The change we’re discussing here is not a revolution, just an evolution. It’s simply a change in how many roles will be needed and what they will entail. Jorge Arango recently wrote that “Digital systems, not people, will do much of the craft of (screen-level) interaction design.”

Every time such shifts happen, the industry rearranges itself to fit the new mold.

The State of UX in 2025: a love letter about change →

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Editor picks

• She and He aren’t the only ones buying clothes →
  Challenging binary norms in ecomm UX.
  By Youvna Salian
• The world doesn’t need more managers →
  It needs people who care enough to lead.
  By Himanshu Bharadwaj
• The digital soul of tomorrow’s cars →
  Learning from leading Chinese brands.
  By Ruoyong (Eli) Hong

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

CourseHero: a character by Hervé →

Make me think

• Strategy is not war; it’s gardening →
  “When most people think of strategy, they think of war. And it’s no wonder — our history books, leadership courses, and even popular business books are filled with military metaphors.”
• 15 lessons from 15 years of indie app development →
  “Obviously, as I got older and left university, my expenses went up and I needed to make more money, but still, the way I see it is this: I make money so that I can do what I love for work, not the other way around.”
• Inside design at Carl Friedrik →
  “From here we conduct early concept sketches digitally and by hand. We would then have a group meeting to align on the direction before moving into digital renders using Keyshot for hard goods and Clo3D for soft goods.”

Little gems this week

Stop wireframing (but still start low-fidelity) →By Jason Barrons

I was laid off from Spotify one year ago: here’s what I’ve learnt →By Sophia Omarji

Data is good. Data with a story is better. →
By Ryan Revilla

Tools and resources

• Prototyping with data →
  Advanced string formulas and dynamic customization.
  By Nicolás Del Real
• GenAI suggestions for analogous data color schemes →
  Can AI help in data color scheme design?
  By Theresa-Marie Rhyne
• The importance of hover states →
  Exploring UI details with technical-academic rigor.
  By Filipe Nzongo

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
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State of UX, we don’t need more managers, prototyping with data was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Things have been feeling differently for a while. That UX buzz, that peak we hit in the late 2010s, has faded. Historically, designers have always aimed to exert vast influence within their organizations, guiding the creative vision and making critical decisions that shape the product. That reality simply doesn’t feel palpable anymore when you look at the state of UX more broadly. UX is increasingly a byproduct of business objectives, not the driving force.

This is what we’re calling “The Great Design Handoff”—a fundamental shift in responsibilities and a transfer of design control from designers to a complex network of algorithms, automated tools, and business stakeholders.

We’re handing our designs to Figma while it trains its AI.

We’re handing our design systems to growth teams so they can squeeze every last penny out of customers.

We’re shipping new products before they’re even ready.

We’re shifting our focus from good design to organizational politics.

We’re choosing not to hire a photographer / voice actor / illustrator artist rand to use generative AI instead.

“Just this one time because the budget is short.”

“Just to try it out.”

“Just because our competitor is doing it.”

You get the point.

For this year’s report, we’ve had the privilege to work with Manoel do Amaral — a designer living in Los Angeles who explores ways of connecting the dots between branding and product design.

Read the report:

The State of UX in 2025

Written by: Fabricio Teixeira, Caio Braga

Illustrations by: Manoel do Amaral

Narrated by: Laura Vandiver

Published by: The UX Collective (ISSN: 2766–5267) is an independent publication built to help designers think more critically about their work. You can follow our content via our Newsletter. For more in-depth pieces, check our publication DOC.

The State of UX in 2025: a love letter about change was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“We may be in the middle of one now, a period of change and awakening. And like previous periods of same, there are so many things to be currently worried about — potential authoritarianism, genocide, religious fanaticism, climate change, uncontrolled AGI, unleashed nativism — that a period of change is handmaid with a period of struggle again. We’ve made a queer mess of life, it seems.

In uncomplicated times, it is easy to dismiss creativity as unserious. In the hardest times, it’s everything there is.”

Creativity is the only thing →By Joe Alterio

Is your UX Research reaching its full potential in business decisions? →
[Sponsored] Join leading UX research experts as we explore the reasons why UX research is undervalued despite the high demand for it. We’ll also look at practical ways to reframe research to tackle visibility issues and enhance its impact on the business.

Editor picks

• Beyond the research repository →
  UX research assets needs to be delivered to the business.
• Society drives how we build products →
  Is the experience more important than the brand?
• Is Jaguar’s logo chic modernism or a minimalist misstep? →
  Great branding isn’t just about design. It’s about the soul.

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

How Minecraft is inspiring a new wave of art and design →

Make me think

• Shipping is capturing value →
  “The platonic ideal of software development is a world in which changes and improvements are instantly and comprehensively understood by all stakeholders; the delta between this ideal and reality is much larger and more pernicious and more valuable than software itself.”
• On not using copilot →
  “LLM assistants are chat interfaces. You beg the computer to do something, it does something wrong, you ask it to fix the problem. You’re managing. You’re acting as a manager, and chatting.”
• You are all wrong about the Jaguar rebrand →
  “Here’s the thing about rebrands: they’re not just about slapping on a shiny new logo. A brand is an ecosystem of meaning, emotions, and experiences that lives far beyond the design.”

Little gems this week

Why are cars getting bigger and bigger? →By Elvis Hsiao

Never skip research day →By Trip Carroll

CX, placemaking, and the Japanese convenience store →
By Daley Wilhelm

Tools and resources

• When is it time to move from Figma to Protopie? →
  Once you reach the limits of Figma, it’s time to move on.
  By Nicolás Del Real
• Semantic interface palette →
  It’s simpler than you think.
  By Alexandra Basova
• Hope is not lost for human-centered AI →
  How designers can lead the way.
  By Andrea Grigsby

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
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Creativity is the only thing, moving from Figma to Protopie, semantic color palettes was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Having recently changed my day job, I have had a lot of contact with the tools and practices of hiring: the majority of the aforementioned, alongside the treatment of candidates, has been appalling.

