Why our best design work begins only after weve questioned what we think weknow.Jacques Derrida | Image: https://s-usih.org/2015/12/jacques-derrida-what-a-differance-an-a-makes/Deconstruction, introduced by French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida (19302004), can be understood as the practice of critically examining how meaning is constructed by dismantling the hidden assumptions, hierarchies, and contradictions in the structures we use to make sense of theworld.A key move in Derridas work is analyzing binary oppositions in language and writingsimple/complex, usable/unusable, good/badwhere one side is treated as superior. These pairs define each othersimple only makes sense in contrast to complex, and intuitive exists only because we can imagine the non-intuitive. Reversing them reveals how the favored term depends on the one itrejects.In UX, research insights hold a weight similar to the binary constructs central to deconstruction. Theyre the currency of designwinning stakeholder approval, shaping roadmaps, and often becoming the truth teams rally around. But no matter how rigorous the process, insights arent purethey are shaped by the questions we ask, the patterns we notice, the logic we apply, and the biases weoverlookThis is where Derridas approach can be systematically applied to UX. Just as he dismantled the stability of meaning in the frameworks we use to understand the world, we can dismantle the illusion of objectivity in research.The simplicity mirageConsider the findingUsers prefer a cleaner, simpler dashboard with fewer widgets. In a traditional analysis, the assumption might mean less clutter equals better UXso the obvious step is to removewidgets.However, in a deconstructive analysis, you first recognize the binary at playsimple versus complexand then question a hidden assumption driving itthat complexity increases cognitive load.You might ask whether some complexity could actually reduce effort, the way a weather app showing both temperature and humidity at a glance saves the user from diggingdeeper.You might also consider cultural biasthat the clean aesthetic mirrors dominant tech brands like Apple and Googleand whether users are responding to genuine usability or the comfort of familiarity.Instead of ripping out widgets, one could explore ways to make them more useful or accessibleeven if that means breaking from the familiar cleanlook.The intuitive trapJust as simple and complex can hide bias assumptions, so can other common UX judgments. One of the most misleading is intuitive.Take a finding like, Users found the swipe gesture more intuitive than the button. The traditional move might be to replace the button with the swipe. A deconstructive approach asks whether intuitive actually means anything beyond Ive seen this before. It recognizes that so-called intuition often comes from muscle memory, not innate understanding, and that this memory is culturally and temporally bound.Derrida would point out that intuitive only exists in contrast to non-intuitive, and that these definitions shift over time. In practice, this could mean recognizing that while a swipe may feel natural to some, it could alienate others unfamiliar with thepattern.A better solution might be to offer both, or to design onboarding that transforms the learned into the intuitive.The persona archetypePersonas are meant to focus design yet they can quietly embed hierarchies. A common example might be Our primary user is a 34-year-old professional woman who shops online twice a week. The category of primary only exists because there are secondary or non-users to define itagainst.Deconstruction asks what happens when you flip that pair. If the so-called secondary usersthose at the marginsbecome the baseline, it exposes how primary is often just a reflection of business priorities or cultural defaults. That shift can force a complete rethinking of the products design language, features, and underlying assumptions.Turning insight into interrogationDeconstruction reframes an insight as a starting point, not an endpointevery research output carries binaries, privileges, and assumptions, whether we acknowledge them ornot.However, as fascinating as this idea is, you may be wondering how to actually use it. Heres the method and an example in practice.The MethodIdentify the binary: Start with paired concepts where one side is privileged over the othersuch as simple/complex, primary/secondary, intuitive/non-intuitive, or one feature/channel vs.another.Interrogate the hierarchy: Flip the priority and ask what changes if the lesser side becomes the favoredone.Expose the scaffolding: Uncover the assumptions, beliefs, and contextual factors that support the favored sidecultural familiarity, business priorities, personal preferences.Hold both in play: Resist replacing one side with the other. Instead, design so both can be valid depending on context, recognizing that meaning emerges in relation and cannot befixed.Example inPracticeLets apply these steps to a real finding: Users prefer live chat over email support.Identify the binary: Live chat vs. email supportlive chat is framed as fast and responsive, privileged over email, which is seen as slower and moreformal.Interrogate the hierarchy: Flip the priority. What if email were the preferred option? Who benefits in that world, and what needs would it servebetter?Expose the scaffolding: The assumption behind the original finding is that real-time communication is inherently better. But maybe older users find chat overwhelming, or certain cultures value the formality, permanence, and asynchronous nature ofemail.Hold both in play: Keep live chat for speed, but also enhance email with templates, clear response times, and integration into the same support flowtreating both as valid depending oncontext.By following these steps, you surface hidden dynamics and expand your design options, rather than narrowing them to the favored side of thebinary.Why thismattersResearch culture loves certainty. Insights are presented in slide decks as if theyve been carved into stone, free from the messiness that produced them. But that messiness is where the pivotal design opportunities live.By applying deconstruction, we resist the urge to turn research into gospel. We stop treating the discovery phase as a vending machineinsert method, retrieve truthand start treating it as an ongoing dialogue between our users, our products, and the contradictory worlds theyinhabit.Image: https://www.outlookindia.com/books/derrida-and-the-deconstruction-of-binariesA philosophical closingDerrida wasnt trying to make things easier to understandhe was working to expand what meaning could be. That ambiguity is a gift to UX because it pushes us to question the hierarchies and assumptions built into our design language and research interpretations.When we stop treating an insight as the final word, we create space for design decisions that are more thoughtful, more adaptable, and ultimately morehuman.Dont miss out! Join my email list and receive the latestcontent.Enhance UX research with deconstruction was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Its not about hours worked or tasks completedContinue reading on UX Collective

Apple’s Opinionated Design principles are a thing of the past. Enter the world of reckless customization.Continue reading on UX Collective »

Inside Apple’s high-gloss standoff with AI ambition and the uncanny choreography of WWDC 2025There was a time when watching an Apple keynote — like Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone in 2007, the masterclass of all masterclasses in product launching — felt like watching a tightrope act. There was suspense. Live demos happened — sometimes they failed, and when they didn’t, the applause was real, not piped through a Dolby mix.These days, that tension is gone. Since 2020, in the wake of the pandemic, Apple events have become pre-recorded masterworks: drone shots sweeping over Apple Park, transitions smoother than a Pixar short, and executives delivering their lines like odd, IRL spatial personas. They move like human renderings: poised, confident, and just robotic enough to raise a brow. The kind of people who, if encountered in real life, would probably light up half a dozen red flags before a handshake is even offered. A case in point: the official “Liquid Glass” UI demo — it’s visually stunning, yes, but also uncanny, like a concept reel that forgot it needed to ship.https://medium.com/media/fcb3b16cc42621ba32153aff80ea1805/hrefAnd that’s the paradox. Not only has Apple trimmed down the content of WWDC, it’s also polished the delivery into something almost inhumanly controlled. Every keynote beat feels engineered to avoid risk, reduce friction, and glide past doubt. But in doing so, something vital slips away: the tension, the spontaneity, the sense that the future is being made, not just performed.Just one year earlier, WWDC 2024 opened with a cinematic cold open “somewhere over