Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - August 26, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - August 26, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Blade Runner predicted the actual workflow of modern AI.
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  Not just the look, but how it works? It's a design document
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  for the texture of intelligence, and we need to see why it
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  matters.
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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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  We build systems that remember us, yet we struggle to trust the
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  humans behind them. That tension defines today's Feed. Jenna
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  Herring and Jeff Sauro at MeasuringU argue in "Five Ways
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  to Use Rapport When Moderating" that rapport is the safety net
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  for high-value research. They say AI can handle low-stakes
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  tasks, but human moderators must build the trust needed for
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  critical feedback. You prepare by learning the participant's
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  lingo, break the ice with neutral questions, and use
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  specific verbal cues to signal safety. It's not about being
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  friendly. It's about creating a space where people speak without
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  fear of judgment. Patrick Neeman writes at UX Design.cc in
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  "What Blade Runner got right about AI" that Blade Runner
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  predicted the texture of modern AI workflows. He draws a line
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  from the film's implanted memories to today's systems that
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  model user preferences continuously. This creates a
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  false sense of presence that erodes our critical scrutiny.
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  Just as the Voight-Kampff test failed to measure empathy,
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  current AI detection tools fail to measure authenticity. We risk
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  losing our ability to judge what's real when tools remember
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  our personal details better than we do. Preety Kumar at Deque
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  Blog highlights a two-decade partnership with Microsoft in
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  "Deque and Microsoft: Two decades of shaping the future of
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  accessibility". She argues that true accessibility progress
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  comes from deep trust, not just technical deliverables. As AI
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  reshapes development, accessibility must start at the
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  first prompt to reduce costs and improve quality. You can't fix
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  it after the fact. The disability community's expertise
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  is technically essential for building robust AI systems.
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  Tools alone are insufficient. You need the human insight to
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  make them work. Other articles today from UX Planet on
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  designing with Claude, Codrops on Three.js lens effects, and
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  CSS-Tricks on syntax highlighting.
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  Practitioners are asking who gets to define what counts as
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  valid evidence today. Over on r/hci, a veteran with eleven
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  years of experience is questioning whether they can
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  publish research independently. They're hitting the traditional
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  gatekeeping of venues like CHI without an institutional
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  affiliation. It's a sharp reminder that unique, practical
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  insights often get locked out of the academic conversation. We
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  trust the systems built on this research, yet we struggle to
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  trust the humans who might not fit the mold. In r/Design, a
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  student is proposing a YouTube channel that treats architecture
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  as investigative journalism. Instead of aesthetic showcases,
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  they want to audit spaces for human behavior and
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  functionality. This shifts the focus from Instagram-worthy
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  transformations to whether design actually improves lives
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  over time. It's a move toward accountability that challenges
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  us to look past the surface. Another thread in r/Design
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  argues for prioritizing core fundamentals over fleeting
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  aesthetic trends. The claim is that typography and spacing are
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  prerequisites for effective design, not afterthoughts. This
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  tension between visual novelty and functional clarity is real.
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  When we chase trends, we often lose the trust users place in
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  clear, readable interfaces. Over on r/Design, a creator is
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  blending Frutiger Aero and Vaporwave aesthetics for a 3DS
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  decal. They feel the top section is missing something and are
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  seeking inspiration for the layout. It's a reminder that
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  even in niche creative projects, the struggle for balance and
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  cohesion remains central to the practice. In r/Design, someone
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  is asking for ideas on hospital file covers. This highlights the
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  often-overlooked intersection of UX and physical product design
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  in healthcare. Legibility and quick identification in high-
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  stress settings matter just as much as digital clarity. We
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  build systems that remember us, but we must also design the
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  physical objects that hold our stories. Today's discussions
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  reveal that trust isn't just about code or data. It's about
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  who gets to speak, how we measure value, and whether our
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  designs serve people in both digital and physical spaces.
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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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  The MeasuringU article argues that rapport is the safety net
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  for high-value research, specifically for building the
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  trust needed for critical feedback. That distinction
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  matters because we're seeing AI handle low-stakes tasks while
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  humans are expected to handle the high-stakes emotional labor.
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  But the Deque article points out that trust isn't just about
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  being friendly during a session. It's about structural inclusion
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  from the first prompt. Exactly. Preety Kumar notes that
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  accessibility progress comes from deep trust, not just
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  technical deliverables. If we treat the disability community's
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  expertise as essential for building robust AI systems, we
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  move beyond seeing them as users to seeing them as co-architects
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  of the system's logic. But here's the friction. The r/hci
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  thread shows a veteran researcher hitting a wall
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  because they lack an institutional affiliation. We
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  claim we need human insight to make these tools work, yet the
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  gatekeeping mechanisms in academia and industry still lock
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  out the very people who hold that insight. It creates a
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  contradiction where we say we need diverse perspectives to
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  prevent bias, but our validation systems only recognize
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  credentials from specific institutions. The system
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  remembers the institution, not the person. So the barrier
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  isn't the technology. It's the incentive structure that values
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  the stamp of approval over the quality of the insight. We're
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  building systems that demand human trust while systematically
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  filtering out the humans who don't fit the traditional mold.
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  We have to stop treating access to knowledge as a privilege of
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  affiliation. Agreed. The metric for success shouldn't be who
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  gets published, but whether the system actually reflects the
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  people it serves.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!