Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 11, 2026

Transcript

The Feed & The Thread - March 11, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

• 0:00
  Brad Frost says rapid AI commercialization fights the
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  core mission of designers. So making things faster actually
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  means making the world less safe and happier? He argues this
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  terrifying trade-off is exactly what's happening right now.
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  That's a bold claim for our industry. Let's get into it.
• 0:19
  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
• 0:22
  Chicago Camps. There's an open call for speakers for UX Camp
• 0:24
  Summer on May 30th, so now is your chance to get on stage and
• 0:27
  share your ideas! You can use our Proposal Counselor to help
• 0:30
  you get submitted today. The Feed & The Thread is available
• 0:33
  online at feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or
• 0:36
  download our app for all the feeds and threads delivered
• 0:38
  right to your pocket.
• 0:46
  Today's Feed confronts a hard truth: our design standards
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  often fail the very people they claim to serve. The car
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  designed specifically for women never made it to production, and
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  that failure exposed a dangerous industry bias. Daley Wilhelm at
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  UX Design.cc writes "What happened to the car designed for
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  women, by women?" to show how neutral standards actually
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  reflect male physiology. This historical lag in adopting
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  female crash test dummies directly caused higher injury
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  rates for women in accidents. It forces us to ask if our current
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  Human-Centered Design practices are truly inclusive or just
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  slightly better than before. The real barrier to AI agents
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  isn't capability, but our inability to handle complexity
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  with confidence. Brian Donohue at Intercom Blog details this in
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  "Fin Product Updates: February recap," introducing procedures
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  that let teams test multi-step workflows before they go live.
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  New voice features now reduce background noise and ensure the
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  AI sounds authentic on calls. These updates shift the focus
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  from raw power to reliable, controlled execution. Rapid AI
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  commercialization clashes directly with our mission to
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  make the world safer and happier. Brad Frost on his own
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  blog argues in "A Designer's Thoughts About This Moment in
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  AI" that major companies are now racing to build weapons for the
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  Department of Defense. He calls this reckless and notes a
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  terrifying lack of due diligence when injecting unknown tech into
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  an apparatus focused on killing. This creates a profound tension
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  for creators who want to build a just world. This also creates a
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  profound lack of knowledge by the author for how deployment
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  actually works in the environment he criticizes. Also
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  publishing recently: Smashing Magazine, MeasuringU, and UX
• 2:24
  Planet. And Chicago Camps released Natalie Kurz' UX Camp
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  Winter session, "Inclusivity by Design."
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  So let's see what's actually happening in the forums today.
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  Designers are asking how to shift from making screens to
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  actually running research. "Transition from UX design to UX
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  research," over on r/UXResearch. The community hasn't weighed in
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  yet, but the silence suggests a lot of people are feeling stuck
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  in that exact spot. It's a tough pivot when your title says
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  design but your heart wants to understand the why. There's
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  real tension around how to talk to product managers and
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  engineers without getting lost in translation. "How to
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  communicate better with PMs and Devs," over on r/UXDesign. The
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  question itself proves the gap is wide; If we can't bridge that
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  divide, our best work might never ship. The big fear is
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  whether artificial intelligence will just take our jobs away
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  entirely. "Is AI going to replace a lot of UX work," over
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  on r/UXDesign. Nobody has posted a clear answer yet, which is
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  probably the most honest response of all. That
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  uncertainty is heavy, and it's okay to feel it. And it still
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  remains that your job likely won't be taken by AI - it'll be
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  taken by someone who knows how to use AI. People are also
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  wondering "What will change your design workflow the most by
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  2026," over on r/UXDesign. The question forces us to look at
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  our own habits; maybe the biggest change is simply how we
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  choose to adapt. The mood today feels like a community holding
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  its breath while waiting for answers. And that waiting for
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  permission has never moved the field forward, kids. Move, or
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  atrophy - it's always our choice.
• 4:06
  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
• 4:12
  today! It's an online event, so you can join from anywhere in
• 4:15
  the world! Tickets are free, thanks to the generosity of the
• 4:18
  community! If it's within your budget, you can purchase a
• 4:21
  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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  The story about the car designed for women really stuck with me,
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  especially the point that neutral standards actually
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  reflect male physiology. And that's exactly why the silence
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  on the research thread feels so heavy, because we keep building
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  for a default user that doesn't exist. But looking at the
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  Intercom updates, maybe we can use those new multi-step
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  workflows to finally test for those specific gaps before
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  shipping. I worry that testing for reliability is one thing,
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  but testing for inclusion requires a mindset shift that
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  tools alone can't fix. Still, if we can't even measure the bias
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  in our crash test dummies, we certainly can't fix the design
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  if we don't have the data first. That's true, but the data is
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  only useful if we actually decide to change the standard
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  instead of just optimizing the existing one. So I land on the
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  idea that better tools give us the evidence we need to finally
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  push for that inclusive change. And I land on the fear that
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  we'll just use those better tools to make the same biased
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  systems run faster and smoother.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!