I can’t claim to point to the ultimate cause, but the result is the dehumanization of candidates by analytical, AI and automated solutions that hiring managers turn to in order to deal with the unmanageable deluge of resumes from candidates who are themselves applying to jobs at scale and with the help of AI.”

Why is hiring software so impersonal? →By Oliver Meredith Cox

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Editor picks

• How a team showed great UX was worth $100+ million annually →
  The right UX metrics show game-changing value.
  By Jared M. Spool
• The root causes for the dev-design mismatch →
  And why designers use an unconstrained canvas tool to design.
  By Erez Reznikov
• Hey Daddy, did you lose your job? →
  How to handle being laid off as a designer.
  By Filipe Nzongo

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

How I designed a keyboard →By Nazariy Kondratiuk

Make me think

• Against best practices →
  “I have come to believe that by and large “best practices” are doing more harm than good. Not necessarily because they’re bad advice as such, but because they’re mostly pounded by either 1) various types of zealots who abuse these kind of ‘best practices’ as an argument from authority, or 2) inexperienced programmers who lack the ability to judge their applicability.”
• Who will train tomorrow’s designers? →
  “Even before AI entered the chat, junior design positions were vanishing. A perfect storm of factors has been brewing with industry-wide hiring freezes, an abundance of bootcamp graduates flooding the market, and remote work both expanding the talent pool and making more hands-on mentorship logistically challenging.”
• Maybe Bluesky has “won” →
  “When writing about Bluesky, I’ve seen folks mention that it’s either federated or decentralized. I’m here to tell you that it’s currently neither. This one really irks me because the service is getting the credit for work it hasn’t done.”

Little gems this week

Tech’s obsession with speed and how it can strip quality in Design →By Chris R Becker

Embracing play as the core of design →By Faisal Risq

Why we need to have a change of HEART with UX metrics →
By Darren Yeo

Tools and resources

• 8 excellent user research emails →
  From Duolingo, Typeform, Notion, Monzo & more.
  By Rosie Hoggmascall
• Content design practices for sustainable communication →
  Taking small yet efficient steps toward strategic content management.
  By Lisa Vorobeva
• Continuous planning for UX teams →
  Manage UX backlogs the Agile way.
  By Raquel Piqueras

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Impersonal software, dev-design mismatch, embracing play in design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“You are Jean-Claude Van Damme. You’re straddling two 18-wheelers careening through space while doing the splits. It’s very difficult, your groin hurts, and you could really use a strawberry Pop-tart…

Here’s the question that has brought on all the pain and Pop-tart cravings: “Do I continue the path of individual contributor or turn towards management?”

As designers, this is a decision that we all need to face eventually. As soon as we become competent in our craft, we start to realize that we can’t straddle the gap forever.”

The split decision: IC or manager? →By Trip Carroll

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Editor picks

• Laid off twice in a year →
  Riding the tech rollercoaster as a product manager.
  By Jean Huang
• Customer as competitive advantage →
  Are we doing the same as our competitors expecting different results?
  By Helge Tennø
• Great products transcend the Usability vs. Utility debate →
  Your users want results, not compromises.
  By Avi Siegel

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

New book celebrates UK’s influential modernist graphic designers →

Make me think

• We did all this discovery… now how do we decide? →
  “The more discovery they do, the more ideas they get. The ideas, the interviews, the stories, the pain points — they all start to pile up. That’s where the problem comes in. Now the PM has a giant portfolio of ideas. But the team can only build one thing at a time. How do they decide on the one thing to do next?”
• Are AI assistants making us worse programmers? →
  “In programming, high-level languages many times abstract the complexity away from you — something developers working with JavaScript, Python, Java, etc, know well. It seems clear that AI assistants introduce a new human-machine interface — natural language. Is that bad?”
• Don’t forget to localize your icons →
  “Localizing your app, web app, or website is more than just running all your text through Google Translate and hoping for the best. Creating effective, trustworthy communication with language communities means doing the work to make sure your content meets them where they are.”

Little gems this week

Why is the Mac mini power button on the bottom? →By Elvis Hsiao

How Insight Timer monetizes 25M users →By Mary Borysova

How I used AI to design brand-aligned illustrations →
By Moty Weiss

Tools and resources

• Text formatting experiences can be a trap →
  Improve a keyboard user’s experience with indentation.
  By Nik Jeleniauskas
• Reimagining prototyping with AI →
  Bringing creativity, speed, and efficiency to design validation.
  By Vamsi Batchu
• Test smart →
  Which automation strategy to choose for peace of mind?
  By Julia Kocbek

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

IC or Manager, laid off twice, prototyping with AI was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Three years ago, during the hard Covid lockdown in The Netherlands, the news arrived at our company; we were going to be acquired by a competitor. At that point, my reference to company acquisitions was Meta buying Instagram or movies depicting evil corporations pushing local shops into bankruptcy.

I had no idea how common mergers and acquisitions are all around the world, across many industries. Naturally, questions piled up in my mind: Will I still have a job? Will my colleagues still be around? Will I be replaced by their own designers? Will we lose all the hard work we’ve put to get the product where it was?”

