Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - May 30, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - May 30, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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  Managers without design or coding skills are the first to
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  go. So pure management is becoming obsolete? The
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  prediction is stark, and we need to examine what that means for
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  your career path.
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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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  We measure success by shipping features, but we rarely measure
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  the value of the research that guided them. That gap is where
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  budgets bleed. Most research funding follows the loudest
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  complaint, not the highest impact. Brian Utesch and Tammi
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  Fitzwater at Nielsen Norman Group address this in "Using RAS
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  to Guide UX Research Resource Allocation and Strategy". They
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  argue that leaders need to shift from counting outputs to
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  tracking outcomes using the Recommendation-Adoption Score.
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  This metric separates adopted recommendations, which deliver
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  real value, from those that just get communicated. It forces
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  teams to prove their work changes behavior, not just fills
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  a roadmap. Solutions journalism avoids conflict, but that might
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  be its biggest weakness. Kamyar Razavi at UX Design.cc makes
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  this case in "Solutions journalism needs better
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  conflict, not less of it". He notes that forty percent of
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  people skip news because the traditional disease model leaves
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  them feeling hopeless. To fix this, reporting must retain
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  conflict while explaining its root causes. We need stories
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  that inform rather than just dramatize the crisis. Using AI
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  for efficiency misses the point of intelligent design. Josh
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  Clark and Veronika Kindred propose a different path in
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  "From efficiency to imagination with Josh Clark and Veronika
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  Kindred". They suggest treating AI as a new design material for
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  creating sentient interfaces that adapt in real time. Instead
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  of just speeding up old workflows, we should imagine
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  collaborative systems with agency. That requires bold
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  wishes, not just faster buttons. Other reads today from CSS-
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  Tricks on Safari testing quirks, Nielsen Norman Group on getting
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  research onto roadmaps, and UX Design.cc on designing for AI
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  like it's nineteen ninety-nine.
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  The community is wrestling with a quiet crisis today. We measure
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  success by shipping features, yet we rarely measure the value
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  of the research that guided them. That gap is where budgets
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  bleed. Over on r/UXDesign, a recent graduate is stuck in a
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  hiring loop. They sent over fifty applications and received
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  mostly deferrals asking them to reapply in late twenty twenty-
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  six. It's not just rejection. It's a pause button on entry-
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  level roles. This reveals a structural mismatch. Companies
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  are hoarding talent for future quarters while current graduates
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  lose momentum. The tension here's real. If we don't hire
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  the next generation, who will validate our designs later? We
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  need to stop treating junior roles as optional overhead.
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  There's also a wild prediction circulating about management.
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  One user argues that managers without coding or design skills
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  are most vulnerable to AI replacement. The community
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  pushback is sharp. As one commenter noted, this isn't how
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  power dynamics work. Leaders define goals and control
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  budgets. They won't replace themselves with tools that don't
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  serve their interests. This connects back to our theme. If
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  leadership doesn't value research, AI won't fix that
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  blind spot. It'll just automate the wrong decisions faster.
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  We're also seeing friction around the definition of design
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  itself. A post claiming design is just problem solving sparked
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  immediate debate. Commenters argued that's too broad. Every
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  profession solves problems. The real distinction is solving the
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  *right* problem. And if we can't articulate that difference, we
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  can't justify our budgets. This brings us to the tools
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  themselves. A senior designer shared that AI feels like the
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  antithesis of why they got into design. It strips away the
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  creative satisfaction. They feel like they're managing a robot
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  that lacks true understanding. Finally, there's a growing
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  divide between UX and UI work. One designer admits hating pixel
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  pushing. They prefer conceptual thinking. But the community
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  response is grounded. Good UI is part of good UX. If the
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  interface fails, the experience fails. You can't separate the
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  strategy from the delivery. This is the core tension. We want
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  high-level impact, but we can't ignore the details. The thread
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  today suggests that while tools change, the fundamental question
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  remains. Are we solving the right problem, or just shipping
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  faster?
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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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  The Nielsen Norman Group's Recommendation-Adoption Score
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  forces a hard truth. We count outputs because they're easy to
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  measure. But tracking whether a recommendation actually changes
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  behavior is where the real value lives. It separates noise from
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  signal. That metric is dangerous if we treat it like a
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  scoreboard. The community debate about design being just problem
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  solving connects here. If we only track adoption, we optimize
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  for the easy wins. We stop solving the right problems
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  because the hard ones don't get adopted quickly. I see it
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  differently. The metric exposes the gap between communication
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  and impact. Most teams think they succeeded when they
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  presented the findings. The Recommendation-Adoption Score
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  proves that presentation isn't delivery. It forces us to prove
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  we changed the system, not just the roadmap. But the system is
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  broken. Leaders control the budgets. The thread discussion
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  was right about this. Managers won't replace themselves with
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  tools that don't serve their interests. If the metric shows
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  low adoption, they might just blame the researcher for poor
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  persuasion. It shifts the risk onto the practitioner. That's
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  the friction point. But hiding behind ambiguity protects no
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  one. If we can't articulate why a recommendation failed to
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  change behavior, we can't justify our budgets. We need
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  that data to prove design is strategic, not decorative. The
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  discomfort is necessary for professional maturity. So the
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  skill isn't just research. It's political navigation. We have to
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  guide leadership to see that short-term adoption kills long-
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  term strategy. The tool measures the symptom. The designer has to
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  diagnose the disease. Exactly. The metric is just a mirror.
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  And right now, most teams are afraid to look in it.
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!