California”:https://medium.com/media/f97f45387353363264d99c341d4571b0/hrefPhil Schiller piloting an Apple-branded plane, iPod in hand, muttering “I’m getting too old for this stuff.” A perfect mix of Lethal Weapon camp and a winking message that yes, Classic-Apple was still at the controls — literally — flying its senior leadership straight toward Cupertino. Out the hatch, like high-altitude paratroopers of optimism, leapt the entire exec team, with Craig Federighi, always the go-to for Apple’s auto-ironic set pieces, leading the charge, donning a helmet literally resembling his own legendary mane. It was peak-bold, bizarre, and unmistakably Apple. That intro now reads like the final act of full-throttle confidence.This year’s WWDC offered a particularly crisp contrast. Aside from the new intro — which features Craig Federighi drifting an F1-style race car across the inner rooftop ring of Apple Park as a “therapy session”, a not-so-subtle nod to the upcoming Formula 1 blockbuster but also to the accountability for the failure to deliver the system-wide AI on time — WWDC 2025 pulled back dramatically. The new “Apple Intelligence” was introduced in a keynote with zero stumbles, zero awkward transitions, and visuals so pristine they could have been rendered on a Vision Pro. Not only had the scope of WWDC been trimmed down to safer talking points, but even the tone had shifted — less like a tech summit, more like a handsomely lit containment-mode seminar. And that, perhaps, was the problem. The presentation wasn’t a reveal — it was a performance. And performances can be edited in post. Demos can’t.So when Apple in march 2025 quietly admitted, for the first time, in a formal press release addressed to reporters like John Gruber, that the personalized Siri and system-wide AI features would be delayed — the reaction wasn’t outrage. It was something subtler: disillusionment. Gruber’s response cracked the façade wide open. His post opened a slow but persistent wave of unease, rippling through developer Slack channels and private comment threads alike. John Gruber’s reaction, published under the headline “Something is rotten in the State of Cupertino”, was devastating. His critique opened the floodgates to a wave of murmurs and public unease among developers and insiders, many of whom had begun to question what was really happening at the helm of key divisions central to Apple’s future.Many still believe Apple is the only company truly capable of pulling off hardware-software integrated AI at scale. But there’s a sense that the company is now operating in damage-control mode. The delay didn’t just push back a feature — it disrupted the entire strategic arc of WWDC 2025. What could have been a milestone in system-level AI became a cautious sidestep, repackaged through visual polish and feature tweaks. The result: a presentation focused on UI refinements and safe bets, far removed from the sweeping revolution that had been teased as the main selling point for promoting the iPhone 16 launch, “Built for Apple Intelligence”.That tension surfaced during Joanna Stern’s recent live interview with Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak. These are two of Apple’s most media-savvy execs, and yet, in a setting where questions weren’t scripted, you could see the seams. Their usual fluency gave way to something stiffer. More careful. Less certain. And even the absences speak volumes: for the first time in a decade, no one from Apple’s top team joined John Gruber’s Talk Show at WWDC. It wasn’t a scheduling fluke — nor a petty retaliation for Gruber’s damning March article. It was a retreat — one that Stratechery’s Ben Thompson described as exactly that: a strategic fallback, not a brave reset.Meanwhile, the keynote narrative quietly shifted from AI ambition to UI innovation: new visual effects, tighter integration, call screening. Credit here goes to Alan Dye — Apple VP of Human Interface Design and one of the last remaining members of Jony Ive’s inner circle not yet absorbed into LoveFrom — whose long-arc work on interface aesthetics, from the early stages of the Dynamic Island onward, is finally starting to click into place. This is classic Apple: refinement as substance, design as coherence. But it was meant to be the cherry on top of a much deeper AI-system transformation — not the whole sundae. All useful. All safe. And yet, the thing that Apple could uniquely deliver — a seamless, deeply integrated, user-controlled and privacy-safe Apple Intelligence — is now the thing it seems most reluctant to show.There is no doubt the groundwork has been laid. And to Apple’s credit, Jason Snell notes that the company is shifting gears, scaling ambitions to something that feels more tangible. But in scaling back the risk, something else has been scaled back too: the willingness to look your audience of stakeholders, developers and users live, in the eye, and show the future for how you have carefully crafted it and how you can put it in the market immediately, or in mere weeks. Showing things as they are, or as they will be very soon. Rehearsed, yes, but never faked.Even James Dyson’s live demo of a new vacuum showed more courage. No camera cuts. No soft lighting. Just a human being, showing a thing. It might have sucked, literally or figuratively. But it didn’t. And it stuck. That’s what feels missing in Cupertino.Some have started using the term glasslighting — a coined pun blending Apple’s signature glassy aesthetics with the soft manipulations of marketing, like a gentle fog of polished perfection that leaves expectations quietly disoriented. It’s not deception. It’s damage control. But that instinct, understandable as it is, doesn’t build momentum. It builds inertia. And inertia doesn’t sell intelligence. It only delays the reckoning.Before the curtain falls, it’s hard not to revisit the uncanny polish of Apple’s speakers presence. One might start to wonder whether Apple is really late on AI — or whether it’s simply developed such a hyper-advanced internal model that its leadership team has been replaced by real-time human avatars, flawlessly animated, fed directly by the Neural Engine. Not the constrained humanity of two floating eyes behind an Apple Vision headset, but full-on flawless embodiment — if this is Apple’s augmented AI at work, it may be the only undisclosed and underpromised demo actually shipping.OS30 live demoMeanwhile, just as Apple was soft-pedaling its A.I. story with maximum visual polish, a very different tone landed from across the bay: Sam Altman and Jony Ive, sitting in a bar, talking about the future.https://medium.com/media/5cdea73d7fde0b538e038af1990afa44/hrefNo stage. No teleprompter. No uncanny valley. Just two “old friends”, with one hell of a budget, quietly sketching the next era of computing. A vision Apple once claimed effortlessly.There’s still the question of whether Apple, as many hope, can reclaim — and lock down — that leadership for itself. A healthy dose of competition, at the very least, can only help.Too big, fail too was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are told to customize, expand, and provide more options, but that might be a silent killer for our conversion rate. Using behavioral psychology and modern product design, this piece explains why brands like Apple use fewer, smarter choices to convert better.Image generated using ChatgptJam-packed decisionsImagine standing in a supermarket aisle in front of the jam section. How do you decide which jam to buy? You could go for your usual jam, or maybe this is your first time buying jam. Either way, a choice has to be made. Or does it?You may have seen the vast number of choices, gotten overwhelmed, and walked away. The same scenario was reflected in the findings of a 2000 study by Iyengar and Lepper that explored how the number of choice options can affect decision-making.Iyengar and Lepper set up two scenarios; the first customers in a random supermarket being offered 24 jams for a free tasting. In another, they were offered only 6. One would expect that the first scenario would see more sales. After all, more variety means a happier customer. However:Image created using CanvaWhile 60% of customers stopped by for a tasting, only 3% ended up making a purchase.On the other hand, when faced with 6 options, 40% of customers stopped by, but 30% of this number ended up making a purchase.The implications of the study were evident. While one may think that more choices are better when faced with the same, decision-makers prefer fewer.This phenomenon is known as the Paradox of Choice. More choice leads to less satisfaction because one gets overwhelmed.This analysis paralysis results from humans being cognitive misers that is decisions that require deeper thinking feel exhausting and like they come at a cognitive cost. In such scenarios, we tend not to make a choice or choose a default option. Even after a decision has been made, in many cases, regret or the thought of whether you have made the ‘right’ choice can linger.A