Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - September 14, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - September 14, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  AI is making users paranoid about reality. That's a heavy
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  cognitive load. We're forcing people to constantly verify if
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  interactions are real, which breaks trust. Let's look at the
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  data.
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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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  Speed usually wins in product development, but we're learning
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  that rushing past friction often destroys the very alignment we
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  need. We're trading clarity for velocity, and the cost is
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  showing up in our teams and our users. Jeff Gothelf warns us in
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  "Don’t let AI automate the mess out of product development" at
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  his blog that AI might automate the mess out of product
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  development, but that mess is often where real commitment
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  happens. He points to OKR rollouts where skipping the
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  messy conversation means the team never actually buys into
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  the goals. We risk generating artifacts without generating
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  trust, which is a dangerous trade-off. Pavel Samsonov at
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  Product Picnic argues in "AI hypervigilance is now an
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  omnipresent cognitive load for your users" that AI
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  hypervigilance is now an omnipresent cognitive load for
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  your users. We're forcing people to constantly verify if they're
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  talking to a human or a bot, which adds a layer of anxiety to
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  every digital interaction. This isn't just about attention
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  anymore, it's about trust, and the scam economy is making that
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  trust harder to earn. Hiroshi Sato tackles a softer boundary
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  in "How to say no when a friend asks for a discount" at UX
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  Design.cc, explaining how to say no when a friend asks for a
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  discount. He suggests that giving discounts creates an
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  awkward dynamic that rarely works out, so he simply doesn't
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  do it. It's a clear way to respect your professional value
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  without damaging the friendship, keeping the lines between work
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  and life distinct. Other reads today from Codrops on building
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  3D depth in Figma and Resn's digital experiences.
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  Designers are trading speed for clarity today, and the cost is
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  showing up in our teams and our users. We're rushing past
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  friction, and that alignment we need is disappearing. Over on
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  r/hci, a researcher is asking why people deliberately avoid
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  voice assistants. Most studies focus on users, but this one
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  needs non-users to understand the data gap. It matters because
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  we assume adoption is inevitable, but avoidance is a
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  valid design signal. If we don't understand why people opt out,
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  we're building for a ghost demographic. In
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  r/ProductDesign, someone is sharing 3D printed tow hitch
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  plates as a case study in rapid prototyping. It highlights how
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  accessible fabrication tools let designers move from digital
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  files to physical hardware quickly. The tension here's
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  between speed and safety, because printing a structural
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  part feels fast, but testing it takes time. We have to remember
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  that velocity in manufacturing doesn't replace rigorous
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  validation. Over on r/UserExperienceDesign,
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  designers are listing replacements for Canva because
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  they feel the quality has declined recently. They're
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  proposing a stack of free tools like Penpot and GIMP instead of
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  proprietary software. This shift suggests a fatigue with closed
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  ecosystems, and it forces us to ask if we're over-relying on
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  single platforms for our entire workflow. In r/web_design, a
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  small business owner is asking whether to hire a UI designer
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  for Figma prototypes or jump straight to a hybrid developer.
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  They have the content and branding ready, but they're
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  worried about mobile-first execution. The dilemma is real,
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  because skipping the design phase often leads to technical
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  debt, but hiring separately adds cost and time. Also in
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  r/web_design, a medical student is sharing their self-taught
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  coding project for a test platform. They're asking for
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  feedback on improvements, which shows how domain expertise can
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  drive design when formal training isn't available. It
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  reminds us that good UX often comes from understanding the
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  user's context, not just the toolset. Today's discussions
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  show that when we prioritize speed, we often sacrifice the
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  foundational work that keeps products aligned and usable.
• 4:19
  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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  Jeff Gothelf's warning about AI automating the mess out of
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  product development cuts through the noise. He argues that the
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  friction in OKR rollouts isn't a bug, it's where commitment
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  happens. When we skip that messy conversation to generate
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  artifacts faster, we trade trust for velocity. That feels like a
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  systemic risk we're ignoring because the output looks clean.
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  I agree the artifacts look clean, but the cost is real. The
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  medical student in the web design thread proves that domain
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  expertise drives better UX than just using the right tools. If
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  we let AI handle the "mess" of alignment, we lose the context
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  that makes the product useful. We're building speed on a
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  foundation of assumptions, not understanding. Exactly. And
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  that connects to Pavel Samsonov's point about cognitive
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  load. Users are already exhausted verifying if they're
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  talking to a human. If our internal teams don't buy into
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  the goals because we automated the debate, the product fails to
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  solve the right problem. We're compounding the anxiety. So the
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  fix isn't slowing down for the sake of it. It's preserving the
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  human judgment calls. The r/ProductDesign thread on 3D
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  printed tow hitches shows this tension perfectly. Printing is
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  fast, but testing for safety takes time. We can't prototype
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  the structural integrity of a team's trust the same way we
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  prototype a button. Right. Velocity in manufacturing
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  doesn't replace rigorous validation. We need to treat
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  alignment as a structural component, not a decorative one.
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  If we rush past the friction, we aren't efficient. We're just
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  wrong, faster. That's the shift. We have to stop viewing
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  friction as inefficiency and start viewing it as the
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  mechanism for shared ownership. Friction is the price of entry
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  for genuine commitment. And without that price, the product
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  has no value to the people building it.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!