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

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

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  Sterling Cooper built your UX process. So we're still pitching
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  like it's Mad Men? Exactly, and we need to tear down those mid-
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  century rituals before AI makes them obsolete.
• 0:14
  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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  Chicago Camps. Leadership By Design is on Thursday and
• 0:19
  Friday, September 17 and 18 and tickets are available now! And
• 0:22
  while you're at it, get caught up on UX fundamentals with five
• 0:25
  minute UX at five em UX dot com. The Feed & The Thread is
• 0:28
  available online at feed and thread dot com to submit your
• 0:31
  feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and threads
• 0:34
  delivered right to your pocket.
• 0:43
  The tools we use to make design decisions are often as flawed as
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  the processes we inherited. We cling to old rituals while
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  ignoring how cognition and technology have shifted beneath
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  us. Patrick Neeman at UX Design.cc argues in "Sterling
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  Cooper built your UX process. We need to redefine it in the age
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  of AI and systems." that our industry is stuck in mid-century
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  advertising agency rituals. He says these structures prioritize
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  polished pitches over measurable business outcomes. With
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  generative AI lowering execution costs, the billable hour model
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  is breaking down. We need to stop selling hype and start
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  delivering tangible results. Filip Zrnzevic details the
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  technical rigor behind "Sixty Frames for the Record: A
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  Three.js Game, Seven Fly- Throughs, and a Wall of CRTs",
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  published on Codrops. Maintaining sixty frames per
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  second in a browser forced him to abandon standard textures. He
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  switched to analytic ShaderMaterials to handle
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  lighting and fog integration properly. Custom shaders remain
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  invisible to scene lights, so you have to feed them manually.
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  This shift proves that high- fidelity web experiences require
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  deep engineering discipline, not just pretty assets. Takuma
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  Kakehi challenges the blank page myth in "Nobody wants a blank
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  page. Nobody touches a perfect one." at UX Design.cc. Citing
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  research on structured imagination, he shows that
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  humans can't truly create from nothing. We inevitably project
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  familiar biological traits onto new ideas. Designers retrieve
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  and adjust existing mental models rather than inventing
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  fresh ones. True innovation requires conscious effort to
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  break those ingrained cognitive patterns. Other articles today
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  from UX Design.cc on AI narratives and software purpose.
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  Designers are asking harder questions about value, not just
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  visuals. The conversation today isn't about tools. It's about
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  what happens when the old rituals stop working. Over on
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  r/ProductDesign, a post about business courses for designers
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  landed with silence. But the question itself is loud. A
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  designer wants to understand Customer Acquisition Cost. They
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  want to ground decisions in metrics, not just aesthetics.
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  This matters because we cling to visual polish while ignoring how
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  cognition and technology have shifted. If you can't speak the
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  language of business outcomes, your design decisions remain
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  abstract. The tools we use are flawed if they don't connect to
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  real value. In the same space, someone asked what actually
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  creates good taste. AI can generate decent options
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  instantly. So the skill shifts from creation to judgment. How
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  do we cultivate the intuition to pick the right direction? This
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  is the core challenge. We inherited processes that valued
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  output over selection. But technology has democratized
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  output. The real work now is curation. If we don't define
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  taste clearly, we risk letting algorithms decide our aesthetic
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  direction. Over on r/UXResearch, a psychology
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  student is navigating the transition into user experience.
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  They want practical advice. The anxiety is real. The job market
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  feels uncertain. But the discipline of understanding
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  human behavior hasn't changed. The tools have. The processes
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  have. But the need to understand why people do what they do
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  remains constant. If we ignore how cognition works, we build
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  products that look good but fail to function. The tension today
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  is clear. We're using outdated frameworks to solve new
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  problems. The tools are ready. Our mental models aren't.
• 4:00
  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
• 4:09
  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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  Patrick Neeman's argument that our industry is trapped in mid-
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  century advertising rituals feels less like an observation
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  and more like a diagnosis of a terminal condition. He points
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  out that we prioritize polished pitches over measurable
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  outcomes, and with generative AI lowering execution costs, the
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  billable hour model is collapsing. That collapse is
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  inevitable, but I think Neeman misses the nuance of what
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  replaces it. The thread discussion on taste suggests the
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  real shift isn't just about efficiency. It's about curation.
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  When AI can generate decent options instantly, the skill
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  moves from creation to judgment. We need to define what good
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  taste actually looks like in a world where output is
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  democratized. But judgment requires a framework. If we
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  cling to old rituals while ignoring how cognition has
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  shifted, we risk letting algorithms decide our aesthetic
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  direction. The tension is that we're using outdated mental
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  models to solve new problems. The tools are ready, but our
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  processes for evaluating value are still rooted in selling hype
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  rather than delivering tangible results. I agree the processes
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  are flawed, but I'm less worried about the hype and more worried
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  about the lack of structure. Takuma Kakehi notes that nobody
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  wants a blank page, but nobody touches a perfect one either. We
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  need structured imagination. The challenge is cultivating the
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  intuition to pick the right direction before we even start
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  generating. It's not just about curation. It's about defining
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  the constraints that make curation possible. So we're
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  left with a paradox. We need to abandon the pitch-perfect facade
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  to focus on metrics, yet we need rigid structures to prevent
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  algorithmic drift. The billable hour is breaking down, which
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  means we have to stop selling time and start selling verified
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  outcomes. Exactly. The value is no longer in the act of making.
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  It's in the act of choosing. And that choice has to be
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  defensible. We're moving from a craft of production to a
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  discipline of selection. And the teams that treat judgment as a
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  deliverable, not an afterthought, will define the
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  next standard of work.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!