sticky situationHowever, a 2010 meta-analysis by Benjamin Scheibehenne was unable to replicate the findings. Scheibehenne questioned whether it was choice overload or information overload that was the issue. Other researchers have argued that it is the lack of meaningful choice that affects satisfaction. Additionally, Barry Schwartz, a renowned psychologist and the author of the book ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why Less Is More,’ also later suggested that the paradox of choice diminishes in the presence of a person’s knowledge of the options and if the choices have been presented well.Does that mean the paradox of choice was an overhyped notion? I conducted a mini-study to test this hypothesis.From shelves to spreadsheets: testing the jam jar theoryI created a simple scatterplot in R using a publicly available dataset from the Brazilian e-commerce site Olist. Olist is Brazil’s largest department store on marketplaces. After delivery, customers are asked to fill out a satisfaction survey with a rating or comment option. I analysed the relationship between the number of distinct products in a category (choices) and the average customer review (satisfaction).Scatterplot generated in R using the Olist datasetBased on the almost horizontal regression line on the plot above, it is evident that more choice does not lead to more satisfaction. Furthermore, categories with fewer than 200 products tend to have average review scores between 4.0 and 4.3. Whereas, categories with more than 1,000 products do not have a higher average satisfaction score, with some even falling below 4.0. This suggests that more choices do not equal more satisfaction and could also reduce satisfaction levels.These findings support the Paradox of Choice, and the dataset helps bring theory into real-world commerce. A curation of lesser, well-presented, and differentiated options could lead to more customer satisfaction.Image created using CanvaFurthermore, the plot could help suggest a more nuanced perspective; people want more choices, as this gives them autonomy. However, beyond a certain point, excessive choice overwhelms rather than empowers, leaving people dissatisfied. Many product strategies reflect this insight: the goal is to inspire confident decision-making rather than limiting freedom. A powerful example of this shift in thinking comes from Apple’s history.Simple tastes, sweeter decisionsImage source: Apple InsiderIt was 1997, and Steve Jobs had just made his return to Apple. The company at the time offered 40 different products; however, its sales were declining. Jobs made one question the company’s mantra,“What are the four products we should be building?”The following year, Apple saw itself return to profitability after introducing the iMac G3. While its success can be attributed to the introduction of a new product line and increased efficiency, one cannot deny that the reduction in the product line simplified the decision-making process for its consumers.To this day, Apple continues to implement this strategy by having a few SKUs and confident defaults.Apple does not just sell premium products; it sells a premium decision-making experience by reducing friction in decision-making for the consumer.Furthermore, a 2015 study based on analyzing scenarios where fewer choice options led to increased sales found the following mitigating factors in buying choices:Time Pressure: Easier and quicker choices led to more sales.Complexity of options: The easier it was to understand what a product was, the better the outcome.Clarity of Preference: How easy it was to compare alternatives and the clarity of one’s preferences.Motivation to Optimize: Whether the consumer wanted to put in the effort to find the ‘best’ option.Picking the right spreadWhile the extent of the validity of the Paradox of Choice is up for debate, its impact cannot be denied. It is still a helpful model that can be used to drive sales and boost customer satisfaction. So, how can one use it as a part of your business’s strategy?Remember, what people want isn’t 50 good choices. They want one confident, easy-to-understand decision that they think they will not regret.Here are some common mistakes that confuse consumers and how you can apply the Jam Jar strategy to curate choices instead:Image is created using CanvaToo many choices lead to decision fatigue.Offering many SKU options usually causes customers to get overwhelmed. Instead, try curating 2–3 strong options that will cover the majority of their needs.2. Being dependent on the users to use filters and specificationsWhen users have to compare specifications themselves, they usually end up doing nothing. Instead, it is better to replace filters with clear labels like “Best for beginners” or “Best for oily skin.”3. Leaving users to make comparisons by themselvesToo many options can make users overwhelmed. Instead, offer default options to show what you recommend. This instills within them a sense of confidence when making the final decision.4. More transparency does not always mean more trustInformation overload never leads to conversions. Instead, create a thoughtful flow that guides the users to the right choices.5. Users do not aim for optimizationAssuming that users will weigh every detail before making a decision is not rooted in reality. In most cases, they will go with their gut. Instead, highlight emotional outcomes, benefits, and uses instead of numbers.6. Not onboarding users is a critical mistakeHoping that users will easily navigate a sea of products without guidance is unrealistic. Instead, use onboarding tools like starter kits, quizzes, or bundles that act as starting points.7. Variety for the sake of varietyUsers crave clarity more than they crave variety. Instead, focus on simplicity when it comes to differentiation.And lastly, remember that while the paradox of choice is a helpful tool in your business strategy arsenal, more choice is not inherently bad. It is the lack of structure in the decision-making process that is the problem. Clear framing will always make decision-making a seamless experience for both your consumers and your business.How jam jars explain Apple’s success was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Using AI for ideation, UX scenarios, and the value of world-building in UX designContinue reading on UX Collective »

Why building trust matters more than building components.There’s a scene in Field of Dreams that regularly comes to mind. Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is standing at the edge of his cornfield ballpark, full of doubt about his ball field project. And then Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) delivers this quiet but powerful monologue…James Earl Jones as Terrence Mann gives an inspiring speech“People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom… They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past… They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it — for it is money they have and peace they lack.”It’s powerful. And there’s temptation for designers to think this way. That, if we just build it properly, people will come and use it. It’ll be a raving success. But that kind of thinking rests on emotion and hope. “People will come, Ray.”That got me thinking about my work with design systems. Because early on, that’s exactly how I imagined it would work.No…they won’t just come.I thought if you just built a great design system, people would come running from all over to use it. Designers would geek out. Engineers would contribute. PMs would rally around the time savings and consistency. I thought the system would basically sell itself. Job done.Except not. Not at first. In fact, most of those people actively resisted it. And it left me frustrated trying to figure out what was going on.That’s when it hit me: people don’t come just because you built something. They come because you built something that includes them. This isn’t a fictional baseball field built on faith. They don’t come because they don’t know it. It’s foreign. And as humans, we tend to run away from what we don’t understand.That’s why the people who work on design systems are so important. So that you can be known and your systems can be known. So that a relationship can be established. Trust can be created and people can see that this system will work for them. In fact, it’s been purpose-built for them.Design Systems are political (it’s true)I never would have imagined how political design systems would be. They seem logical and straightforward. It’s everything you need to build interfaces and consistent experiences. So, I thought the quality of the work would speak for itself. But once your system meets the real world, things get complicated. Real fast.Everyone already has established working patterns and people aren’t usually inclined to change. Plus, designers have their opinions. Engineers have priorities. Product managers have launch dates. And everyone already has a “good-enough