How did a company acquisition feel like for a product designer →By Teisanu Tudor

Editor picks

• Designing for “how might things go wrong?” →
  Anticipating and designing for failure.
  By Elvis Hsiao
• How to build a legendary park →
  Applying UX to transform green spaces.
  By Rita Kind-Envy
• Gentrified by design →
  Reflections on the role of algorithms in creative work.
  By Kristina Gushcheva-Keippilä

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

98.css: a library for building UI that looks like Windows 98 →

Make me think

• Care doesn’t scale →
  “We’re pretty limited when it comes to care. In any given moment, you can only really care deeply and individually for one person. There was some pain in that realization.”
• The best prompts start as conversations →
  “But my breakthroughs with the new technology started when I realized I was thinking about it all wrong. I needed to stop treating AI like a search engine and start treating it like a jam session.”
• How did you pick that typeface? →
  “I think the most important and difficult thing about being a designer is making decisions. (…) There are around 500,000 fonts available; designers have to choose 2 or 3 for any given project.”

Little gems this week

Why over 100 million athletes are hooked on Strava →By Mary Borysova

User experience without intentional limitations creates chaos →By Simo Herold

Laid off twice in a year as a product manager →
By Jean Huang

Tools and resources

• Treating AI Agents as personas →
  The Agent Computer Interaction era.
  By Paz Perez
• Can you design it more like Apple? →
  Stakeholders’ favorite question and how to respond.
  By Andrea Grigsby
• Designing errors for workflow automation platforms →
  Pushing for more accessible error resolution.
  By Rucha Abhyankar

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out last week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Company acquisition, AI agents as personas, how might things go wrong was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Showing an image of four competing smartphones of the day, Jobs said, ‘What’s wrong with their user interfaces? Well, the problem with them is really sort of in the bottom 40 [percent] there. …They all have these keyboards that are there whether you need them or not to be there. And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application.’”

Are physical buttons going extinct? →By Daley Wilhelm

Discover Motiff, An AI-powered professional UI design tool →[Sponsored] Motiff covers nearly all Figma’s core professional design features, enhanced by advanced AI tools like AI Design Systems features and AI Generated UI, making design faster, making collaboration simpler, and significantly more cost-effective.

Editor picks

• A good design is a good essay →
  Developing a persuasive argument is how UX creates value.
  By Pavel Samsonov
• How much do you really need to mention AI? →
  Onboarding an AI product: a case study of Otter.ai.
  By Rosie Hoggmascall
• Phrases that messed up my expectations of Content Design →
  “Seat at the table,” “Writing is designing,” and other gems.
  By Nicole Alexandra Michaelis

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

GT Claire: celebrating dynamic expressivity →

Make me think

• Pointers for effective website IA governance →
  “Often, we think of IA in the context of a major project such as a website design or redesign. That is, a big one-off lift towards sound information structures. It’s like a constitutional convention: a rare event that requires great focus and alignment. But what happens after launch?”
• The cultural power of the anti-woke tech bro →
  “Sometime between 2010 and now, however, the libertarian of the American imagination changed. Our new avatar for laissez-faire economics and “leave me alone-ism” is more likely an aspiring entrepreneur who rails against wokeness in forums and group chats.”
• Note to new design managers →
  “Org priorities are never flat and equally distributed across the entire projects spectrum — understand the truly important items and focus your time & energy on them disproportionately.”

Little gems this week

Maintaining a growth mindset →By Ed Orozco

Design is how it works →By Neel Dozome

Before Times New Roman, there was something better →
By Rita Kind-Envy

Tools and resources

• “Winning” by design →
  Deceptive UX patterns and sports betting apps.
  By Allie Paschal
• The design metric evolution →
  Measuring the value you bring to the business.
  By Patrizia Bertini
• Test smart →
  How to apply test automation and stay sane?
  By Julia Kocbek

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Physical buttons going extinct, growth mindset, the design metric evolution was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Better design does not settle but seeks to continue to find ways to further improve itself. It don’t only target the person using the design but caters wholly to the people around it and also to those who don’t have it. Because designing for a better world means going beyond a self-fulfilling desire. It goes into a community-inspired, soul-seeking, and socially conscious effort of making design a little more real each day.”

Lamenting about good design →By Darren Yeo

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Editor picks

• Bad design is, apparently, hot →
  Why subways are becoming urban ovens.
  By Rita Kind-Envy
• No, design is not “nice to have” →
  How good design can save you millions.
  By Ivan Sipilov
• Time for a more progressive design model →
  Breaking the process into manageable steps.
  By Andrzej Delgado

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Work: Olimpia Zagnoli →

Make me think

• AI-powered content organization strategies →
  “Organizations prioritize building new products and features over keeping older content organized — especially now, when many are being cost-conscious. The result is content that isn’t as usable — or as useful — as it could be.”
• When perfectionism makes you a better creative, and when it doesn’t →
  “It’s in a creative’s nature to pore over details others don’t see (or pay for), willing to sacrifice money, time, and their own sanity to realise their vision. Since it’s so common, is it possible that creative people are predisposed to perfectionist traits — is it part of the package?”
• Are we too impatient to be intelligent? →
  “Some of you may have noticed this if you’ve got a GPS in your car. You’re driving on the motorway at 60, you realize you’re going to be five minutes late for an appointment, so you welly it. And after driving at an insanely fast and dangerous speed for about eight minutes, you suddenly realize your arrival time has only improved by one minute.”

Little gems this week

Invisible leadership: dissolve to evolve →By Himanshu Bharadwaj

Let’s dive into the sea of rejections →By Chiara Santella

How to maximize user engagement without exploitation →
By Taras Bakusevych

Tools and resources

• The State of CSS 2024 →
  The turning point between CSS Classic and New CSS.
  By Sacha Greif
• Level up your user interviews →
  How to have more valuable conversations with users.
  By Avi Siegel
• Tonal color palettes inspired by nature →
  Creating palettes for your design systems.
  By Felix

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Lamenting about good design, invisible leadership, progressive design model was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“However, when it comes to building a product, the way different roles approach decisions is shaped by their own experiences and thought processes. This is because our brains naturally rely on familiar information.

