Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 23, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - March 23, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Designers never actually control the future of their profession.
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  So who's really steering the ship if not us? Market forces
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  and economic efficiency have always dictated the tools we
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  use. That means we're just reacting to money, not shaping
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  the craft. And the real question is whether we can ever change
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  that. Let's get into it.
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. There's an open call for speakers for UX Camp
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  Summer on May 30th, so now is your chance to get on stage and
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  share your ideas! You can use our Proposal Counselor to help
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  you get submitted today. The Feed & The Thread is available
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  online at feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or
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  download our app for all the feeds and threads delivered
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  right to your pocket.
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  Today's Feed confronts a hard truth about our profession: we
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  might not actually control the future of design. AR glasses
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  are finally here, but we've got a critical window to fix
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  accessibility before industry standards lock in. Catherine Chu
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  at UX Design.cc argues in "AR glasses are here, but what about
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  accessibility?" that we must move beyond simple screen
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  readers. She details how waveguide displays and spatial
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  mapping can translate visual data into soundscapes for low-
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  vision users. That rewrites the assumption that accessibility is
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  just a software patch for 2D screens. Jeffrey Zeldman
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  highlights a pointed take from RSS creator Dave Winer on what
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  Bluesky is getting wrong. Winer argues Bluesky should donate the
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  AT Protocol to a standards body and embrace what the web already
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  has: RSS feeds, Markdown, editable posts, podcast
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  enclosures. His line is that Bluesky has "some catching up to
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  do" with the open web rather than reinventing it. One
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  commenter pushed back, arguing Bluesky is intentionally a
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  different kind of platform. But Winer's point stands: if you're
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  asking developers to build on your protocol, you owe them the
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  stability of real standards governance. Designers have
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  never truly controlled their profession's future, and AI is
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  just the latest economic force. Michael Buckley at UX Design.cc
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  makes this case in "Sorry, designers, we don't decide the
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  future of design." He notes that institutions prioritize speed
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  and scale over our preferences, causing a seventeen percent drop
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  in certain job postings. This means we must shift from
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  execution to high-level interpretation to stay relevant.
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  If you're hungry for more, Jeff Gothelf, UX Design.cc, and
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  Rosenfeld Media all dropped strong pieces recently.
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  Today's community chatter is a mix of tool optimism and some
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  real human weight. Over on r/UserExperience, people are
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  asking if AI is actually helping with early-stage thinking or
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  just creating a shortcut trap. The real question isn't whether
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  the tools work, but whether we're losing the messy, human
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  friction that leads to genuine insight. If AI speeds up the
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  sketching, does it slow down the actual understanding of the
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  problem? A Senior Product Designer on r/UXDesign is trying
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  to reset after getting laid off after only five and a half
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  months. That kind of instability hits hard and makes you question
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  your own value overnight. It's a brutal reminder that tenure
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  doesn't always equal security in this market. On r/UXDesign,
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  someone applied for thirteen hundred roles and landed four
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  offers, which is a success rate of about three tenths of a
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  percent. That math is sobering for anyone currently hunting.
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  One person asked how they even kept track of all those
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  applications, which is a valid question in a process this
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  chaotic. There's also a sharp debate on r/UXDesign about
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  whether starting a design system is the right move for a solo
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  designer at an early-stage startup. One commenter argued
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  that a staff-level designer would have spotted strategy gaps
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  first instead of building systems. It highlights how
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  easily we can get distracted by shiny deliverables when the
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  product strategy itself is hollow. The mood today feels
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  like we're balancing between rapid tool adoption and the
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  heavy reality of job insecurity.
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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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  Michael Buckley argues that designers never truly controlled
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  the profession's future, and AI is just the latest economic
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  force prioritizing speed over our preferences. That systemic
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  view is cold, but it matches the reality of the designer who got
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  laid off after only five and a half months on r/UXDesign.
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  Exactly, and the seventeen percent drop in job postings
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  proves that tenure no longer equals security in a market
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  obsessed with scale. But I see that instability as a forced
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  pivot away from execution toward the high-level interpretation
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  Buckley mentions in his piece. You're optimistic that we can
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  shift roles, but the thread about starting a design system
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  at a hollow startup suggests we're still distracted by shiny
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  deliverables. True, but the ones who stop building systems and
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  start defining strategy are the ones who will survive this wave
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  of automation. So the real risk isn't losing the job, it's
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  holding onto the old definition of what a designer actually
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  does. Right, and the only way to stay relevant is to keep
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  executing while we start interpreting the chaos.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!