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

Transcript

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

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  We treat AI like people. That's a dangerous habit. It starts
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  with ELIZA and ends with us forgiving machines we built.
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  Let's trace that psychological trap.
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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
• 0:17
  Friday, September 17 and 18 and tickets are available now! And
• 0:20
  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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  available online at feed and thread dot com to submit your
• 0:29
  feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and threads
• 0:32
  delivered right to your pocket.
• 0:40
  We treat process as a shield against risk. But in uncharted
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  territory, that shield becomes a cage. Today we look at when to
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  drop the map and trust the compass. Rigid frameworks fail
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  when the problem has no precedent. Ioannis Nousis at UX
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  Design.cc makes this case in "Two gears, one compass:
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  designing at velocity while sustaining quality". He
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  distinguishes between defined problems that need structure and
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  unprecedented ones that need intuition. Google's Circle to
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  Search succeeded through rapid prototyping, not traditional
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  validation. That rewrites the assumption that research always
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  precedes design. Sometimes you just have to make it to
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  understand it. Meanwhile, the browser is catching up to our
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  visual ambitions. Daniel Schwarz at CSS-Tricks covers this in
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  "What’s !important #11: 3D Voxel Scenes, Flying Focus, CSS
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  Syntaxes, and More". New syntax allows for precise sibling
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  selection and styleable three- dimensional scenes. But the real
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  win is accessibility. He contrasts unnecessary motion
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  with conditional focus animations. This respects user
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  preferences while keeping the interface alive. It's a small
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  shift that improves the experience for everyone. And
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  there's a psychological cost to our new interfaces. Dora Czerna
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  at UX Design.cc explores this in "Should we be kind to machines
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  (for our own sake, really)?". We project human qualities onto AI,
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  a tendency rooted in the sixties. Users adapt their tone
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  and politeness to match the machine. This feedback loop
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  reshapes how we communicate with actual humans. It's not just
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  about better chatbots. It's about who we become when we talk
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  to them. Other reads today from UX Design.cc on undo problems in
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  AI products, cognitive decline screening via mobile apps, and
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  writing design files for Claude.
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  The community is loud today. Over on r/UXDesign, the vibe
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  around the NYC Future of Design conference was surprisingly
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  bleak. Attendees didn't just feel disappointed; they felt
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  misled. One commenter drew a sharp line to the VFX industry,
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  noting that we're seeing fewer roles doing more work. They said
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  the chance to unionize has passed. It's a stark reminder
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  that process often shields us from reality. But when the
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  market shifts, that shield becomes a cage. We can't design
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  our way out of structural labor issues with optimism alone. In
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  r/UXDesign, frustration is boiling over about recruiters
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  ghosting candidates after video interviews. It's not just
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  silence during application. It's the lack of closure after
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  personal interaction. One designer called it heartless
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  incompetence. They noted that sending a rejection is low
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  effort. Yet companies neglect this basic courtesy. It reveals
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  a disconnect between how we treat users and how we treat
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  practitioners. If you can't respect a candidate's time, why
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  should they trust your product? Over on r/UXResearch, a
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  researcher exposed a colleague who plagiarized their
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  independent work for a portfolio case study. The stolen graphs
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  and language landed the thief a high-profile job offer. There's
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  little recourse for intellectual property theft in our field. It
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  forces us to ask who owns the insights we generate. When
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  process fails to protect integrity, trust erodes. We need
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  better norms for attribution, not just for users, but for each
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  other. In r/UXDesign, a designer is asking for better
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  patterns for data-heavy tables in ERP systems. They criticized
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  tools like Salesforce for creating paginated wastelands.
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  These interfaces often hide actions behind clutter. The
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  question isn't just about UI. It's about respecting cognitive
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  load in complex workflows. We need to stop treating enterprise
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  users as secondary. Their data deserves clarity too. Over on
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  r/UXDesign, the conversation turned to design managers
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  promoted without holding staff or principal titles. The tension
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  is real. Can you coach designers to higher levels if you haven't
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  navigated those challenges yourself? Management isn't a
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  natural next step for everyone. It requires specific expertise.
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  Promoting without that foundation risks creating
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  leaders who can't guide their teams effectively. We're
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  treating process as a safety net. But today's threads show
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  it's becoming a barrier to genuine progress and respect.
• 4:38
  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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  We project human qualities onto AI. That psychological cost
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  reshapes how we communicate with actual people. It's a feedback
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  loop. And that loop matters because we're already failing at
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  basic human courtesy. Look at recruiters ghosting candidates
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  after video interviews. That's heartless incompetence. It's
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  the same mechanism. We treat the interface as a machine. So we
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  drop the social contract. We treat process as a shield
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  against risk. But in uncharted territory that shield becomes a
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  cage. Exactly. If you can't respect a candidate's time why
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  should they trust your product. We need to drop the rigid map.
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  Trust the compass instead. But dropping the map feels
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  dangerous. We're used to structure. Rigid frameworks fail
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  when there's no precedent. But we cling to them anyway. We
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  have to. Because management isn't a natural next step for
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  everyone. Promoting people without that foundation creates
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  leaders who can't guide their teams. So the issue isn't the
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  tool. It's the incentive structure. Right. We need to
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  value judgment as a deliverable. Not just something senior people
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  do for free.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!