When a CTO works on a product, their mental framework already includes a deep understanding of the backend and product logic, as they have spent significant time with it. It’s natural for them to project that knowledge onto the interface, assuming that users will perceive information similarly. And for the CEO, the product’s structure and logic, which they engage with daily, seem like the best way to organize information, given their close connection to it.”

Are you considering the developer’s mental model? →By Maria Kovalevich

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Editor picks

• A modern office metaphor mania →
  Where’s the humanness in workplace interface metaphors?
  By Suchithra Sathiyamurthy
• Setting up UX office hours in your organization →
  Extend your impact beyond your capacity.
  By Raquel Piqueras
• Choice is not the enemy →
  When “don’t make users choose” is a lie.
  By Ivan Sipilov

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Nothing OS 3.0 →

Make me think

• Every webpage deserves to be a place →
  “And if you’re in there — which is rare — and somebody else happens to step in at the exact same moment — which is super rare — then you’re like, huh, that’s nice, and you feel the cosy glow of co-presence and finish looking at the pictures then wander out again.”
• How Gmail solved the “impossible” problem →
  “The Gmail team discovered that perfect precision wasn’t necessary for people. The value-add of grouping an entire conversation in one place far outweighed any minor confusion from edge cases.”
• The power of mentorship: why every creative needs a mentor →
  “Being a creative is not just about honing your technical skills — it’s also about overcoming emotional challenges like self-doubt and creative block. Mentors provide crucial support during these difficult times.”

Little gems this week

Improving search: a case study of Gmail →By Rosie Hoggmascall

Deceptive UX as an accelerant for transformation →By Michael F. Buckley

Competing for user attention →
By Luca Lamera

Tools and resources

• Simplifying documentation writing →
  The toughest part of a design system.
  By Dean Harrison
• Component spec →
  The design system component delivery.
  By Matan Rosen
• Analyzing Duolingo’s retention techniques →
  How they keep users motivated.
  By Mary Borysova

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Developer’s mental model, choice is not the enemy, component spec in UX was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Just as a tanker cannot make sudden movements without causing disruption, organizations are slow to adapt and change due to their size complexity and established structures. Shifting the course of a company requires careful planning, coordination, and patience.

I lead the Momentum Design System team at Cisco where I’ve spent the last three years trying to generate buy-in for a dedicated engineering team. It’s been an uphill battle. There have been lots of times where my arguments have fallen on deaf ears. But, I’ve been patient and continued to push, bringing a voice to my vision of what our design system could become.”

You’re trying to turn an oil tanker →By Trip Carroll

Enter the UX Design Awards and reap the benefits →[Sponsored] Make it count! Enter your best work by 15 November 2024:
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Editor picks

• The perfectly beautiful imperfection →
  Life in a world obsessed with being polished.
  By Himanshu Bharadwaj
• Onboarding a complex product →
  A case study of Grammarly.
  By Rosie Hoggmascall
• Is your company productwashing? →
  How tech orgs become impostors in the product world.
  By Paolo Lacche

Don’t get left behind: Maze’s Disco Conf 2024 is this week — and FREE →[Sponsored] Join us on October 17 to embark on a collective venture into research, design, and discovery with product leaders from Google, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and more. Online-by-design and free to everyone, all you need to do is register to secure your spot.

Isocons: carefully crafted isometric icons →

Make me think

• Sketch and AI →
  “We feel strongly that AI should not exploit the work of you or anyone else. We will never consider it in Sketch. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Training an AI on your designs, for the benefit of everyone else, is not for us. Not even in an opt-out or opt-in scenario.”
• The intelligence age →
  “With these new abilities, we can have shared prosperity to a degree that seems unimaginable today; in the future, everyone’s lives can be better than anyone’s life is now. Prosperity alone doesn’t necessarily make people happy — there are plenty of miserable rich people — but it would meaningfully improve the lives of people around the world.”
• The deceptive UX pattern you never saw coming →
  “Sneaking exists because it can drive immediate business growth by increasing sales or subscriptions. However, it does so by misleading users, sacrificing transparency, and damaging long-term customer loyalty.”

Little gems this week

What’s next on Figma’s mind? Redesigning design systems →By Darren Yeo

Body language in AR: Designing socially aware interactions →By Ruoyong (Eli) Hong

The user experience of developer tools →
By Sara Kaandorp

Tools and resources

• 21 UX strategies to maximize engagement without exploitation →
  Ethical strategies that keep your products engaging.
• Figma scrapes UI3’s floating panels →
  The gaps were distracting.
• Setting up UX office hours in your organization →
  Extend your impact beyond your capacity.

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Sponsor an edition

Turning an oil tanker, 21 UX strategies, body language in AR, Figma rollbacks was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Truly, the current dominant method of structuring the design system on the canvas is paradoxical. It may look beautifully organised like portraits, but could be downright messy, especially for new users, similar to post-its left on a wall. And when a new designer walks to an entire wall of documentation, they are left drowning, not knowing where to start or look.

Perhaps it’s time for figma to rethink the affordance of their design systems within its interface. If so, what could it be?”

What’s next on Figma’s mind? Redesigning design systems →By Darren Yeo

Don’t get left behind — Maze’s Disco Conf 2024 is next week →[Sponsored] Convert any PDF into Figma designs, either as fully editable layers, or as pixel-perfect images. Extract images and text from your PDFs to get them directly in Figma, collaborate with your team, use them as templates for new designs… And much more! Plus, all PDF files are kept private as they’re processed locally.

