Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - February 28, 2026

Transcript

The Feed & The Thread - February 28, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Today we'll hear how Tony Beltramelli says metrics like
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  DAU won't matter as AI agents start using software products.
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  He's highlighted that releases from Anthropic and Google have
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  changed how agents interact with software. And we're also diving
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  into a community thread about using AI tools like Cursor to
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  build out design systems.
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  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. Our next UX Camp event is coming up on Saturday,
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  May 30th. Tickets are free - with an option to pay if it's in
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  budget for you. There's an open call for speakers so now is your
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  chance to get on stage and share your ideas! You can also find
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  The Feed & The Thread online at feed and thread dot com to
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  submit your feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and
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  threads delivered right to your pocket.
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  Three very different corners of the industry lit up today: who
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  we are designing for, how we got here, and what CSS can finally
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  do on its own. The definition of a user is changing underneath
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  us. In "Your users aren't human anymore; start building for
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  agents today" at UXDesign.cc, Tony Beltramelli argues that AI
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  agents are becoming the primary consumers of software, not
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  people. Tony points to recent releases from Anthropic and
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  Google as the tipping point: agents that can navigate
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  interfaces, make decisions, and complete workflows autonomously.
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  If he's right, engagement metrics like DAU stop measuring
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  what matters, and accessibility takes on an entirely different
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  meaning. "From Gaming Culture to High-End Interactive
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  Experiences" at Codrops traces an unusual path. Gabriel Norman
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  brings a motion designer's instinct for timing and feedback
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  loops, paired with deep typographic discipline. The
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  result is work that treats the browser as a performance medium,
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  not just a delivery mechanism. And in "What's !important" at
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  CSS-Tricks, Daniel Schwarz rounds up a set of native CSS
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  capabilities that quietly eliminate JavaScript
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  workarounds. The standout: truncating text from the middle
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  of a string, purely in CSS. That's a pattern developers have
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  hacked around for years, and it's now a one-liner. Also
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  publishing recently: Smashing Magazine, LukeW, and UX Planet.
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  The community today is split between two questions: can AI
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  actually do the work, and what even is the work anymore. Over
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  in r/UXDesign, someone asks "Anyone using AI/Cursor to build
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  out a design system?" The goal: an automated process that
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  handles both UI rules and visual styling. It's a real test of
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  whether these tools can manage systematic thinking, not just
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  one-off components. The responses are split between
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  people who've tried it with mixed results and people who
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  want to but don't know where to start. Meanwhile, r/UXResearch
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  is passing around "The UX Profession: Yesterday, Today,
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  and Tomorrow," a piece tracking how the discipline has evolved
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  and where it might be headed. No comments at the time of
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  publication, which honestly says something: everyone wants to
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  read it, nobody knows what to say. The profession is in a
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  strange place where the title keeps expanding but the budgets
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  don't. And a quieter thread worth noting: "UX/UI designers
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  in open source, what's your experience been like?" in
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  r/UXDesign. A junior designer asking how people found
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  projects, what roles they played, and whether anyone
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  actually guided them through it. If you've contributed design
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  work to open source, this one's worth jumping into. That's
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  what's happening across the community - a lot to keep up
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  with, and a lot of folks looking for some good news lately.
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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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  Tony Beltramelli's piece raises a question nobody in the
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  industry is answering cleanly: if AI agents become the primary
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  users of our software, what happens to all the empathy-
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  driven research we've built careers on? The community is
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  already wrestling with that. The thread about using Cursor to
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  build out design systems; people want AI handling the systematic
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  work so they can stay focused on the human problems. But here's
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  the contradiction: for most practitioners, the systematic
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  work IS the daily work. Automating it doesn't free you
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  up. It removes the thing you were hired to do and leaves you
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  justifying what's left. And nobody in that thread had a
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  clean answer. A few people tried it, got mixed results, and the
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  rest are watching from the sidelines. Which is exactly
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  Tony's point. The shift isn't coming someday. It's already
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  here, and the profession hasn't decided what it wants to be on
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  the other side of it. That's today's show. Thanks for
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  listening.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. Keep designing with
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  intention!