Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - September 30, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - September 30, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Machine attention is now cheap. So human focus is the new
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  bottleneck. That flips the entire value chain, and we're
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  just starting to feel the shift.
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. The Feed & The Thread is available online at
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  feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or download
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  our app for all the feeds and threads delivered right to your
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  pocket.
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  The core question for design right now isn't how to capture
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  attention, but how to govern it. We're moving from systems that
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  demand focus to systems that protect it, and that shift
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  changes everything about how we measure success. Aurélie Radom
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  at UX Design.cc makes this case in "The economics of attention
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  in the age of AI", arguing that AI has made machine attention
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  cheap, which forces human attention to become the scarce
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  resource. This rewrites the assumption that engagement
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  metrics are the ultimate goal, positioning AI as an active
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  allocator of user focus rather than just a content delivery
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  tool. The design challenge is no longer about grabbing eyes, but
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  about deciding what's actually worthy of them. Will Schiavone
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  at MeasuringU re-evaluates the role of AI in research in
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  "ChatGPT vs Humans for Coding Open-Ended Responses, Three
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  Years Later", finding that newer models now generate finer
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  subcategories than their predecessors. This shift offers
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  deeper nuance for coding open- ended responses, but it requires
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  new alignment methodologies to prevent the data from
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  fragmenting into too many small buckets. It's a reminder that
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  better tools often change the very questions we can ask.
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  Guppy Ahluwalia at Chicago Camps argues in "Token times:
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  Organizational practices in a resource-constrained
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  environment." that we must abandon headcount-heavy
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  organizational charts for lighter, strategic processes. By
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  examining teams that successfully shape-shifted their
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  thinking, she demonstrates how to build practices that are both
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  responsible and scalable in resource-constrained
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  environments. The core thesis is that building swiftly at scale
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  requires letting go of old structures to make room for new
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  ones. Other reads available from UX Planet on testing web
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  design tools and Jeffrey Zeldman on navigating professional
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  targets.
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  A deprecated icon is sitting in a help center article, even
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  though the codebase already retired it. Over on
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  r/DesignSystems, a designer is asking how to actually kill an
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  asset once someone has downloaded the SVG file. The
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  code is updated, but the static file lives on in local libraries
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  and email templates. This is the governance gap we keep hitting.
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  We govern the source, but we can't govern the copy. In
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  r/UXResearch, a researcher is questioning the statistical
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  foundation of the Fong test for Kano questionnaires. They argue
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  the standard formula assumes independent samples, but Kano
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  data comes from the same people. If our scoring method is
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  mathematically shaky, then the priorities we set based on it
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  are questionable too. Over on r/UserExperience, practitioners
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  are asking how AI helps with stakeholder presentations. The
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  pain point is manual copying from research docs to decks. It
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  disconnects the insight from the source. We need tools that
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  respect the integrity of the data, not just the speed of the
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  slide. In r/hci, a senior is debating whether to go to grad
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  school or enter the market now. The tension is between needing
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  experience to get hired and needing a degree to get
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  experience. It's a classic catch-22, and it's worth asking
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  if our industry barriers are actually helping us hire better
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  people. Today's discussions point to a single truth. We're
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  building systems, but we're still operating like we're just
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  filling templates. The shift to governance means we have to own
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  the lifecycle, not just the launch.
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  The Feed and The Thread is brought to you by Chicago Camps.
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  For a weekly and monthly exploration of the patterns and
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  signals across UX, you can also check out Patterns and Signals
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  at the website patterns and signals dot com. Chicago Camps
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  will have more events in 2027. You can submit to be a speaker
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  at a future event at Chicago Camps dot org.
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  The r/DesignSystems thread about killing a downloaded SVG file
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  exposes a governance gap we keep hitting. We govern the source
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  code, but we can't govern the static copy that lives in local
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  libraries and email templates. This is the lifecycle problem.
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  Exactly. We treat design systems like they're alive, but the
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  assets are dead weight once they're exported. The community
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  is asking how to delete what's already out there. The answer is
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  that you can't. You have to change the workflow so people
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  stop downloading static files in the first place. That's a
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  strong stance, but it ignores the reality of legacy. A
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  deprecated icon sitting in a help center article is a
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  structural failure. The help center is a different system
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  with different owners. Until those systems talk to each
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  other, the asset lives on. I agree that silos are the enemy,
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  but blaming the structure lets us off the hook. If we keep
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  shipping static files, we're just creating more orphans. The
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  shift needs to be in how we define "done." Done doesn't mean
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  the file is uploaded. Done means the component is live in the
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  source, and the documentation points to the source, not the
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  file. So you're arguing for a change in definition rather than
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  a change in tooling. That's a cultural shift. And cultural
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  shifts are slow. Slow, yes. But if we don't own the lifecycle,
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  we're just filling templates. The system isn't the library.
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  The system is the agreement that the source is the truth. The
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  library is just a mirror. The agreement is the reality. And
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  right now, that agreement is the only thing keeping the system
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  from becoming a graveyard.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!