Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - May 31, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - May 31, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  PMs are bypassing designers to fix UI with AI. They're pushing
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  code changes over our heads. And the designs are actually getting
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  worse, not better. We need to see the diffs.
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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
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  Friday, September 17 and 18 and tickets are available now! And
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  while you're at it, get caught up on UX fundamentals with five
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  minute UX at five em UX dot com. The Feed & The Thread is
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  available online at feed and thread dot com to submit your
• 0:31
  feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and threads
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  delivered right to your pocket.
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  We assume digital interactions are free, but the underlying
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  costs are shifting. That tension between abundance and scarcity
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  is reshaping how we build interfaces today. Luis Berumen
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  Castro at UX Design.cc makes this case in "AI Token Scarcity
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  and Arcade Economics". He argues that rising AI token costs are
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  forcing a return to arcade economics. Every interaction now
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  has a tangible price, challenging our assumption of
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  frictionless design. We must weigh the financial implication
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  of every feature we ship. Andrew Woan explores emotional
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  technology in "The Future of Emotional Technology: Comfort
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  Websites for Growth and Self- Awareness" at Codrops. He
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  describes comfort websites as tools for self-awareness in an
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  AI-driven world. These spaces adapt to user emotion, moving
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  beyond utility to empathy. We need digital environments that
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  support mental growth, not just task completion. Other reads
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  today from UX Design.cc on content audience and Rosenfeld
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  Media on AI research trends.
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  The tools are getting cheaper, but the cost of coordination is
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  getting higher. We're seeing a shift where speed is winning out
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  over structure, and that tension is reshaping how we build. Over
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  on r/UXDesign, a team lead is dealing with product managers
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  and QA engineers who are vibe- coding design fixes and pushing
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  code changes directly. It started as helpful automation,
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  but it's turned into process chaos where design is bypassed
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  entirely. One commenter, u/SleepingCod, put it bluntly:
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  these folks are junior designers at best, and we wouldn't let
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  junior employees push code without senior sign-off. The
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  takeaway here's clear. If leadership values speed over
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  quality, the design team becomes an obstacle rather than a
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  partner. You have to audit those changes and flag the risk, or
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  you accept the debt. In r/UXDesign, someone asked for AI
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  wireframe tools that actually support iteration. Most current
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  solutions fail once you move past the first draft, becoming
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  messy and hard to manage. This reveals a real gap in the field.
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  AI is great at generating initial layouts, but it
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  struggles with the nuance of refinement. Designers need tools
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  that handle complex flows, not just static screens. Until those
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  tools mature, the human touch remains essential for the hard
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  work of iteration. Over on r/UXDesign, a designer posted a
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  circular interactive slider and asked for its standard name. The
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  community couldn't agree, suggesting terms like dial
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  picker or range selector. This lack of universal terminology is
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  a problem. If we can't name a component, we can't discuss its
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  usability effectively. It highlights how fragmented our
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  design language still is, even for common patterns. In
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  r/design_critiques, a designer is launching a cycling nutrition
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  brand for ambitious amateurs. The feedback is mixed, with some
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  calling the cartoon vibe cool, while others spot the AI-
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  generated artifacts immediately. One user noted the weird
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  morphing blue is a dead giveaway. This matters because
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  trust is fragile. If users suspect the brand is AI-
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  generated, it undermines the authenticity that the target
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  audience is looking for. Over on r/web_design, a new
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  procedural node-based SVG tool called AnimGraphLab is getting
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  attention. It exports to compressed JSON for near-zero
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  CPU usage, solving performance issues with complex vector
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  animations. It's a smart move. As interfaces get richer,
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  performance becomes a primary UX constraint. Tools that
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  prioritize efficiency without sacrificing compatibility are
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  exactly what we need right now. We're building faster, but we're
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  also building less cohesively. The real cost isn't the code,
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  it's the context we lose when we skip the process.
• 4:16
  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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  The arcade economics argument is forcing a hard pivot. We assumed
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  digital interactions were free, but rising AI token costs mean
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  every feature now has a tangible price. That pricing model
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  exposes a deeper fracture in our tools. I saw a thread where
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  designers complained that AI wireframe tools fail at
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  iteration. They generate the first draft, but they can't
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  handle the nuance of refinement. Exactly. The cost isn't just
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  financial. It's cognitive. If we can't name a component like that
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  circular slider, we can't discuss its usability. We're
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  building faster, but we're losing the context required to
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  build cohesively. And that context is where the human touch
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  remains essential. The tools are great at static screens, but
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  terrible at complex flows. We need to stop treating AI as a
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  replacement for iteration and start treating it as a starting
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  point for judgment. So the metric shifts. It's no longer
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  about how fast we can ship. It's about whether we can afford the
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  tokens to test if the feature actually adds value before we
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  lock it in. Right. The risk isn't the technology. It's the
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  assumption that frictionless design is always the goal.
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  Sometimes friction is the price of clarity. We've spent a
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  decade removing friction because it was cheap. Now we have to put
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  it back because it's expensive. Which means the most valuable
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  skill in the room isn't coding speed. It's the ability to
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  decide what friction is worth keeping.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!