Editor picks

• Get feedback to communicate better →
  The editing process you didn’t know about.
  By David Langton
• Put a UX vision before your UX process →
  Without a compelling vision, people will push back on your process.
  By Jared M. Spool
• How LinkedIn went from creepy to cool →
  Product vision, AI & feeds.
  By Rosie Hoggmascall

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

A collection of the best marketing headlines on the internet →

Make me think

• Forbes: the parasite SEO company →
  “Are you sick of Forbes appearing in search results? For topics that Forbes doesn’t have any expertise in? (…) None of these Google rankings are an accident. And I’m not cherry picking a few high ranking posts. Forbes completely dominates Google today.”
• I am tired of AI →
  “Now, I am all for finding and developing new solutions to existing problems, but boy, am I tired of AI, of how it is used and of how it is marketed. Every tech fart smelling of ‘AI’ these days is almost instantly labeled as a ‘game changer’, only to be replaced by the next ‘pivotal’ and ‘revolutionary’ ‘solution’ the next week.”
• The roads not taken →
  “Design crits and stakeholder presentations are crucibles from which our work emerges battered and bruised, but stronger.”

Little gems this week

Leveraging LLMs to uncover experience gaps at Nike Soho →By Fredrik Sterner Cederlöf

Design what makes us human →By Simo Herold

Design system dilemmas: similar looks, different functions →
By Dean Harrison

Tools and resources

• A UX designer guide to prompting →
  How humans and machines can understand each other.
  By Paz Perez
• A guide to fighting →
  How to deal with professional challenges.
  By Rafael Frota
• A senior designer is not made in 2 years →
  Designers need time and experience to grow.
  By Ruben Ferreira Duarte

Support the newsletter

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• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
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What’s next for Figma, senior in 2 years, UX designer guide to prompting was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“In the heart of the Button Factory, where dreams were woven into clicks, lived Sam.

Sam was an “OK” button. She’s been working at the Button Factory for a few years now, and has gotten pretty good at being a button.

She started as a Tertiary button, a “Maybe later” link. That’s where all buttons start at the Button Factory. With each cheerful click she inspired, Sam grew in skill and stature, until one day her dedication was rewarded. Her continuous compliance with the design system and her joy in making people click have ultimately gotten her promoted to becoming a Primary button.

Sam was OK.”

Story of a button →

figma.to.website — Figma’s missing PUBLISH button →[Sponsored] Convert any PDF into Figma designs, either as fully editable layers, or as pixel-perfect images. Extract images and text from your PDFs to get them directly in Figma, collaborate with your team, use them as templates for new designs… And much more! Plus, all PDF files are kept private as they’re processed locally.

Editor picks

• Goodbye, UX designer. Hello, UX manager →
  Should we rethink our job titles?
• Good UX is not just about minimizing clicks →
  Applying the Pareto principle to feature availability.
• Don’t jump to conclusions →
  Why designers need to get good at finding the right problem.

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Museum of Modern Art Playing Cards, Takenobu Igarashi (1993) →

Make me think

• The already-here future of prototyping →
  “I’m still hopeful that we can restore a collaborative process and get teams working better together and to get designers closer to real software. It’s critical for designers to capitalize on the opportunities and confront the constraints of the medium for which they’re designing, which is why cross-disciplinary collaboration and prototyping in code are still so important.”
• Brand identities where words truly steal the show →
  “In the realm of branding, where visuals often steal the spotlight, it’s easy to overlook the transformative power of a well-crafted sentence. But let’s face it, folks — words matter. While a slick logo might catch your eye, it’s the witty tagline or the cheeky product description that’ll have you reaching for your wallet.”
• Once you get the message, hang up the phone →
  “One of the most insightful things I learned as an evolutionary biologist is the way in which opposing forces co-evolve. How the cheetah and antelope have made each other faster over generations — the cheetah who kills the slowest antelope has increased the speed of the remaining gene pool. The slower cheetahs who can no longer catch these faster antelopes starve and are removed from the gene pool. This cycle continues until the limits of their biology are pushing against their most ultimate form.”

Little gems this week

The problem of the Em square →

Did we lose movie rentals for THIS? →

It’s time for design to think less and feel more →

Tools and resources

• Locking aspect ratios for responsive media in Figma →
  Tips & tricks for responsive design & media.
• The ultimate Design Token setup →
  Or how to manage design tokens across your company.
• Why asking questions is a vital part of growing as a designer →
  Design shouldn’t be a leap of faith based on vague client needs.

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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Story of a button, hello UX manager, the ultimate Figma design token setup was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“That doesn’t strike as shockingly new, right? (…) It’s clear that the CEO is the top manager of a company, therefore “founder mode” is simply a style of management. Not only that, but it’s also the most trivial form of management: as a founder, you oversee everything personally, and people are mere executors of your ideas. If there is a decision to make, or a problem to fix, you have to jump in personally to make an arbitrary call.”

Is “founder mode” a rebrand for micromanaging, top-down leaders? →By Paolo Lacche

figma.to.website — Figma’s missing PUBLISH button →[Sponsored] Design your website in Figma and hit PUBLISH to get your live website, instantly. Fully responsive, with free hosting (or your own domain) and all the settings you need for SEO, performance, forms custom code, embeds, analytics and more. All your favorite Figma features like auto layout, components, variables and animations are fully compatible.