solution”. So, now your carefully crafted design system feels more like a threat or liability than the life-changing birthday present you thought it’d be.You thought you were offering something amazing. They hear restriction. They see more steps. And they’re annoyed — at you — for meddling in their perfectly stable world.Why? Well, people love their tools. And, I mean LOVE them. They deeply cherish them. I think of the carpenter who’s used the same, trusty 20oz wood-handled hammer for 40 years. It’s weathered difficult projects and has dents and stains from 1,000s of projects. How do you convince someone to leave that hammer behind and pick up a new, unproven hammer for their work? It usually happens in community…in relationships.So, it turns out, building the system was the easy part. Getting people to care about it? That’s the real work. And that’s where building relationships comes in.The real work: building relationshipsTrue adoption doesn’t happen through documentation or a flashy campaign.So you can’t rely on a “build it and they will come” mentality. It means you need to make time to understand the people you’re building for and with. Because if it isn’t theirs, it won’t matter how good it is. Every group has different motivations, pain points, and goals. If you want them on board, you have to speak to them, about them, and how your system will help them.Designers need to see how the system supports creativity, not stifles it. Demonstrate how it will help them be more effective in their work.Engineers care about stability, performance, and clean code. Show them the efficiency that it brings to their development pipelines.PMs are focused on delivery. Make the system reduce friction and risk.Executives want the business case to be clear. Show them how your system enables faster velocity, better consistency, and reduced maintenance cost.Establishing how individual goals come together as shared goals is critical.Sounds selfish, right? Not really. They’re paid to do their job, and if you want your design system to be successful, it has to make them successful. So if you can’t answer a need to any of your partners or stakeholders, go back and figure out how to create that kind of value…or start with the people where the value already is.It’s the relationships that shift the dynamic. Suddenly it’s not “my design system vs. their priorities”…it’s shared ownership…our collective win.You can’t enforce your way to powerful adoptionYour first instinct might be to skip the relationships and rely on the “because I said so” method. So you add mandates. Governance councils. Approval gates. But none of them really work. You’ll have people subvert the system, or hold so fearfully tight to it that it hurts the product experience in the end.People don’t adopt systems because they have to. They adopt them because they believe in them. And belief is earned, not enforced. Your job is to find the intrinsic motivation that will cause them to jump on board and be a raving fan spreading the good news of your system. And that can’t be a marketing slogan or tagline; it has to be built into the design system.The goal isn’t to control usage…it’s to cultivate trust, leading to usage. It’s better to have ten enthusiastic partners than a hundred reluctant rule-followers. Because those ten partners? They’ll advocate for you. They’ll give real feedback. They’ll make the system better.It sounds uncomfortable, but it’s best to trade policing behavior for building partnerships. That’s the moment your system will truly grow. Because trust is a currency that earns interest.Trust is the real foundationDesign systems rely on a strong foundation: principles, guidelines, tokens, styles, components, and more. But that foundation must be built on something critical: trust.Trust is what makes someone choose the system instead of rolling their own. It’s what keeps your system on their radar when everything’s on fire. It’s what makes people reach out to work it out together, instead of working around you and subverting the whole thing.Without trust, your system is just a nice idea. It’s relegated to pixel art. But with relationships that foster trust…they see how the system becomes indispensable. It’s their go-to secret weapon for success.Trust and relationships are the ground that all foundations are built on.I’ve been on both sides. I’ve had teams avoid the system because they didn’t trust it…because they didn’t trust me. Here’s the secret: I know them or how to serve them…no trust. On the flip side, I’ve seen teams move faster, smoother, and more confidently because we’d built a foundation of partnership over time.Trust isn’t a side effect. It’s not a nice-to-have. It’s the ground that holds the whole thing up. Without it, your design system is drifting in the outer cosmos. Relationships are the gravity that keeps your design system grounded in trust.They’ll come… but only if you earn itSo, I hate to break it to you, but the truth is…no one’s coming just because your system is well-made. There’s already a plethora of well-made systems out there ready to leave you disappointed.They’re busy with the newest top priority. They’ve been burned by “that type of system” before. They see you as a risk, not a partner. But…if you spend time knowing them… if you listen… if you build trust… if you make it feel like it’s theirs… well then… “…they will come…”They’ll message you before they start a new feature. They’ll advocate for tokens during sprint planning. They’ll tell others it saved them time. They’ll ask how they can help improve it.They won’t come for the components. They’ll come for what the system gives them: clarity. Consistency. Relief.And if you’ve done the hard, human work behind the system? Well then, you might just look up one day and realize that there’s a whole bunch of people in your Iowa ball field.The politics of Design Systems was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Behavioural data, smart logic, and curiosity-driven UX — this is what good survey design looks like.Continue reading on UX Collective »

Understanding unintended consequences in design and how to plan for them.Illustration by Sh8peshifters / Source: https://www.designingtomorrowbook.comCo-written by Martin Tomitsch and Steve BatyEach minute, millions of teens scroll through videos on social media platforms. These platforms are designed to connect people, but their overuse among young users is leading to serious, unintended consequences.The impact of social media on teen mental health has received significant media attention. After Facebook became available to American college students, their rates of depression rose by 7% and anxiety by 20%. In Australia, 44% of teens report negative online experiences, including being excluded from events or social groups.But the effects of endless scrolling go beyond mental health. Consuming video content on social media also takes a toll on the environment. Watching TikTok for just one minute generates 2.63 grams of CO₂ equivalent emissions.With one billion users spending an average of 46 minutes per day on TikTok, this adds up to 14.7 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually—equivalent to flying the entire population of London to New York.The law of unintended consequencesAs designers, we constantly make decisions. Whether we design objects, devices, websites, apps, or policies, we choose one option over another, setting parameters for subsequent actions to unfold.Designing an object like a chair involves decisions about what materials to use, how the product will be manufactured and transported, how to address cost considerations, its use function, and what happens at the end of its life span.Designing a website includes making decisions that shape how people will use the site and putting the elements in place that influence how much time users spend clicking and scrolling their way through the site.The law of unintended consequences observes that every decision made can have both positive and negative outcomes that were not foreseen by the person making the decision.As Jony Ive put it in a recent interview:‘I think when you’re innovating, of course, there will be unintended consequences. You hope that the majority will be pleasant surprises. Certain products that I’ve been very, very involved with, I think there were some unintended consequences that were far from pleasant.’Visualising unintended consequences with systems mapsTo identify unintended consequences requires us to understand the underlying elements of a product, service, or initiative and how these elements influence each other.These so-called ‘feedback loops’ create ripples that carry across to the very edges of a system. Systems maps help us visualise the systems behind our designs.TikTok uses a reinforcing feedback loop to increase user engagement. Based on the user’s interactions, like swiping and watching video content, TikTok’s algorithms build a model of the kind of content a user likes.Every additional data point (such as likes and comments) is absorbed by the model to generate more relevant content feeds. As the model becomes more and more attuned to the interests of individual users, they will respond by staying longer on the site watching more content.The systems map and reinforcing feedback loop (R1) behind TikTok’s recommendation algorithm / Adapted from: https://uxdesign.cc/visualizing-the-systems-behind-our-designs-7a7c95b4cfb2But TikTok’s systems map also includes the infrastructure on which the company’s servers operate — in charge of processing data points, generating models, and selecting video content that is sent to the user’s device. Data centres use as much energy as France, and AI systems are predicated to account for half of total data centre consumption by the end of the year.A ripple effect of TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is the increased need for more data centres and the greater use of energy to power TikTok’s servers. This increases pressure on the electricity grid and ultimately more raw materials need to be mined to keep up with the demand created by the feedback loop.A systems view reveals the infrastructure that sits behind the UI of social media apps / Source: https://www.designingtomorrowbook.comAnother effect that can be observed through extending TikTok’s systems map is that watching videos reduces time available for socialising and studying. This in turn has a damaging effect on the user’s mental health, academic performance, and quality of life and opportunities.TikTok’s systems map showing the ripple effects leading to environmental (R2, R3) and societal (R4, R5, R6) unintended consequences / Source: https://www.designingtomorrowbook.comThese are unintended but not necessarily unpredictable consequences. So why aren’t social media companies addressing them from the start? Because their business models offer little incentive to look beyond the immediate feedback loop (R1).This is where government and regulation come into play—applying pressure on private firms to ensure that products and services do not harm communities, societies, or the systems that sustain human well-being.Companies that ignore the broader impacts of their design decisions—failing to recognise the systems and feedback loops at play—often face serious consequences. Take Juul, for example: the company paid a $439 million fine for marketing vaping products to teens.Mapping the impact ripplesThe best way to start planning for unintended consequences is by creating a systems map. Once we have captured the elements within a system and how they influence each other, we can turn to tools like the impact ripple canvas to identify intended and unintended consequences.By placing them on a canvas, consequences become a tangible possibility, and we are able to start thinking about ways to address them. As a tool, the impact ripple canvas helps us to visualise and think about the impacts of our decisions in a multi-level and networked way.Impact ripple canvas capturing the intended (black) and unintended (white) consequences of TikTok’s business model / Source: https://www.designingtomorrowbook.com / Based on a tool developed by Manuela Taboada and Md ShahiduzzamanIn systems thinking, the indirect (second order) impacts are often delayed consequences of an action or decision. For example, a decision to cut costs in one area of a business may lead to increased costs in another area due to the need to hire additional staff or invest in new technology.Big picture (third order) effects refer to the additional consequences caused by the second order effects. For example, the decision to cut costs may negatively affect customer satisfaction, resulting in a decline of sales and profits.Revealing the invisible elementsIn organisations, unintended consequences are difficult to identify and consider because they are largely invisible (until their second and third order effects start to show). We can use iceberg visuals to map out the visible and hidden components of a system.Organisations typically focus on what’s visible, as these components can be controlled and measured. This includes aspects like technology, processes, and policies. Unintended consequences typically emerge from those components that are invisible, such as the culture, values, and beliefs of people or organisations.Iceberg visuals reveal the invisible elements that may be responsible for unintended consequences occurring in a system / Source: https://www.designingtomorrowbook.comThe value of the iceberg visual is to highlight the hidden components that are responsible for unintended consequences. When Uber launched in South America, it failed to consider the societal issues that cities like São Paulo faced.The company only realised they needed to improve their safety mechanisms when the consequence of this oversight — the murder of an Uber driver — was reported in the news. In fact, armed robberies were an unintended consequence of Uber’s attempt to turbo-charge growth in a crucial new market by allowing customers to pay in cash for their rides.The Uber example is a stark reminder of the law of unintended consequences. Small changes in one part of the system can have big, unexpected impacts elsewhere in the wider system and adjacent systems.Small changes, big impact—the UX butterfly effectChaos theory describes the observation that even tiny perturbations like the flutter of a butterfly can lead to dramatic, non-linear effects elsewhere over time. Seemingly small changes or decisions that we make as designers can have significant and often unforeseen consequences.As designers, we can’t directly control the chain of reactions that will follow an action. Reactions are difficult to predict, as they occur depending on factors beyond our direct control.But by using tools like systems maps, the impact ripple canvas, and iceberg visuals, we can take potential reactions out of the unpredictable pile and shift them into the foreseeable pile.A systems map helps us to quickly situate our organisation and its offering within a broader societal and systemic context. It helps us to see the relationship between what we do, the choices that we make, and the impacts those have.Just as critically, is the conversation that needs to take place in order to create a systems map, impact ripple canvas, or iceberg visual, which requires making explicit relationships and impacts, defining boundaries between what’s ‘in’ and what’s ‘outside’ of our control, and justifying those distinctions.For organisations looking to innovate in terms of their business model, service delivery, or even purpose, a systems map provides important context.Additionally, a systems map can help demonstrate second and third order impacts — direct and indirect effects — that can help us and our organisation better understand our role in society.Generative AI disclaimer: No AI tools were used in the writing of this article and the authors take full responsibility for the accuracy of the content. AI use was limited to generating the alt text for the illustrations and diagrams and brainstorming title and subtitle options.Acknowledgement: This article is adapted from chapter 5 of our book Designing Tomorrow, which introduces strategic design tactics for changing the planetary impact of design practice and organisations.The UX butterfly effect was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many don’t like it, but (almost) everybody agrees it’s the future.“Vibe Coding” is everywhere. Tools and game engines are implementing AI-assisted coding, vibe coding interest skyrocketed on Google search, on social media, everybody claims to build apps and games in minutes, while the comment section gets flooded with angry developers calling out the pile of garbage code that will never be shipped.A screenshot from Andrej Karpathy with the original “definition” of Vibe CodingBUT, how do professionals feel about it?This is what I will cover in this article. We will look at:How people react to the term vibe coding,How their attitude differs based on who they are and their professional experienceThe reason for their stance towards “vibe coding” (with direct quotes)How they feel about the impact “vibe coding” will have in the next 5 yearsIt all started with this survey on LinkedIn. I have always been curious about how technology can support creatives and I believe that the only way to get a deeper understanding is to go beyond buzzwords and ask the hard questions. That’s why for over a year, I’ve been conducting weekly interviews with both the founders developing these tools and the creatives utilising them. If you want to learn their journeys, I’ve gathered their insights and experiences on my blog called XR AI Spotlight.Driven by the same motives and curious about people’s feelings about “vibe coding”, I asked a simple question: How does the term “Vibe Coding” make you feel?Original LinkedIn poll by Gabriele RomagnoliIn just three days, the poll collected 139 votes and it was clear that most