Latest / The Feed & The Thread / The Feed & The Thread - March 18, 2026

Transcript

The Feed & The Thread - March 18, 2026 · The Feed & The Thread

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What if your obsession with lovable products is actually
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hiding a bigger problem. So you're saying we're chasing
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emotions instead of the real leverage point? Exactly, because
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the only thing that actually scales is what we learn. That
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flips our entire definition of success. Let's get into it.
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Welcome to The Feed and The Thread, brought to you by
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Chicago Camps. There's an open call for speakers for UX Camp
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Summer on May 30th, so now is your chance to get on stage and
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share your ideas! You can use our Proposal Counselor to help
0:28
you get submitted today. The Feed & The Thread is available
0:31
online at feed and thread dot com to submit your feeds, or
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download our app for all the feeds and threads delivered
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right to your pocket.
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Today's Feed challenges the idea that lovable products or smart
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AI are the end goals. Instead, the real work is about what we
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learn and how we keep humans in control. Ian Batterbee at UX
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Design.cc argues in "Forget your 'lovable' products; the real
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leverage point was always learning" that chasing emotional
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connection often distracts teams. He says we must stop
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shipping features and start measuring if our assumptions
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actually hold up. That rewrites the assumption that a perfect
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aesthetic is the only path to success. Jeff Sauro and Jim
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Lewis at MeasuringU propose a data-driven framework in
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"Assistant, Analyst, and User: How We're Examining AI in UX."
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They show AI can match human reliability for coding comments
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if we run multiple tests to check for variation. This
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approach helps us separate actual efficacy from pure
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speculation. Christopher Noessel writes in "Designing
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Assistant Technology: AI That Makes People Smarter" at
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Rosenfeld Media about how bad AI erodes human skills. He offers
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patterns to ensure systems amplify judgment rather than
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replacing it entirely. Designers must decide exactly when the AI
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should step in to help. Also publishing recently: Smashing
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Magazine, and Chicago Camps posted the UX Camp Winter
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closing keynote from Billie Mandel and Jessica DeMartini,
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"The AI Reality Check: Hype, Harm, and How UX Leads."
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Welcome back to the Thread, where we check in on what the
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community is actually talking about today. Over on
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r/UXResearch, folks are asking if they can really juggle a side
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hustle alongside their full-time research jobs. This question
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hits hard right now because the market is so tight that many are
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desperate for extra income. But it also raises a tough issue
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about whether we can actually give our best work when we're
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stretched so thin. In r/UXResearch, someone shared the
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reality of being twelve months out after a layoff and still
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seeking a resume review. That timeline is a heavy burden to
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carry, and it highlights how long the recovery process can
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truly take for so many. It reminds us that resilience is
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the only skill that doesn't depreciate over time. Over on
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r/UI_Design, a poster is asking for fresh eyes on their latest
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app design concept. This simple request shows that even
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experienced designers still crave that external perspective
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to catch blind spots. We all know that a fresh pair of eyes
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can save us from a costly mistake before launch. And we
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all know that sometimes the app bros just show up for unpaid
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labor, so remain vigilant. Over on r/UXDesign, designers in
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Australia are frustrated by hiring practices that seem to
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rely entirely on personal connections. This feeling of
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exclusion suggests that the traditional application process
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might be broken in certain regions. It forces us to ask if
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our networks matter more than our actual skills. The mood
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today feels like a mix of cautious hope and a deep desire
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for fairer opportunities across the board.
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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
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today! It's an online event, so you can join from anywhere in
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the world! Tickets are free, thanks to the generosity of the
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community! If it's within your budget, you can purchase a
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general admission ticket for only thirteen dollars and fifty
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cents. Get tickets now at Chicago Camps dot org.
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Ian Batterbee's point about stopping the feature churn to
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actually measure assumptions is the only thing that matters
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right now. That's true, but r/UXResearch thread about twelve
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months of layoffs shows why teams are scared to hit pause.
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And that fear is exactly why we need Christopher Noessel's
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warning about AI eroding human skills. I don't think we need to
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slow down to save skills. We need to force AI to prove its
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value through testing like Sauro suggests. So you're saying the
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solution to the hiring freeze is to double down on data instead
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of waiting for emotions to settle? Exactly. The market
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isn't waiting for us to feel ready, so we should treat every
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AI output as a hypothesis until the data says otherwise. That
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shifts the burden from the designer's gut feeling to the
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system's ability to validate itself. And that's the only way
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to keep human judgment from getting replaced by a tool
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nobody actually understands. The real leverage isn't in the
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product anymore, it's in the discipline of proving what
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actually works. Then the teams that stop guessing and start
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testing will be the only ones left standing.
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That's The Feed and The Thread for today. We'll catch you next
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time!