Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 22, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - March 22, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Christina Wodtke says speed isn't a virtue anymore. Wait, so
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  we've been chasing the wrong goal? Exactly. It's just a
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  tactic, often used as a sales pitch. That changes everything
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  about how we build with AI. And the real question is what we
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  should chase instead. Let's get into it.
• 0:19
  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
• 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
• 0:32
  online at feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or
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  right to your pocket.
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  Today's Feed tackles the tension between moving fast and moving
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  right, especially as AI reshapes our workflows. Microcopy is
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  often an afterthought, yet it dictates whether users trust
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  your interface. Taylor Dykes at Nielsen Norman Group argues in
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  "The 3 C's of Informational Microcopy" that clarity,
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  concision, and character are non-negotiable. Taylor insists
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  that without these principles, even the best interface fails to
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  help users make informed decisions. We also need to
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  question our obsession with speed in the age of generative
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  AI. Christina Wodtke on Elegant Hack challenges this narrative
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  in "Speed Is a Tactic, Not a Virtue." She warns that rushing
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  often leads to superficial applications rather than the
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  transformative innovation we actually need. Finally, design
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  leaders face pressure to adopt AI everywhere, often ignoring
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  the real risks. Billie Mandel and Jessica DeMartini at Chicago
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  Camps address this in "The AI Reality Check: Hype, Harm, and
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  How UX Leads." They offered views into what it's like to
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  work with, and toward AI, and how to build up your own
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  resiliency. It was a great discussion offering perspectives
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  into what's happening in the industry today. Also worth your
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  time today: new work from UX Design.cc, Rosenfeld Media, and
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  UX Planet.
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  Over on the subreddits today, the conversation feels less like
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  a casual chat and more like a collective deep breath before a
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  big decision. Over on r/UXResearch, mid-level
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  practitioners are wrestling with whether to pivot into data
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  science or double down on pure qualitative work. It's a real
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  crossroads where the fear of becoming obsolete clashes with
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  the desire to stay human- centric. This question matters
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  because the field is rapidly redefining what senior expertise
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  actually looks like in an AI- first world. In r/UXDesign,
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  everyone is watching Google tease a new standard for AI
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  design systems, but the catch is it might be locked behind a
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  proprietary tool. The tension here's whether open standards
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  can survive when giants decide to keep their best work behind a
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  paywall. That's a worrying signal for anyone trying to
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  build truly interoperable design ecosystems. Back on r/UXDesign,
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  one designer posted a passenger filter animation and asked for
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  feedback, while another thread literally screams that the gates
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  of hell have opened. These posts sit side-by-side to show the
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  weird duality of our daily work: we create beautiful micro-
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  interactions while feeling like the whole industry is burning
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  down. That contrast is the defining mood of today's design
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  landscape. The community feels like it's holding its breath,
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  waiting to see which of these tensions snaps first.
• 3:24
  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
• 3:35
  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.
• 3:51
  Christina Wodtke's point that speed is a tactic, not a virtue,
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  cuts right through the current panic about generative AI.
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  Exactly, and looking at the Reddit threads, you can see
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  designers paralyzed between building a pretty animation and
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  fearing the industry is burning down. That paralysis comes from
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  treating speed as the only metric for success when the real
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  work is actually about making informed decisions. But I worry
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  that calling speed a tactic doesn't stop teams from just
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  using AI to move faster at the wrong things. Unless we shift
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  our definition of value from how fast we ship to how clearly we
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  communicate through our microcopy. So the real skill
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  isn't resisting the speed, it's knowing exactly when to hit the
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  brakes to add character to the interface. The teams that master
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  that pause are going to build trust while everyone else just
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  builds noise. And that's where the next generation of senior
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  designers is going to make their mark.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!