responders didn’t have a good “vibe” about it. The remaining half was equally split between excitement and no specific feeling.But who are these people? What is their professional background? Why did they respond the way they did?Curious, I created a more comprehensive survey and sent it to everyone who voted on the LinkedIn poll.The survey had four questions:Select what describes you best: developers, creative, non-creative professionalHow many years of experience do you have? 1–5, 6–10, 11–15 or 16+Explain why the term “vibe coding” makes you feel excited/neutral/dismissive?Do you think “vibe coding” will become more relevant in the next 5 years?: It’s the future, only in niche use cases, unlikely, no idea)In a few days, I collected 62 replies and started digging into the findings, and that’s when I finally started understanding who took part in the initial poll.The audienceWhen characterising the audience, I refrained from adding too many options because I just wanted to understand:If the people responding were the ones making stuffWhat percentage of makers were creatives and what developersI was happy to see that only 8% of respondents were non-creative professionals and the remaining 92% were actual makers who have more “skin in the game“ with almost a 50/50 split between creatives and developers. There was also a good spread in the degree of professional experience of the respondents, but that’s where things started to get surprising.Respondents are mostly “makers” and show a good variety in professional experienceWhen creating 2 groups with people who have more or less than 10 years of experience, it is clear that less experienced professionals skew more towards a neutral or negative stance than the more experienced group.Experienced professionals are more positive and open to vibe codingThis might be because senior professionals see AI as a tool to accelerate their workflows, while more juniors perceive it as a competitor or threat.I then took out the non-professional creatives and looked at the attitude of these 2 groups. Not surprisingly, fewer creatives than developers have a negative attitude towards “vibe coding” (47% for developers Vs 37% for creatives), but the percentage of creatives and developers who have a positive attitude stays almost constant. This means that creatives have a more indecisive or neutral stance than developers.Creatives have a more positive attitude to vibe coding than developersWhat are people saying about “vibe coding”?As part of the survey, everybody had the chance to add a few sentences explaining their stance. This was not a compulsory field, but to my surprise, only 3 of the 62 left it empty (thanks everybody). Before getting into the sentiment analysis, I noticed something quite interesting while filtering the data. People with a negative attitude had much more to say, and their responses were significantly longer than the other group. They wrote an average of 59 words while the others barely 37 and I think is a good indication of the emotional investment of people who want to articulate and explain their point. Let’s now look at what the different groups of people replied.😍 Patterns in Positive Responses to “Vibe Coding”Positive responders often embraced vibe coding as a way to break free from rigid programming structures and instead explore, improvise, and experiment creatively.“It puts no pressure on it being perfect or thorough.”“Pursuing the vibe, trying what works and then adapt.”“Coding can be geeky and laborious… ‘vibing’ is quite nice.”This perspective repositions code not as rigid infrastructure, but something that favors creativity and playfulness over precision.Several answers point to vibe coding as a democratizing force opening up coding to a broader audience, who want to build without going through the traditional gatekeeping of engineering culture.“For every person complaining… there are ten who are dabbling in code and programming, building stuff without permission.”“Bridges creative with technical perfectly, thus creating potential for independence.”This group often used words like “freedom,” “reframing,” and “revolution.”.😑 Patterns in Neutral Responses to “Vibe Coding”As shown in the initial LinkedIn poll, 27% of respondents expressed mixed feelings. When going through their responses, they recognised potential and were open to experimentation but they also had lingering doubts about the name, seriousness, and future usefulness.“It’s still a hype or buzzword.”“I have mixed feelings of fascination and scepticism.”“Unsure about further developments.”They were on the fence and were often enthusiastic about the capability, but wary of the framing.Neutral responders also acknowledged that complex, polished, or production-level work still requires traditional approaches and framed vibe coding as an early-stage assistant, not a full solution.“Nice tool, but not more than autocomplete on steroids.”“Helps get setup quickly… but critical thinking is still a human job.”“Great for prototyping, not enough to finalize product.”Some respondents were indifferent to the term itself, viewing it more as a label or meme than a paradigm shift. For them, it doesn’t change the substance of what’s happening.“At the end of the day they are just words. Are you able to accomplish what’s needed?”“I think it’s been around forever, just now with a new name.”These voices grounded the discussion in the terminology and I think they bring up a very important point that leads to the polarisation of a lot of the conversations around “vibe coding”.🤮 Patterns in Negative Responses to “Vibe Coding”Many respondents expressed concern that vibe coding implies a casual, unstructured approach to coding. This was often linked to fears about poor code quality, bugs, and security issues.“Feels like building a house without knowing how electricity and water systems work.”“Without fundamental knowledge… you quickly lose control over the output.”The term was also seen as dismissive or diminishing the value of skilled developers. It really rubbed people the wrong way, especially those with professional experience.“It downplays the skill and intention behind writing a functional, efficient program.”“Vibe coding implies not understanding what the AI does but still micromanaging it.”Like for “neutral” respondents, there’s a strong mistrust around how the term is used (especially on social media) where it’s seen as fueling unrealistic expectations or being pushed by non-experts.“Used to promote coding without knowledge.”“Just another overhyped term like NFTs or memecoins.”“It feels like a joke that went too far.”Ultimately, I decided to compare attitudes that are excited (positive) and accepting (neutral) of vibe coding vs. those that reject or criticise it. After all, even among people who were neutral, there was a general acceptance that vibe coding has its place. Many saw it as a useful tool for things like prototyping, creative exploration, or simply making it easier to get started. What really stood out, though, was the absence of fear that was very prominent in the “negative” group and saw vibe coding as a threat to software quality or professional identity.People in the neutral and positive groups generally see potential. They view it as useful for prototyping, creative exploration, or making coding more accessible, but they still recognise the need for structure in complex systems. In contrast, the negative group rejects the concept outright, and not just the name, but what it stands for: a more casual, less rigorous approach to coding. Their opinion is often rooted in defending software engineering as a disciplined craft… and probably their job.😍 “As long as you understand the result and the process, AI can write and fix scripts much faster than humans can.”🤮 “It’s a joke. It started as a joke… but to me doesn’t encapsulate actual AI co-engineering.”On the topic of skill and control, the neutral and positive group sees AI as a helpful assistant, assuming that a human is still guiding the process. They mention refining and reviewing as normal parts of the workflow. The negative group sees more danger, fearing that vibe coding gives a false sense of competence. They describe it as producing buggy or shallow results, often in the hands of inexperienced users.😑 “Critical thinking is still a human job… but vibe coding helps with fast results.”🤮“Vibe-Coding takes away the very features of a good developer… logical thinking and orchestration are crucial.”Culturally, the divide is clear. The positive and neutral voices often embrace vibe coding as part of a broader shift, welcoming new types of creators and perspectives. They tend to come from design or interdisciplinary backgrounds and are more comfortable with playful language. On the other hand, the negative group associates the term with hype and cringe, criticising it as disrespectful to those who’ve spent years honing their technical skills.😍“It’s about playful, relaxed creation — for the love of making something.”