Editor picks

• Deceptive UX copy is killing me →
  Here’s how to avoid writing it.
  By Daley Wilhelm
• Is your AI use case idea really going to work? →
  A model for assessing use cases for AI.
  By John Davidson
• Good UX is not just about minimizing clicks →
  Applying the Pareto principle to feature availability.
  By Avi Siegel

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Curated A/B tests from best-in-class apps →

Make me think

• Why Github actually won →
  “The players (Sourceforge, Google Code, etc) who eventually did care, after seeing Git and GitHub rising in popularity, simply had no taste. They could never have competed with a developer tools company whose cofounders were all product-focused open source software developers.”
• The startup designer →
  “There’s nothing glamorous about being a designer at a startup. It’s a role that frequently values speed and pragmatism over going deep in the craft. It’s not all big launches, viral tweets, building for happy paths, and clear-cut product requirements.”

Little gems this week

The over-confetti-ing of digital experiences →By Rowdy Vass

I hate these words →By Rita Kind-Envy

PayPal’s generic rebrand is a symptom of a troubling cultural shift →
By Michael F. Buckley

Tools and resources

• UX Research tools →
  Strategic UX research doesn’t need fancy tools.
  By Ed Orozco
• Figsigners, a new category of designers →
  Design must be more than using software.
  By Ruben Ferreira Duartee
• 10 things every Designer should be invited to think about →
  Be part of the solution, not the problem.
  By Lioba Rubik

Support the newsletter

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• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
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Founder mode, deceptive copy, too much confetti, Figsigners was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Not everything listed in the requirements document needs to be included in the product, let alone become an interface element. Design isn’t just making screens for every feature. Simplicity is achieved when you prioritize, merge, organize, reduce, combine, hide, gradually unveil, shorten, compress, and sacrifice.

Simplicity is repeatedly saying no before getting to a yes.”

Defining simplicity →

data.to.design — Fill your Figma designs with your own data →[Sponsored] Populate your designs with real data. Import Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, CSV, JSON and automatically fill cards, profiles pages and any repeatable UI elements with a single click. Plus, apply data to specific component properties to take your prototypes to the next level!

Editor picks

• UX design isn’t dead, you’re just confused →
  Get with the times.
  By Meghan Logan
• It’s time for design to think less and feel more →
  Embracing sensitivity over logic.
  By Darren Yeo
• Seeking a “Minimum Viable Softness” →
  On institutionalism, universalism & solutionism.
  By Flavio Masson

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Cotodama speaker box →

Make me think

• Why aren’t smart people happier? →
  “There’s plenty of skepticism toward intelligence tests in psychology, but even the biggest skeptics agree that IQ can predict things like how well you do in school and what kind of job you get, even accounting for all the criticisms. So why doesn’t it also predict living a life that you like?”
• Copying (is the way design works) →
  “I’m a designer. As a designer, I feel the need to be original. If you’re a designer, or even if you’re just interested in design, you probably feel the need to be original, too. We tend to worship inventors and originators, designers who were trailblazing and innovative. And we copy them.”

Little gems this week

Siri, could you build me an app? →By Kamil Kołodziejczyk

Promoting better discovery in Elden Ring’s combat systems →By Nik Jeleniauskas

Why smart homes aren’t the standard →
By Daley Wilhelm

Tools and resources

• AI-driven UX research →
  How to build a repository.
  By Ben
• A basic quality tool for problem solving →
  One diagram to rule them all.
  By Matt Neut
• Overcoming the anchoring effect →
  How UX teams can make better decisions.
  By Victor Yocco, PhD

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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Defining simplicity, UX design isn’t dead, AI-driven UXR repositories was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“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

Dovetail’s biggest launch is coming in October — and you’re invited! →[Sponsored] Get ready for the next generation of customer insights. Dovetail is launching tons of new features and THREE new products that each leverage AI to its cutting-edge capacity. To celebrate this momentous milestone, you’re invited to:

• Exclusive in-person and online launch events
• Sneak peeks and early access to the new products
• Q&As with our product team and founder
• Plus special promotions and premium content. If you want to know what the future of AI-powered customer insights looks like — sign up to our waitlist and we’ll keep you in the loop.

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

Support the newsletter

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• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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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.

“A community, often an underserved one, is struggling with a problem. A designer sees this, observes them for a short period, comes up with an idea in the studio, and then comes back with a solution to the bewilderment and excitement of the community. The problem that no one has been able to figure out before now is solved! All thanks to the designer!

Ok, this story might seem a little exaggerated, but it has long been a documented one.

Projects like these often do little to help the communities they target, but instead raise the profile of the designer(s)/agency(ies) that made them. And years later, when the projects go inevitably wrong, the publicity has already been gained, and communities are left with little resources to hold them accountable.”

To be a designer is to be a facilitator →By Marielle Sam-Wall

Slow Research is dead 🪦🪦🪦 →[Sponsored] Painful, Slow Research was passionate about slowing down product development, hiding in fragmented tools, hoarding knowledge in silos, and causing unnecessary friction for teams. They’re survived by Dovetail, the leading AI-powered customer insights hub that gives everyone on the product team instant access to customer insights, at any time. RIP Painful, Slow Research. Long live shared customer understanding.

Editor picks

• Are design systems just a bandaid? →
  When organizational problems cut a little deeper.
  By Beau Ulrey
• Should technology teams sell products? →
  As owners of product creation, are we accountable for how products are sold?
  By Kike Peña
• You really like this, don’t you? →
  Avoiding leading questions in user research.
  By Carien Moolman

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Discover what designers are listening to while they design →

Make me think

• Things to do before asking “Is this accessible?” →
  “It is not uncommon for someone to message, call, email, or carrier pigeon me to ask if something is accessible. They almost invariably want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ However, I need to understand what the heck they mean and what the other-heck prompted them to ask.”
• iOS18 Photos: tab bar to single scroll view →
  “The most significant user interface change from iOS 17 to iOS 18 are the navigation differences in Apple’s Photos app. The ubiquitous tab bar that’s become the default navigation model in mobile apps is gone, and in its place is one long scrolling page. So how does it work and why?”
• Screen apnea: What happens to our breath when we type, tap, scroll →
  “In 2007, former Microsoft executive Linda Stone noticed something strange happening every time she’d sit down to answer emails. She was holding her breath. Stone wondered how common this was and set out to investigate using ‘kitchen table science,’ as she called it.”

