
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  the user assumes the system is broken. That perception of
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  incompetence hurts conversion more than the actual difficulty
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  of the task. In r/UserExperience, a builder is
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  stuck on filtering design review flags. The tool finds hundreds
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  of issues, but the real question is what's worth showing. The
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  challenge is moving past generic accessibility reports to surface
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  high-impact breakpoints. If we show everything, we show
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  nothing. The value isn't in finding errors. It's in
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  prioritizing what actually breaks the experience. That
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  requires judgment, not just automation. And that judgment is
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  hard to encode. Over on r/uxwriting, a hiring post for a
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  senior copywriter has gone silent. The role focuses on
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  direct response and funnels, which are high-stakes areas. The
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  lack of engagement is notable. It might reflect the current
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  market chill or a disconnect in how we value writing. When copy
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  drives revenue, it should be visible. But often it's treated
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  as an afterthought. That invisibility mirrors our theme.
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  The work is essential, but the interface for hiring it's
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  broken. In r/hci, a psychology student in India asks how to get
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  into UX research at companies like Google. The path from
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  academia to big tech is rarely linear. It's especially opaque
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  when you're outside traditional hubs. The question reveals a
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  systemic friction. We hire for pedigree, not potential. That
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  gap between who we need and who we find is widening. It's a
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  competence signal that's failing both sides. Over on
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  r/UserExperienceDesign, a designer asks whether light or
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  dark mode should be the default for a habit tracker. It seems
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  like a aesthetic choice, but it's about usability at a
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  glance. The default sets the expectation. If you pick the
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  wrong one, you're fighting user habit. It's a small interface
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  decision with big implications for perceived ease of use.
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  We're optimizing for confidence while neglecting clarity. The
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  interface looks good, but the logic underneath is still
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  catching up.
• 4:49
  Chicago Camps is hosting Leadership By Design on Thursday
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  & Friday, September 17 & 18. It's an online event, so you can
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  join from anywhere in the world! Tickets are free, thanks to the
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  generosity of the community! If it's within your budget, you can
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  purchase a general admission ticket for only twenty six
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  dollars - with limited early bird tickets at only fifteen
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  dollars. Get tickets now at Chicago Camps dot org.
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  We're trading honesty for perceived depth by adding fake
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  loading animations to make AI seem thoughtful, which Dan
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  Maccarone calls borrowing trust we haven't earned, and that same
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  deception shows up in how we hire, where we value pedigree
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  over potential because it looks smoother on paper. That's
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  exactly the problem with the silent hiring posts on Reddit,
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  because when we treat senior copywriting or UX research as a
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  status symbol rather than a functional role, we ignore the
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  actual work that drives revenue and insight, leaving us with
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  empty titles and broken processes. The heuristic that
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  confidence equals skill is being exploited by models that double
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  down on wrong answers with smooth fluency, just like
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  companies that hire for brand names instead of problem-solving
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  ability, creating a system where the appearance of competence
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  matters more than the reality of it. So we need to stop judging
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  interfaces and hires by their polish and start auditing them
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  for their structural integrity, because a smooth loading screen
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  or a fancy degree doesn't fix a broken user journey or a failing
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  funnel. We're designing for confidence instead of
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  capability, and that gap is widening. And the only way to
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  close it's to value the messy, honest work that actually builds
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  trust over time.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!