Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.
In 2021 many social media platforms shifted to offer subscription tools for their creators. Confronted with low minimum wages, decreased job security, and 9 to 5 jobs that offer little in the way of flexibility, many people have turned to social media platforms for a new source of income.
The design industry is no exception. Many of us are searching for other means to fulfill our purpose, our career ambitions, and our pockets: more and more designers are launching online courses and paid UX communities, as well as selling UI kits or NFTs. And we’re using our skills to our advantage; after all, building brands and converting prospects into paying customers is what we do best.
How content creation is becoming a full-time job for designers →
The UX Collective is an independent ad-free design publication that elevates unheard design voices, reaching over 500k+ designers every week. Curated by Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga.
Editors’ picks
- UX is becoming a commodity →
Here’s how we can break the mold.
By Matthias Dittrich - Selling a plan is not enough →The challenge of moving from strategy to execution.
By Luca Lamera - Monopoly in the metaverse →The game of monopoly that Microsoft is playing.
By Pete Sena
Let’s settle this: these internet debates have raged for too long.
Make me think
- The social model: do we disable people through our tech? →
“In our view, it is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments, by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society.” - Settings are not a design failure →
“Settings are typically seen as the result of design failure. The thinking goes that as designers, our goal is to create product experiences that don’t require any adjustments by the user. Consequently, offering customization options is interpreted as a failure to make firm product decisions. I think there is a misunderstanding about what settings really are.” - The future is not only useless, it’s expensive →
“This is how NFTs make me feel: like the future is useless but expensive, and world-altering technology is now in the hands of a culture so aesthetically and spiritually impoverished that it should maybe go back to telling stories around the cooking fire for a while, just to remember how to mean something.”
Little gems this week
Whole Lottie tools out there →By Andy Dent
Naming design tokens →By Lukas Oppermann
Five steps towards designing better ID checks →
By Tina Remiz
Tools and resources
- 3D icons →
Handcrafted icons, fully customizable online. - Assistive tech →
An introduction to the accessibility tree.
By Louise Clark, CPWA - Skill grids →
How to design Skill Grids for your product design team.
By Audrey Hacq
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Designers-creators, UX commodity, useless NFTs, naming design tokens was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.