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

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

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  The UX Double Diamond is dead. Wait, really? And what replaces
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  it? Just one model survives in the AI era, and it's not the one
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  you learned in school.
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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
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  feeds, or download our app for all the feeds and threads
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  delivered right to your pocket.
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  The tools we rely on to manage uncertainty are failing us. We
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  built heavy process to protect expensive builds, but the cost
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  of building has collapsed. Now, the frameworks that once
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  protected us are slowing us down. Patrick Neeman at UX
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  Design.cc makes this case in "The UX Double Diamond is dead,
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  and in AI only one survives for software": the Double Diamond is
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  obsolete because AI has made generation cheap. We spent
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  months on research to de-risk a build that would take months,
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  but now we can prototype in an afternoon. That makes the heavy
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  upfront artifacts redundant. The real work is no longer
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  preventing errors, but knowing which ones to keep. Victor
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  Ayomipo at Smashing Magazine clarifies this in "Stop Treating
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  CSS Container Queries Like Traditional Media Queries": most
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  developers misuse container queries because they treat them
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  as viewport tools. Only forty- one percent actually use them,
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  despite high awareness. Media queries look outward at the
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  screen, while container queries look inward at the component.
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  This shift allows for true responsiveness at the element
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  level, not just the page level. Scott Berkun writes about this
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  tension in "Rules for people who don't like rules", using a high
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  school anecdote to show that rules only work when they serve
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  a higher purpose. He defied a disciplinary process to protect
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  his learning, arguing that compliance isn't the goal. This
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  mirrors our design practice, where process is valuable only
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  when it serves the user. If the rule doesn't help, it's just
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  control. Other reads today include UX Planet on design
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  handoff with Claude Code and UX Design.cc on the identity of the
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  lost designer.
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  A beginner posts a half-finished dealership site and asks to be
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  torn apart. It's the most hopeful thing on r/UXDesign this
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  week, and it sets up what runs under all of today's questions:
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  when building is cheap, what's still worth getting right? Over
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  on r/UXDesign, a beginner shared a car dealership website that's
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  seventy-five percent complete, specifically asking for feedback
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  on navigation consistency. The inventory pages are unfinished,
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  which is a common early-stage trap, but the request itself
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  signals a healthy shift toward seeking critique before launch.
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  That humility is rare, and it's exactly how senior designers are
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  made. The so-what's simple: the cost of building is low now, so
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  the cost of ignoring basic navigation patterns is higher
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  than ever. In r/UXDesign, a health app designer is wrestling
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  with a scale for inflammation scores, debating whether a high
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  number should mean high risk or low risk. This is a fundamental
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  alignment problem between abstract data and user
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  intuition. If the number feels wrong, the user stops trusting
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  the app entirely. You have to pick the scale that matches the
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  user's mental model, not just the database logic. Over on
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  r/UXDesign, someone is asking recruiters exactly what search
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  terms they use to find product designers. This demystifies the
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  hiring filter, showing that keywords like Figma or specific
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  industry experience often matter more than the portfolio itself.
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  If your profile doesn't match their Boolean string, you're
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  invisible, regardless of your actual skill level. In
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  r/UXResearch, a user is trying to recruit participants for a
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  hospital appointment system in Chandigarh. This highlights the
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  difficulty of testing niche, high-friction services that
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  don't have a broad user base. It's a real-world constraint
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  that often gets overlooked in favor of easy-to-reach tech-
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  savvy users. Over on r/UXResearch, an anthropology
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  graduate is seeking concrete advice on breaking into UX
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  research, questioning the value of bootcamps versus networking.
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  This desperation is a sign of a saturated entry-level market,
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  where the barrier to entry is no longer just learning the tools,
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  but proving you can apply them in a way that a degree doesn't
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  automatically grant. Today's questions all point to the same
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  gap: the tools we use to manage uncertainty are failing us, from
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  the scales we build to the filters that hide us.
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  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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  Patrick Neeman's argument that the Double Diamond is obsolete
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  because AI makes generation cheap hits a specific nerve. We
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  spent months on research to de- risk a build that would take
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  months, but now we can prototype in an afternoon. That makes the
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  heavy upfront artifacts redundant. I hear the logic,
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  but I see the risk in calling the process "redundant" when the
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  problem is just cheaper to solve. If we skip the deep
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  research because the code writes itself, we're not saving time,
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  we're just accelerating the creation of the wrong thing. The
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  cost of building collapsed, but the cost of misunderstanding the
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  user didn't. That's a fair counter, and it aligns with
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  Scott Berkun's point that rules only work when they serve a
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  higher purpose. If the "higher purpose" is just hitting a
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  deadline, then yes, the process is dead. But if the purpose is
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  alignment, then the process isn't gone, it's just
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  compressed. We're moving from preventing errors to curating
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  them. Exactly. And that curation is where the human
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  value shifts. It's no longer about producing the first viable
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  mock, it's about knowing which of the ten viable mocks to throw
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  away. That's a judgment call that requires context, not just
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  code. So the skill isn't vanishing, it's just changing
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  shape. We're moving from architects who draw the
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  blueprint to editors who select the final cut. The tools got
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  faster, so the taste has to get sharper. And that's a harder
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  skill to teach than any tool. You can't automate taste. You
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  can't prompt for intuition. Which means the value of
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  experience just went up, not down. The barrier isn't writing
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  the feature, it's knowing why it should exist.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!