Little gems this week

Why AI’s lack of direction is perfect for CX’s loss of direction →By Helge Tennø

What’s happened to Spotify? →By Rosie Hoggmascall

Stuck in the design process? →
By Shreshth Kapoor

Tools and resources

• The 80/20 rule in design job interviews →
  Why you rarely make it past the case study presentation.
  By Matej Latin
• 8 Figma tips for UI3 →
  Figma’s new UI3 brings change, but also brings new tools to try out.
  By Allie Paschal
• Building better logins →
  A UX and accessibility guide for developers.
  By Stacha_C
• An introduction to Generative UIs →
  Using AI to make user interfaces better, faster, and simpler.
  By Mark O'Neill
• Navigating O1 visa as a designer →
  Working through the complexities of the application process.
  By Mitchell Hou

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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• Sponsor an edition

Are design systems just a bandaid, Figma tips for UI3, building better logins was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The genesis of agile was that we weren’t very good at software projects. Agile was one response to this, which became popular because it let everyone off the hook — ‘let’s not think hard now; it can wait.’

The era of product management compounded the issue because it taught product managers to ‘follow the customer’ and the money would come. The logical flaw in that argument is that customers want gold plating of your product, and they want it for free.

We’re moving back to a world of higher interest rates, lower rates of return, and proper decision-making, and this story discusses how to make good decisions that don’t leave value on the table.”

Making good decisions →By John Davidson

Slow Research is dead →[Sponsored] Painful, Slow Research was passionate about slowing down product development, hiding in fragmented tools, hoarding knowledge in silos, and causing unnecessary friction for teams. They’re survived by Dovetail, the leading AI-powered customer insights hub that gives everyone on the product team instant access to customer insights, at any time. RIP Painful, Slow Research. Long live shared customer understanding.

Editor picks

• Designers need to get good at finding the right problem →
  Don’t jump to conclusions.
  By Tiina Golub
• UX is dead. Long live UX →
  The age of AI is an opportunity.
  By Patrick Neeman
• Why aren’t there more UX sociologists out there? →
  Balancing psychology with sociology.
  By Jonas Engkvist

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

How to improve a company →

Make me think

• The relentless inevitable →
  “It was always inevitable that technology would come for designers. I am pretty sure we reached ‘peak design jobs’ somewhere in 2021 and the number of design jobs will decline or stay flat.“
• Fear as a game →
  “There’s a theory in the science of emotion that the only innate human feelings are valence and arousal. Valence can be pleasant or unpleasant; arousal can be high or low. You can map any feeling on a wheel called an “affective circumplex,” with the midpoint representing neutral valence and neutral arousal.”
• Experts vs. Imitators →
  “Think of all the money managers who borrow their talking points from Warren Buffett. They might sound like Buffett, but they don’t know how to invest the way Buffett does. They’re imitators. How do you tell the difference between an expert and an imitator?”

Little gems this week

What UX can learn from 2024 Olympics fashion →By Darren Yeo

Designers: you need to read science fiction →By Daley Wilhelm

Let’s shitmix the algorithm →
By Dr. Adam Hart

Tools and resources

• Progress indicator UX →
  The use of progress indicators, from games to digital apps.
  By Anthony Perrotta
• Figma + Rive →
  A new workflow for UI animations.
  By Andrei Rybin
• Fluid typography in design systems →
  A guide for designers & developers.
  By Felix

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
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Making good decisions, UX sociologists, a new workflow for UI animations was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Many of the ways enterprises have rushed to bolt on AI to their products and services (never mind their brand images) reveal precious little consideration of any actual UX strategy and trample foundational principles of user-centered product design and, often, well-established heuristics of usability.

It’s also a good bet that the haste to react to still unproven market hype and satisfy impatient investors and restless creative directors is likely to degrade the overall user experience in the short term, making the thoughtful adoption of AI in the general population in the long term less likely instead of more.”

The frantic race to push out half-baked AI features →By Patrick Sharbaugh

Slow Research is dead →[Sponsored] Painful, Slow Research was passionate about slowing down product development, hiding in fragmented tools, hoarding knowledge in silos, and causing unnecessary friction for teams. They’re survived by Dovetail, the leading AI-powered customer insights hub that gives everyone on the product team instant access to customer insights, at any time. RIP Painful, Slow Research. Long live shared customer understanding.

Editor picks

• The problem with growth →
  Why products are failing now.
  By Joanna Weber
• Draw your own maps →
  The quest for workplace clarity.
  By Trip Carroll
• It’s not you, it’s me, Adobe →
  Why I finally broke up with the giant.
  By Neel Dozome

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

The vibrant evolution: Microsoft’s colorful transformation →

Make me think

• How to keep IA projects from going off the rails →
  “Before, projects often felt vague and disorganized at the beginning and only got messier the more work we did. Now, everyone starts with a clear sense of what needs to be done and in what sequence, and stay on board throughout the project.”
• Intent-driven user interfaces →
  “While these kinds of interactions won’t immediately replace conventional graphical user interface controls, it’s pretty clear they enable a new way of control software with hundreds of features… just tell it what you want to do.”
• Mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience →
  “The problem is that there are so many AI products. Everything overlaps and it’s all so noisy — which makes it hard to have a conversation about what kind of product you want to build. So I’ve been working on mapping the landscape.”

