Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 10, 2026

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The Feed & The Thread - March 10, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

• 0:00
  One designer says they actually enjoy coding more than using
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  Figma now. That sounds like a crisis, but they're finding the
• 0:06
  creative spark again. So the real issue isn't the tool, it's
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  the promotion killing their joy. That's going to make a lot of
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  senior designers feel seen. Let's get into it.
• 0:19
  Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
• 0:21
  Chicago Camps. There's an open call for speakers for UX Camp
• 0:24
  Summer on May 30th, so now is your chance to get on stage and
• 0:26
  share your ideas! You can use our Proposal Counselor to help
• 0:29
  you get submitted today. The Feed & The Thread is available
• 0:32
  online at feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or
• 0:35
  download our app for all the feeds and threads delivered
• 0:37
  right to your pocket.
• 0:45
  Today's Feed tackles a hard truth: if AI can build features
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  instantly, your product's functionality is no longer your
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  shield. The only real defense left is the deep relationship
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  you've built with your users. In a piece called "AI Made
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  Relationships, Not Features, the Last Defensible Advantage," Jeff
• 1:02
  Gothelf at his blog argues that superior functionality is now
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  obsolete. He suggests that accumulated history and trust
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  are the only things competitors can't copy. That rewrites the
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  assumption that better features equal a better product. Kike
• 1:15
  Peña at UX Design.cc makes a similar point about timing in
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  "Leading design teams is easy, but we made it complicated." He
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  notes that many startups let engineers build rough
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  interfaces, creating massive experience debt before design
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  teams ever arrive. Now, leaders must choose between fixing
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  foundational rot or managing immediate business risks. Nick
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  Babich at UX Planet offers a practical counter in "Claude
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  Code Best Practices," outlining four ways to use AI without
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  losing your human touch. He insists we treat the tool as a
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  partner for rapid prototyping, not a replacement for critical
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  design decisions. Mastering these workflows lets you iterate
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  faster while keeping quality high. Also publishing recently:
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  The Paciello Group, Smashing Magazine, and CSS-Tricks. And
• 1:57
  Chicago Camps released the replay of the UX Camp Winter
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  presentation, "AI-Accelerated Discovery: Delivering Faster
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  Insights with Jobs to Be Done," by Elaine Matthias.
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  It's interesting how much the design community is wrestling
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  with their actual tools today. Some designers are finding
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  themselves preferring to iterate directly in code rather than
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  staying in Figma. "Find myself enjoying iterating in code than
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  in Figma," a user shared on r/UXDesign. While comments are
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  still rolling in, this tension suggests a shift in where the
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  real design work happens. Then there's the heavy feeling of
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  seniority. "I hate being a Senior Designer," someone posted
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  on r/UI_Design. This raw admission highlights a real
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  struggle with the weight of expectation versus the joy of
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  execution. Frustration is also building around communication
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  fatigue. "Constantly re- explaining concepts and flows,"
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  a designer noted on r/UXDesign and this points to a systemic
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  issue where teams might not be aligning on basics, forcing
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  designers into a loop of repetition. Consultants are
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  also questioning their fit in the industry. "For those who
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  work in a consultancy, do you hate it as much as I do?" asked
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  a member of r/UXResearch. The question itself signals deep
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  burnout in that sector. The mood today feels less about
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  design trends and more about designers finding their footing
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  in a noisy world.
• 3:26
  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
• 3:32
  today! It's an online event, so you can join from anywhere in
• 3:35
  the world! Tickets are free, thanks to the generosity of the
• 3:38
  community! If it's within your budget, you can purchase a
• 3:40
  general admission ticket for only thirteen dollars and fifty
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  cents. Get tickets now at Chicago Camps dot org.
• 3:53
  The piece by Jeff Gothelf really stuck with me today. He argues
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  that superior functionality is now obsolete, and only
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  accumulated history and trust remain as defensible advantages.
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  That sounds like a nice theory, but it ignores the burnout I'm
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  seeing in the community threads. People are asking if they hate
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  their jobs as senior designers because the weight of
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  expectation is crushing the joy of execution. I see those
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  threads, but I think they highlight an opportunity rather
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  than a dead end. If features don't matter, then the senior
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  designer's role shifts from building interfaces to curating
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  those deep user relationships. But that shift requires a level
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  of emotional energy that many consultants and researchers
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  simply don't have left. When someone posts about preferring
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  to iterate directly in code instead of Figma, it signals a
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  desperate need to escape the abstract. However, "emotional
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  energy" should probably be abstracted from this
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  responsibility, right? That preference for code might
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  actually be the solution. It allows designers to bypass the
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  friction of handoffs and build those trust-based interactions
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  faster without losing the human touch Nick Babich described. I
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  worry that calling code a solution could miss the point.
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  The struggle isn't about the tool, it's about the feeling
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  that the core purpose of design is being eroded by the speed of
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  AI. So I land on the idea that the tool change forces us to
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  finally value what we actually love about the work. And I land
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  on the fear that we're asking people to build a relationship
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  with users while their own relationship with their career
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  is already breaking. Then again, if it wasn't for the need for
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  change, would we even have careers?
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  That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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  time!