🤮Creating a lot of unsafe bloatware with no proper planning.”What’s the future of “Vibe Coding”?The responses to the last question were probably the most surprising to me. I was expecting that the big scepticism towards vibe coding would align with the scepticism on its future, but that was not the case. 90% of people still see “vibe coding” becoming more relevant overall or in niche use cases.Vibe coding is here to stayOut of curiosity, I also went back to see if there was any difference based on professional experience, and that’s where we see the more experienced audience being more conservative. Only 30% of more senior Vs 50% of less experienced professionals see vibe coding playing a role in niche use cases and 13 % Vs only 3% of more experienced users don’t see vibe coding becoming more relevant at all.More experienced professionals are less likely to think Vibe Coding is the futureThere are still many open questions. What is “vibe coding” really? For whom is it? What can you do with it?To answer these questions, I decided to start a new survey you can find here. If you would like to further contribute to this research, I encourage you to participate and in case you are interested, I will share the results with you as well.The more I read or learn about this, I feel “Vibe Coding” is like the “Metaverse”:Some people hate it, some people love it.Everybody means something differentIn one form or another, it is here to stay.What professionals really think about “Vibe Coding” was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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After years of quiet creativity, Jony Ive returns to the spotlight. Will his vision steer technology back toward the human experience?Continue reading on UX Collective »

Estimating the time required to complete a task is riddled with pitfalls.Let’s start with two key concepts you must understand — after managing and designing projects for over 20 years, I’ve seen these patterns play out again and again.Hofstadter’s lawHofstadter’s law is a self-referential adage about time that goes like this:“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law.”This law highlights how difficult it is to accurately estimate the time required to complete complex tasks. Its recursive nature reflects the widespread experience that, no matter how complex a task appears, calculating the time needed is hard, even with our best efforts. (See the header image.)Why is that?Optimism biasThe main reason stems from the tendency known as optimism bias — the inclination to be overly optimistic and thus overestimate favorable outcomes. In fact, we tend to overestimate our own abilities as well.It’s worth noting that this bias is actually quite necessary for humans: without it, we wouldn’t take risks, start businesses, or grow. However, when it comes to estimation, it can seriously backfire. This phenomenon naturally leads to…Planning fallacyOverly optimistic forecasts about the outcomes of plans are almost everywhere. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky introduced the term planning fallacy to describe how we consistently underestimate the necessary resources (money, time) when planning complex projects. This phenomenon pushes us toward optimistic planning. Unsurprisingly, we’re much more realistic when reviewing someone else’s plan.In short:We overestimate favorable outcomes and our abilities, and we underestimate the required resources and constraints.What can we do?As I mentioned earlier, I’ll share how I personally handle this. The phenomenon is not new, and there are countless methods available.2x + 15 ruleFor smaller tasks (~1–20 hours), I use this technique. I look at the task, estimate the number of hours, double it, and add 15 minutes. The extra 15 minutes is to get started and immerse yourself in the task. Most of the time, it works quite well and is incredibly simple.Hofstadter multiplierMy teammates track and record the actual time spent on tasks, which is useful for several reasons. First, it helps everyone gain experience with how long typical tasks take, which they can then compare to their own estimates, improving their estimation skills. Second, you can determine your own — or a particular person’s — so-called Hofstadter multiplier. We’re all different, so this is a more advanced, personalized version of the 2x + 15 rule.Complex projectsThe earlier solutions work well for simpler tasks, but complex projects require additional considerations. But first, it’s important to clarify one question:How much energy can you, or do you want to, invest in the estimate/proposal?From there, more questions arise:Is it a rough indicative proposal or a detailed, itemized one?What inputs, expertise, and professionals are needed for the estimate?Is all necessary information available?How much capacity do you have (if any) for the estimation and/or execution?Do you realistically have a chance of winning the work? :)Your answers to these questions will influence the path you choose.Going back to the planning fallacy for a moment: it can be mitigated by involving a third party or by relying on real data from similar past projects.That’s why it’s crucial to keep precise records of the time spent on every task so that the data is available later.You will log the time for every task. — Obi-Wan KenobiMoving on…In an ideal world, the best approach is for the team that will actually execute the project to estimate it together. But consider how much it costs if a 4–5 person team individually reviews and interprets the materials, discusses them together, collects missing information, breaks down the project into items, and estimates each one using some method. It’s incredibly time-consuming and expensive.Therefore, as a substitute, it’s good to have an experienced person who’s seen many projects and/or to rely on actual hours from similar past projects. In this case, you only need to account for the differences and unknowns (the risks) at the time of the proposal. Estimation becomes much simpler, faster, and cheaper.For indicative proposals, I almost always use this latter method, with one important addition: always assume a ±20% variation.Whoa, be careful!It may seem like you’ve done something similar before, but hidden behind the scenes are major differences. This can lead to nasty surprises if you rely on data from nearly similar projects. In such cases, it’s wise to consult multiple external teams to benchmark the work. This helps refine the estimate and creates a healthy competitive environment.And when a detailed, itemized proposal is necessary… There’s no shortcut: you’ll need to apply a methodology. I won’t even attempt to cover this topic here, as there are entire books written about the relevant methodologies.FinallyI’ve been in the product design profession for over 20 years, and I often play the game where, after hearing the requirements, I throw out a number almost off the top of my head. It works surprisingly often, but of course, I wouldn’t even call it indicative. Still, it’s fun.Estimating time for complex projects was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How I learned to stop sweating every UI detail and ship fasterMade by the author with Midjourney.I wasted too much time early in my design career sweating the wrong details. Now I ask one question before every UI decision:“Default it, or design it?”This simple heuristic has saved me countless hours and arguments, especially in startup environments where resources are limited and speed matters.Every design project requires you to make hundreds of decisions. Some are big like the overall layout. Others are small like the hover state of a button. Facing too many choices can lead to analysis paralysis, making it hard to move forward.Why this mattersProblems arise when designers spend too much time on lower-value minutia at the expense of big, strategic decisions: projects stall, deadlines slip, and teams get frustrated.I’ve been guilty of this more times than I’d like to admit.Looking back, I used to get lost trying to solve details that weren’t immediately relevant. Like, I’d polish edge cases before the core flow was even solid. I thought I was being thorough but really, I was just misallocating energy.Now I try to spot where the real leverage is. Not every moment in the product deserves the same attention. Some things just need to work. Others need to shine.The two pathsWhen you default it, you’re leaning on existing solutions: design systems, platform conventions, or vendor tools. You’re not ignoring the problem, you’re delegating the decision to something (or someone) that’s already solved it well enough.When you design it, you’re choosing to spend the time because you believe that decision has the potential to differentiate. You’re investing creative energy where it can make a meaningful impact.Both paths are valid. The power comes from choosing intentionally.The “Default It” approachThe “Default It” approach is most valuable when you’re getting hung