UX Collective
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Otherwise you’re just a machine
AI is getting better at design. Designers should too. The skills behind the work. Image created with AI. I spend a lot of time looking at design work. Reviewing portfolios. Hiring designers. Working with design leaders, seniors and juniors. Sitting in critiques. Watching people explain how they…
After the AI bubble: a manifesto
Computers should be tools for the people but — hidden in a malaise of fatalism — the AI bubble has made computers tools to push people around. Soon, or in some time, this will change. We have some thoughts to share with you in the meantime. Morro Bay, California Preamble The purpose of computers is…
Berrypicking still beats the single answer for search, even in the world of AI
A searcher moves through scattered sources, collecting one useful piece at each stop. In 1989 Marcia Bates showed that people search by gathering, shifting, and revising as they go. Her ideas explain what AI still misses and what is still relevant from research done 47 years ago. Much of what…
Native is a floor, not a ceiling
With AI, a polished look costs nothing. Native brings what can’t be drawn, and it moves with the system, one step ahead of what imitates it. An AI assistant helped me write this. The ideas, the experience and the final edit are mine. In June 2025, Apple introduced Liquid Glass, the new material of…
Design by numbers: is AI ruining UX or just pouring gasoline on the fire?
Everyone seems to be asking whether AI will replace UX designers. I think that’s the wrong question. Following the numbers gets you a picture but doesn’t make you an artist | Russell Pinkston In March 2025, the Computer History Museum and IEEE Spectrum staged a debate on a single question: when a…
Everyone’s got a quick question
And you shouldn’t have to answer them all. Frequently asked questions in my inbox, recreated. I became the team’s search engine Every team has a person everyone reaches out to. They know where things live, why a decision went the way it did, and who to ask when you’re stuck. If you’re on a team…
In a world of panic, calm and certainty win
You can dread the future or help build it. The people who come through this already chose. While panic around what AI means for our industry is the reflex right now, calm is a decision. The calm that comes from knowing what you actually know is the rarest and most valuable thing you can bring to a…
AI can generate the interface. What makes it worth caring about?
As more product work is generated from shared patterns, designers need to decide where an experience should surprise, celebrate, or simply leave someone alone. Imagine asking an AI tool to design a task-completion state. The result has a checkmark, a friendly message, and a small burst of confetti…
What AI has changed in Design Systems, and what is still up to us
Three design experts told me how AI is changing the way we build and maintain Design Systems. And led me to think that “the future” is already happening now. What is the human role in creating and maintaining a design system in the AI era? Credit: Anna Lefour with Gemini. You’ve probably read, or…
Everyone is building AI agents. Who’s designing the stop button?
We used to design predictable user flows. Now AI can interpret, decide, and act on its own. Here’s why the hardest design decisions happen where that autonomy ends. Showing where AI stops in the flow — by gpt In September 2025, researchers at Thinking Machines Lab ran the same prompt through a…
I let AI build. I don’t let AI decide.
A long workbench split down the middle, finished tools stacked on one side and a single open notebook on the other. My list of tasks I give models without a second thought and what I review until the tools evolve. I’ve used generative models for almost four years and designed machine learning…
What do you do when a design solution is already pre-built?
How to deal with the “Fastest Idea in the Room” Continue reading on UX Collective »
Agents struggle with the same bad UX we do
Computer-use agents can’t guess, improvise, or ask a coworker. That makes them the most honest usability testers we’ve ever had. The first time I watched an agent fail on a vendor portal, I recognized the failure immediately. Not because I understood the model. Because I’d failed in exactly the…
What I learned teaching AI prototyping at university
Teaching students how to prototype with AI tools instead of Figma revealed exciting possibilities and uncomfortable trade-offs. It also offered valuable insight into how non-tech people can create apps with generative AI. I teach digital prototyping to fashion design undergraduates and master’s…
The pole and the stake
On going with the current, changing it, and what designers are asked to do Continue reading on UX Collective »
State of a system
Almost eight years ago, I started working on a design system that I got the opportunity to revisit just a few years later. The second round became as big a push with far fewer people. Now, three years after ending the work I’m finally ready to share that experience. My thesis: A rigid design kit is…
Virtue ethics in everyday interface design
How wording, hierarchy, and moments of friction can support considered action. Aristotle statue by Jerry Anderson at Southern Utah University’s Centurium, Cedar City, Utah. Image source: Southern Utah University . One thing that troubles me about designers is how readily some treat public…
Sparkle buttons, Autonomy by design, AI reckoning in UX, Figma with MCP
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers. “Open any product you pay for and look at the top right corner. There is a sparkle. Behind it is a panel that slides in from the right, says “Ask anything”, and offers three suggestions you did not ask for. Close it and it comes back…
When colors pass but palettes fail
The accessibility challenge of generative AI diverging color palettes. Continue reading on UX Collective »
How to design transparent AI cost controls
A practical guide to choosing usage units, designing spending limits, and explaining AI costs before, during, and after the work. Every AI response has a price. People often discover it only when a limit hits or a bill arrives. A quick edit and a long-running agent can look almost identical in the…
In the directory since 25 Sept 2026 · last checked 9 Nov 2026 · RSS