Little gems this week

What Vincent taught me about design →By Rita Kind-Envy

Designing with maps and data: visualizing vacancy in St. Louis →By Koby Moreno

Figma’s UI3: the psychology of adaptation →
By Kristian K.

Tools and resources

• Design tokens demystified →
  Types, benefits, and applications.
  By T.T.TRINKUSH
• UX Research for busy PMs →
  How to identify customers, ask the right questions, and find insights.
  By Vikram Goyal
• Advanced Figma tips & tricks →
  Little gems we love in 2024.
  By Christine Vallaure

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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The AI feature race, adapting to Figma UI3, advanced Figma tips & tricks was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“As designers, our observational skills set us apart from many other disciplines. Besides looking at direct competitors, it is our imagination to link two abstract concepts together that matter. As we think about our next big idea, perhaps visit the next nature reserve or local zoo for inspiration. You may come across a yellow canary or green owl.”

The evolution of attention →

It’s like having your customer on speed dial →[Sponsored] Dovetail’s magic search allows you to query everything your organization knows about the customer. Pull from interviews, usability testing, industry reports, and user feedback — and get an instant, shareable insight. Available on our professional package — but UX Collective subscribers can try it free for 30 days.

Editor picks

• Tech’s stock crash and the forgetting trick →
  Leaders often make claims their track record doesn’t support.
• The future is up for grabs when anyone can make designs →
  What AI-generated design means for creators.
• Unpacking the 7 deadly digital sins →
  If physicists have known sin, so too must our tech overlords.

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

How Europeans think and feel about immigration →

Make me think

• AI can strategically lie to humans. Are we in trouble? →
  “One is that, as a large language model, it may have simply been predicting the next word, and the lie is what popped out. Or it’s also possible that the AI has theory of mind: GPT-4 understood it was in its best interest to feign humanity to fool the contractor. To achieve its given goal of getting the CAPTCHA solved, deception was the optimal course.”
• In the age of AI, what makes people unique? →
  “Comforted by computers that tell us that they love us, we’ll forget what love is. Wowed by systems that seem to be creative, we’ll lose respect for actual human creativity — a struggle for self-expression that can involve a “painful” reimagining of the self. This forgetting process, she warns, has already begun: besotted with our technology, we seem almost eager to narrow our conception of what it means to be human.”
• Does screen time help or hinder creativity? →
  “As a writer, a quick ‘command-T’ gesture on the keyboard to distract myself with something other than work can become impulsive if I don’t check myself. With its innumerable perks and pitfalls, how do we engage with the benefits of our devices, without wasting precious time on addictive apps?”

Little gems this week

Improving Elden Ring’s lock-on experience →

Rage clicks are microdoses of pure horror →

I tried Figma Slides; here’s what I’m missing →

Tools and resources

• Synthetic users →
  Is it possible to conduct user research… without users?
• Learning programming →
  How programming has made me into a stronger designer.
• Accelerating growth →
  Your environment can shape you into a versatile, business-savvy designer.

Support the newsletter

If you find our content helpful, here’s how you can support us:

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
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Evolution of attention, 7 digital sins, improving Elden Ring, learning to code was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“The number of paying teams is a big KPI for Figma right now, as well as the average revenue per team.

I got this sense from seeing a whopping eight prompts to upgrade in a single session and seeing a notable increase in the urgency of their upgrade messaging; now it’s all ‘last file’, ‘0 left’, and ‘you’re running out’.”

Figma and the cost of collaboration →By Rosie Hoggmascall

It’s like having your customer on speed dial →[Sponsored] Dovetail’s magic search allows you to query everything your organization knows about the customer. Pull from interviews, usability testing, industry reports, and user feedback — and get an instant, shareable insight. Available on our professional package — but UX Collective subscribers can try it free for 30 days.

Editor picks

• The lost practice of information architecture →
  And the perils of designing without a plan.
  By Vicky Teinaki
• The future is up for grabs when anyone can make designs →
  What AI-generated design means for creators.
  By Elaine Lu
• Design has a granularity issue →
  Why we need to move towards a new design philosophy & practice.
  By Kevin Richard
• The limits of “data-driven” →
  Making decisions based on easy data is a recipe for disaster.
  By Pavel Samsonov

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

Home as a heuristic: good design starts here →By Michael McWatters

Make me think

• The AI job interviewer will see you now →
  “Once seen as a curiosity, AI job interviews have grown in popularity as startups look to build businesses on top of the surprising capabilities shown by platforms like OpenAI. (…) As companies scramble for ways to integrate AI into their business, bad experiences like that are set to become commonplace.”
• A proliferation of terms →
  “Do we call it a library, a folder, a collection, a workspace, a section, a category, a topic? How about a document, page, file, entry, article, worksheet? And.. what’s the difference? While these kinds of decisions might not be front and center when working out designs for a product or feature, they can impact a lot.”
• Our new religion isn’t enough →
  “Religious faith has collapsed, and many trends and movements have moved in to fill the void. (…) I really don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that a significant majority of young people now interpret their lives and emotions and relationships through a therapeutic lens.”

Little gems this week

The evolution of attention →By Darren Yeo

The blurring boundaries of AI-powered design →By John Moriarty

Who do we see when we gaze into the digital mirror? →
By Dr. Adam Hart

Tools and resources

• I tried Figma Slides; here’s what I’m missing →
  Asking the Figma Gods to bring these features ASAP.
  By Raquel Piqueras
• Designing for forgiveness →
  How to create error-tolerant interfaces.
  By Tetiana Sydorenko
• Simple recall testing for B2B UX →
  A useful and cheaper alternative for B2B UX testing.
  By Olesia Vdovenko

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The cost of Figma, the limits of data-driven, designing for forgiveness was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.