Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - June 17, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - June 17, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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Designers are moving from certainty to probability. So we
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stop controlling the outcome? Exactly, because AI gives
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predictions, not truth, and we have to redesign for that
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uncertainty.
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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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delivered right to your pocket.
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We build systems that promise certainty, yet the tools we use
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are increasingly probabilistic. That tension between control and
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chance is reshaping how we design. Pratik Joglekar at
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Smashing Magazine argues in "Designing With Uncertainty: How
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AI Supercharges Probabilistic Thinking" that we must stop
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treating AI outputs as absolute truth. The Air Canada chatbot
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incident shows what happens when a prediction gets enforced as
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policy. We need to view these outputs as signals requiring
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context, not definitive rules. This shifts our role from
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building rigid flows to interpreting probabilities.
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Stephen Patterson at UX Design.cc makes the case in "The
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hidden UX of payments" that trust lives in micro-moments,
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not branding. He calls it the labor illusion, where users
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trust services more when they see the work being done. Teams
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often underinvest in loading states and confirmation screens
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despite their impact on retention. Showing the process
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builds confidence faster than a logo ever could. Jeff Sauro and
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Jim Lewis at MeasuringU ask in "Should a PhD Count as Years of
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Experience?" whether a PhD counts as professional
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experience. The short answer is no, because academic rigor
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doesn't prepare you for industry politics or rapid decision-
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making. While research skills transfer well, the gap in cost
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justification and navigation is real. You can't analyze your way
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out of organizational friction. Other reads today from UX Planet
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on Claude Code cheatsheets, Rosenfeld Media on sentient
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design interfaces, and Codrops on modern web journeys.
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The tension between control and chance is reshaping how we
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design. We build systems that promise certainty, yet the tools
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we use are increasingly probabilistic. Over on
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r/UXDesign, a hiring manager vents about the gap between
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applicant volume and actual effort. The disconnect is stark,
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with candidates failing basic communication requirements
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despite the role being remote. It reveals a deeper issue where
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we prioritize portfolio aesthetics over fundamental
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readiness. We need to assess how people think, not just how they
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click. In r/UXDesign, a student shares a final project built in
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Axure and asks where to find developers to bring it to life.
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This highlights a common transition point for designers
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who master the visual layer but lack the technical network to
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execute. The question matters because it exposes the fragility
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of design handoffs in a probabilistic world. If the
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prototype works but the build fails, who owns that
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uncertainty? Practitioners are dealing with severe burnout from
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managing multiple applications across ten scrum teams while
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facing pressure to speed up workflows. The anxiety around
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AI-driven efficiency is palpable, as current tools don't
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offset the growing workload. We're asked to move faster with
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probabilistic tools that demand more oversight, not less. The
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demand for certainty clashes with the reality of increasing
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complexity. Critiques of Reddit's new interface highlight
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how visual updates can reduce useful screen space and compress
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real content. Users argue that unnecessary layers have been
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added to previously functional elements, lowering information
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density. It's a reminder that optimization often sacrifices
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usability for aesthetic novelty. When we chase clean interfaces,
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we risk losing the density that power users rely on. The field
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is struggling to reconcile the demand for deterministic
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outcomes with the rise of tools that offer only probable
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results.
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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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Stephen Patterson's point about the labor illusion is sharp.
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Users trust the process more than the logo. That connects
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directly to the Air Canada chatbot failure. We treat AI
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outputs as absolute policy. They're just signals. Exactly.
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The tension is between the certainty we promise and the
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probability the tools provide. We need to design for that gap.
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But most teams are still optimizing for clean interfaces.
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They strip away the context that makes the probability clear. So
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we lose information density for aesthetic novelty. The system
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looks good but feels brittle. It feels brittle because it
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hides the work. Showing the mechanism builds confidence
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faster than hiding it behind a smooth surface. We stop
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building black boxes. We start building glass houses. And we
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let the user see the gears turning.
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That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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time!