Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 1, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - March 1, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Today we're looking at a growing disconnect: companies want
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  senior talent but keep automating the work where
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  juniors learn. In The Feed, we dig into the talent pipeline
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  collapse, the case for better postmortems, and why genuine
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  understanding takes more humility than we like to admit.
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  Then in The Thread, the community is fired up about
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  execs flattening design roles with AI and what it actually
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  means to use these tools with intention. Buckle up, there's
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  lots to cover for a Sunday!
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. Our next UX Camp event is coming up on Saturday,
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  May 30th. Tickets are free - with an option to pay if it's in
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  budget for you. There's an open call for speakers so now is your
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  chance to get on stage and share your ideas! You can also find
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  The Feed & The Thread online at feed and thread dot com to
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  submit your feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and
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  threads delivered right to your pocket.
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  Today's Feed tackles a harsh reality: our industry is
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  breaking the very pipeline that creates future leaders.
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  Companies demand senior expertise while automating the
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  foundational work where juniors actually learn their craft.
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  That's Hoang Nguyen's argument in a piece called "Everyone
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  wants to hire seniors, Nobody wants to make them," at UX
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  Design.cc, and it exposes a dangerous talent collapse. If we
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  eliminate the messy early work, we're essentially starving the
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  next generation of leaders. Hoang argues we must shift our
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  investment toward mentorship despite the efficiency gains
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  from automation. Postmortems are a powerful tool for
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  learning, yet most UX teams either skip them entirely or run
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  them so poorly they offer no value. Laura Klein makes this
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  case in her article titled "Project Postmortems for UX
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  Teams: Learning from Success and Failure," at Nielsen Norman
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  Group. She notes that borrowing this engineering practice
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  requires adapting it thoughtfully to create a
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  systematic learning loop. The goal is to examine what happened
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  and why, then identify the specific systemic changes
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  needed. Genuine understanding requires time and humility, not
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  the immediate and complete comprehension we often promise
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  in design. Nate Sowder explores this in a piece called "Dear
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  diary, you're the last good listener," at UX Design.cc,
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  contrasting modern empathy with Adam Smith's perspective. He
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  suggests we need disciplined approximation over concrete
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  understanding, emphasizing the importance of recognizing our
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  limits. This challenges the assumption that we can instantly
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  know what another person feels. Also worth your time today:
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  Theresa-Marie Rhyne on dancing in the clouds with Copilot and
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  Claude, Darren Yeo exploring the wisdom curve, and Marcos Rezende
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  on the AI adoption theatre. Lots to dig into over the weekend.
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  The community has some strong opinions today, and honestly,
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  it’s tough to argue with most of them. Over in r/UXDesign, a
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  thread called "Execs say everyone is a designer, everyone
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  is an engineer now. I am spent," is drawing a crowd. The
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  frustration is real: leadership is using AI as an excuse to
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  flatten roles, and designers are watching engineers ship native
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  apps without them. The results? Inconsistent spacing, WCAG
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  failures, what one commenter called amateur hour UI. The
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  community is clear on this one: prototyping with AI is not the
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  same as designing with intent. Also on r/UXDesign, someone
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  posted "Using AI as a red-team tool instead of an assistant,"
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  and the framing is sharp. Instead of asking AI to generate
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  designs, this practitioner uses it to break their own work, the
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  logic being if AI cannot poke holes in your reasoning, you
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  have not stress-tested it enough. It is a genuine flip in
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  how designers are thinking about these tools. Over on
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  r/UXResearch, the thread "How many studies do you do every
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  year?" turned into a reality check. The answers vary wildly,
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  but the real insight is that organizational maturity drives
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  output more than individual effort. Mature teams focus on
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  strategic impact; newer ones just tick boxes. If you are
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  feeling pressured by arbitrary study counts, you are not alone.
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  The common thread today: stop flattening what we do. Whether
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  it is execs, AI hype, or metrics, practitioners are
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  pushing back on oversimplification.
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  Chicago Camps is hosting UX Camp Summer on Saturday, May 30th.
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  There's an open call for speakers so submit your idea
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  today! It's an online event, so you can join from anywhere in
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  the world! Tickets are free, thanks to the generosity of the
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  community! If it's within your budget, you can purchase a
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  general admission ticket for only thirteen dollars and fifty
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  cents. Get tickets now at Chicago Camps dot org.
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  So here is the thing that kept coming up today: everyone wants
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  senior-level work, but nobody wants to invest in the journey
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  that creates senior-level people. And the community is
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  feeling that in real time. Execs are out here saying AI makes
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  everyone a designer, and meanwhile the actual output is
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  inconsistent spacing and accessibility failures. That is
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  not design. Right, and Hoang Nguyen nailed it: if you
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  automate the messy foundational work, you are removing the
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  scaffolding where juniors actually develop judgment. So
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  you end up with a gap. Companies want expertise they are actively
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  preventing people from building. And then when things go
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  sideways, teams do not even have the muscle to learn from it.
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  Laura Klein made the case that most teams skip postmortems
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  entirely, or run them so badly they get nothing useful out of
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  them. Which tracks, because if leadership thinks AI replaces
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  the need for craft, why would they fund a culture of learning
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  from mistakes? The one bright spot was that red-team idea.
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  Using AI to break your own reasoning before you ship it.
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  That is at least treating the tool with some respect. Agreed.
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  Use it to pressure-test, not to skip the thinking. That is the
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  difference between building faster and just moving faster.
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  This has been a pretty heavy day. Hang in there, designers.
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  The sun’ll come out tomorrow!
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. Keep designing with
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  intention!