Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - August 19, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - August 19, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Bad UX is actually leaking revenue, not just costing money.
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  So it's a top-line problem, not an expense? Exactly, and the new
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  calculation method proves you're leaving cash on the table right
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  now.
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. Leadership By Design is on Thursday and
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  Friday, September 17 and 18 and tickets are available now! And
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  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.
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  The interface is disappearing, yet the work of design is
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  getting harder, not easier. We're moving from pixels to
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  processes, and the metrics we use to judge success are
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  shifting beneath our feet. Arin Bhowmick at UX Design.cc makes
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  the case in "Is the future of software certain once AI is
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  everywhere?" that enterprise software isn't dying, it's just
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  becoming conversational. The value no longer lives in the
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  menu structure, but in the proprietary business context
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  that AI agents orchestrate in the background. That rewrites
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  the assumption that designers must guard every screen, pushing
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  us toward defining outcomes rather than drawing buttons.
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  Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro present a rigorous path forward in
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  "Streamlined Measurement of the UX of AI" at MeasuringU. They
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  move past generic satisfaction scores to measure specific
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  constructs like trust and anxiety, using factor analysis
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  to validate which questions actually work across different
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  models. This gives us a standardized way to prove that
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  an AI interface feels safe, not just fast. Christian Holst at
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  Baymard Institute quantifies the risk in "The Hidden Cost of Bad
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  UX: How Much Revenue Are You Leaving on the Table?". He
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  argues that bad UX is an internal expense that burns top-
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  line revenue, and his calculator translates friction into
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  concrete financial loss using data from hundreds of thousands
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  of testing hours. It turns abstract usability issues into a
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  business case leadership can't ignore. Other reads today from
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  Deque Blog on accessibility milestones, Jeffrey Zeldman on
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  intrinsic design, and Codrops on animated testimonials.
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  Five threads today are circling the same quiet crisis: how do we
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  validate our work when the artifacts we used to point to
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  are vanishing. Over on r/hci, a professional with a management
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  background is asking where to pursue a socio-technical PhD
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  focused on consumer surveillance. They want to
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  become an independent consultant, not an academic.
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  This matters because the field is splitting. We're moving from
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  designing screens to designing systems of trust, and the
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  metrics for success are shifting beneath our feet. If you can't
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  articulate the ethics of data protection, you can't design the
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  interface that hides it. In r/UXResearch, someone is
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  struggling to find qualified participants for user interviews
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  across different countries. Reaching existing users is easy,
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  but sourcing potential users in new markets feels like shouting
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  into a void. This is the friction of moving from pixels
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  to processes. We're no longer just testing a button; we're
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  trying to understand a market that doesn't know we exist yet.
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  The challenge isn't the tool. It's the access. Also in
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  r/UXResearch, a post argues strongly against rigid interview
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  scripts. The claim is that over- standardization kills the magic
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  moments of research. Those insights come from organic
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  follow-up questions driven by active listening, not a
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  checklist. This connects back to our theme. The interface is
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  disappearing, so our ability to listen becomes the primary
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  design tool. If you stick to the script, you miss the signal.
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  Back in r/hci, a user shares their experience after an F1
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  visa denied their entry to US HCI programs. They're now
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  looking for strong graduate programs in Europe or Asia. This
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  highlights the global nature of the discipline. Top-tier
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  education is competitive everywhere, and the barriers to
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  entry are rising. It forces us to ask if our local standards
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  are truly universal or just locally convenient. Finally, in
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  r/hci, a PhD candidate seeks advice on navigating the
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  transition to a postdoctoral position. They're asking about
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  timing fellowship applications and building community with
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  peers. This reveals the structural lag in our field.
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  We're training people for roles that don't quite exist yet. The
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  path from academia to practice is becoming less linear, and the
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  support systems are still catching up. The work is
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  getting harder because the problems are no longer contained
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  within the screen.
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  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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  Christian Holst's calculator turns friction into a dollar
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  amount, but Arin Bhowmick argues the interface itself is
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  vanishing. If the buttons disappear, Holst's metric for
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  lost revenue becomes harder to pin down. We're trying to
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  measure the cost of a menu that no longer exists. That's the
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  trap. We're still trying to quantify value by counting
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  clicks when the value is now in the orchestration of business
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  context. The work isn't easier because the screens are gone.
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  It's harder because we have to define outcomes instead of
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  drawing boundaries. Exactly. And that connects to the thread
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  about PhD candidates navigating a path that doesn't quite exist
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  yet. We're training people to measure and validate artifacts
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  that are becoming invisible. If the interface is conversational,
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  what's the unit of measurement for a bad experience? It's
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  trust. Jim Lewis and Jeff Sauro are already pointing this way
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  with their work on measuring anxiety and trust in AI. We
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  can't measure speed anymore. We have to measure whether the user
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  feels safe enough to let the agent make the decision. So the
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  shift is from efficiency to safety. But safety is abstract.
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  Holst wants a number. Lewis wants a validated construct.
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  These two approaches are pulling in different directions. One
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  demands a bottom-line impact. The other demands psychological
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  validity. They aren't pulling apart. They're merging. The
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  business case for AI isn't just that it's faster. It's that it
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  reduces the cognitive load of decision-making. If we can prove
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  that an agent lowers user anxiety, we've proven it saves
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  revenue. That's a bold link. You're saying reduced anxiety is
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  a direct proxy for retained revenue. I'm saying it's the
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  only proxy that holds up when the interface disappears. If the
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  user doesn't trust the agent, they don't use the product. No
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  clicks. No revenue. The anxiety metric becomes the leading
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  indicator of the revenue metric. Then the standard for success
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  changes. We stop optimizing for conversion rates on specific
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  pages.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!