Figma the villain, why great products fail, decentralizing UX with GenAI
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.
“Globally, Figma has created a “love brand,” particularly among younger designers and those who focus primarily on UI design.
Its savvy community engagement, strong brand equity, and initially user-friendly approaches made it easy to forget that, at the end of the day, Figma is still a business.
And businesses need to grow, especially when they’ve raised a significant amount of venture capital and are operating in a post-zero interest rate era. This is where, it seems, the current friction begins.”
The story of Figma: long enough of a hero to become a villain? →By Jan Takacs
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Editor picks
- Minimum Viable Softness →
Colonialism under the cloak of newness.
By Flavio Masson - Are you gathering knowledge or simply performing it? →
Creating truly user-centric products.
By Meltem (UX Career Coach) - How to brand science? →
What branding can teach us about making science captivating.
By Louis Charron - No, Elon, you can’t make a “WeChat of the West” →
Can Twitter ever become an everything app?
By Daley Wilhelm - Why great products fail without human-centered sales strategies →
Should a designer’s role be integrated into the sales process?
By Himanshu Bharadwaj
The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.
Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font with a lo-fi technical vibe →
Make me think
- The home as a place of production →
“We are allowing tech to colonise every single facet of our lives. This hyper-digital life takes us further away from ourselves and the embodied experience. (…) To create environments in which humans can truly thrive, we need to be guided by different principles than just comfort and ease.” - The marginalization of touch in a digital world →
“The sheer number of tools and toys that have been replaced by an app on my phone is mind blowing. Pen, paper, calculator, notebook, novel, telephone, wall clock, wallet, credit cards, photos, maps, video games. Sure, it’s convenient, cost-efficient, and space-saving, but it’s thrown me into a serious case of texture withdrawal.” - Spotify has a fake-band problem. It’s a sign of things to come. →
“Covers of popular songs were being inserted into large, publicly available playlists, hidden among dozens of other covers by real artists while racking up millions of listens and getting paid.”
Little gems this week
How Robinhood gamified investing and exploited users →By Elvis Hsiao
Decentralizing UX with ML & GenAI →By Deniz Can Demir
Turning opportunities into real innovation–with a twist →
By Nicole Gallardo
Tools and resources
- Knowing when to workshop →
Is as important as knowing how to run a workshop.
By Jemma Frost - Creating psychological safety in the workplace →
Eliminating fear of punishment or humiliation.
By Christina Lai 賴浩賢 - Reducing UX debt (or die trying) →
Poor, unresolved design is what drives customers away.
By Karine Sabatier
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Figma the villain, why great products fail, decentralizing UX with GenAI was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.