Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - May 18, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - May 18, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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Designers are grieving the loss of their professional identity.
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That sounds heavy. Is it just burnout? No, it's a genuine
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grief response to rapid AI adoption. We're mapping that
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loss.
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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 emm UX dot com. The Feed & The Thread is
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delivered right to your pocket.
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The rush to adopt AI is stripping away the very
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conditions that make good design possible. We're trading clarity
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for speed and empathy for efficiency. Brad Frost frames
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this disruption as a collective grief response. He maps the five
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stages of loss onto our industry's reaction to rapid
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automation. The anger we feel isn't just resistance to change.
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It's a valid response to devalued craft. Acceptance here
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doesn't mean approving all outcomes. It means acknowledging
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the loss of stability. Brad Frost lays this out on his blog
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in "Grief in the AI Age". High stress blinds us to the details
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that matter. Rita Kind-Envy argues that elevated cortisol is
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a design liability, not a badge of honor. Slowing down is a
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strategic method, not just wellness advice. Low stress
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states allow for deeper observation. We miss strange
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details when we rush. Rita Kind- Envy makes this case at UX
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Design.cc in "Low cortisol solution to big problems".
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Rigid workflows break when tools evolve. Luis Berumen Castro
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suggests we stop forcing AI into static processes. Instead, we
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should let the technology shape fluid methods. Intention matters
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more than structure. The process needs to adapt to the context.
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Luis Berumen Castro explores this at UX Design.cc in "Be like
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water: Rethinking the design process with AI". Other reads
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today from Jeff Gothelf on cutting work not people, UX
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Design.cc on street-level design, and UX Planet on Figma's
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relevance.
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The community is wrestling with speed versus substance today.
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In r/UXDesign, someone asked for courses on full AI workflows.
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They want to skip the manual testing. But rushing to automate
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might strip away the empathy that comes from doing the work
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yourself. Efficiency shouldn't cost us clarity. Also on
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r/UXDesign, the Miro versus Figma debate continues. Teams
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want one tool for everything. But forcing a single solution
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often compromises the depth of either brainstorming or detailed
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design. Specialization still matters. Over on r/UI_Design, a
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concept for a futuristic interface argues that
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withholding information creates authority. It frames exclusivity
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as sophistication. But if users can't understand the interface,
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it's not advanced. It's just broken. A veteran designer on
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r/UXDesign argues we've stopped centering humans. We're now
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centering the brief and managing AI agents. One commenter agreed
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the focus has shifted away from people. Another called that view
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naive. The tension is real. We're trading empathy for audit
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trails. We're optimizing for the machine, not the person.
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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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Brad Frost maps our industry reaction to AI using the five
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stages of grief. That framing hits hard because it validates
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the anger we feel toward automation. It suggests this
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isn't just resistance to change. It's a legitimate response to
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devalued craft. I see it as a necessary friction. We're
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trading empathy for audit trails right now. But that anger is
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useful. It forces us to ask what actually adds value when the
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tools speed up. The grief comes from losing control. The
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opportunity is in regaining clarity. Rita Kind-Envy argues
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that high stress blinds us to details. Elevated cortisol is a
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design liability. If we rush to automate, we miss the strange
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details that make a product feel human. Low stress states allow
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for deeper observation. Rushing strips that away. So the
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workflow needs to be fluid, not rigid. Luis Berumen Castro says
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we should stop forcing AI into static processes. Let the
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technology shape the method. Intention matters more than
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structure. If we cling to old processes, we lose the ability
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to adapt. But adaptation without a core standard is just
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chaos. We need a baseline of human intuition. Good design
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relies on that slow, deliberate eye. Algorithms can generate
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options. They can't judge what feels natural. Exactly. The
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judgment call is the new deliverable. We aren't replacing
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designers. We're replacing the manual labor of execution. The
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risk is treating efficiency as the goal instead of the
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byproduct. If we optimize for speed alone, we lose the user.
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The shift isn't about tools. It's about what we choose to
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protect. Right. Clarity is the new currency. Speed is just the
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cost of doing business.
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That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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time!