up on a micro-level detail while working on a macro-level project.It’s not that the detail is unimportant, but it’s not the intent of that work. By defaulting micro-level decisions to existing resources, you can expedite macro-level projects.In my experience, many product managers lean toward this approach. “Defaulting it” helps move projects along faster by reducing scope. But if we default every decision, we’re likely to miss opportunities to innovate.The “Design It” approachThe “Design It” approach is most valuable when you need headspace to work in-depth on critical choices that shape outcomes in significant ways.You can make time to “design it” with micro or macro-level work, but each requires your full attention. It can be difficult to toggle between these different points of view, so I find it helpful to scope projects intentionally to focus on one at a time.Designers naturally gravitate toward this approach. It’s where creativity and innovation shine. However, trying to design every small detail can slow projects to a crawl and lead to blown budgets.Finding the right balanceFinding the right balance means negotiating which decisions to default and which to design so your team can focus attention in the right places at the right times.Product managers might push for “defaulting it” to save time and stay on schedule, while designers might advocate for “designing it” to explore creative solutions. This healthy tension can lead to finding the sweet spot for product development.For example, on one product I worked on, we needed to visualize large graph databases. Building a vector-based visualization library from scratch would have given us flexibility, but it wasn’t going to move the needle for our customer experience. We decided to “default” that data viz solution to a third-party vendor whose entire focus was on building that technology. This freed our team to focus on applying those tools to solve our customers’ problems more quickly and effectively.How design systems fit InAs projects grow, certain decisions come up repeatedly. This is where design systems become valuable.A design system is essentially your collection of team approved defaults.While in the early days of a product you might default mostly to external industry standards, over time you’ll encapsulate more of your own decision-making into custom defaults specific to your service.By storing your “defaulted” decisions in a central repository, you reduce the overhead for making solid baseline design choices. This list evolves to reflect updated defaults as new projects demand new solutions, freeing up time to focus on unique challenges.Final thoughts“Default it or design it” helps me triage.It helps my team align. And it helps us ship.By intentionally choosing when to default and when to design, I save time, focus on what’s critical, and direct my creative energy to the most pressing problems.Some moments in a product just need to work. Others need to shine.“Default it or design it” helps me know the difference.Patrick Morgan is the creator of Unknown Arts and lead product designer at Sublime Security. If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to his newsletter and follow him on LinkedIn for weekly insights.Default it or design it was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Strategies to future-proof UX that meets EU legal standardsThe EAA requires digital accessibility to accommodate all users with different needsAccessibility for digital products is no longer optional — it’s a necessity with the upcoming enforcement of the European Accessibility Act (EAA).Until now, European standards such as EN 301 549 have required only the public sector to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). So only government agencies or businesses that sell information and communication technology (ICT) to government agencies have needed to meet accessibility specifications.As of June 2025, this will be expanded into the private sector in the European Union (EU) — including e-commerce, restaurants, and banking services.Are you thinking any of the following?Does the EAA apply to me or the business I work for?What is the WCAG and what does it require?How much work is needed make my UX designs compliant?I get it — it’s time-consuming to understand the grueling details of a legislative act, but it’s vital to realize how it directly impacts you and your business (whether you’re an employee or employer).What is the European Accessibility Act (EAA)?The EAA is a “directive” that aims to improve accessibility in products and services in EU member states. This ensures people with disabilities can successfully access any digital product — ranging from writing an email on a laptop to checking-in at the doctor’s office with an iPad.The directive was enacted in 2019, but will become enforced on June 28, 2025 for any new products.The EAA is a EU directive that follows EN 301 549 and WCAG 2.1 requirementsEAA requirementsTo comply with the EAA, you need to follow the European “standard,” EN 301 549. EN 301 549 includes many clauses covering accessibility for a broad range of ICT — from native mobile applications to electronic hardware.The clauses circling the web and software incorporate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.Who does the EAA apply to?The EAA impacts all 27 member states of the EU. This includes countries such as France, Spain, and Sweden.Not only do EU member states need to comply, but any company that does business with the member states — even if the company isn’t based in the EU. For example, if a person in Italy accesses an e-commerce website based in the United States, the website must comply with the EAA.What does WCAG require?WCAG offers internationally recognized standards for digital accessibility. These standards are developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and are constantly evolving to account for changes in HTML and assistive technologies.The EAA and EN 301 549 require conformance to WCAG 2.1, Level AA standards. But what does that mean exactly?WCAG versionsNew versions of WCAG are periodically released to accommodate to the internet’s evolution. As methods and technologies are deprecated and replaced, it’s important to update standards to ensure accessibility is met.The most current version of WCAG is 2.2, which was released in October 2023. Though the EAA and EN 301 549 currently require WCAG 2.1, it’s expected they will be updated to include the WCAG 2.2 version.WCAG has released 3 versions between 2008 and 2023WCAG conformance “levels”WCAG includes 3 levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. Level A offers guidelines for the most basic accessibility considerations, while Level AAA reaches the widest degree of accessibility.Each success criteria (SC) in WCAG has a conformance level. For instance, SC 1.1.1 (Non-text content) is Level A, while SC 2.4.12 (Focus not obscured–Enhanced) is Level AAA.To conform to a certain WCAG level, the digital product must also conform to the level below it. So if your website is Level AA, it passes both Level A and AA success criteria (which is what’s required to comply with the EAA).WCAG’s “levels” refer to the degree of accessibility your digital product complies withDesign strategies for EAA complianceWCAG standards are dense, and it takes time to incorporate them into your UX design process. But there are strategies you can start using now to meet most of the requirements to comply with the EAA.1. Color contrast ratioDesigners must create color palettes that support a high color contrast ratio for content like text or UI components. You can check color contrast ratios with tools such as WebAIM’s Contrast Checker.Small text (less than 18px) must have a color contrast ratio of 4.5:1 with its backgroundLarge text (larger than 18px) must have a contrast ratio of 3:1 with its backgroundUI components, like buttons, should have a color contrast ratio of 3:1 with its backgroundColor should not be used alone to convey meaning; semantic color also needs a text label or appropriate iconFor more details, visit WCAG 1.4-Distinguishable.Don’t use color alone to convey meaning, such as errors or warnings on text fields2. Keyboard functionalitySome users can’t use a mouse or their laptop’s trackpad. Users who are blind or have limited hand mobility use their keyboard or other assistive technologies, and must be able to operate the product with their preferred input method.All user actions are doable from a keyboard, except for freehand movements (I.E., digital painting)Keyboard users must not encounter a keyboard trap (I.E., the user can’t navigate away from elements like a modal)Keyboard users have a way to turn off or remap keyboard shortcuts made up of single-character keys (I.E., use “D” to delete an item)For more details, visit WCAG 2.1-Keyboard accessible.Example of keyboard tab/ focus order for a restaurant’s website3. Multimedia featuresAll users, whether they are blind, hard-of-hearing, or have a learning disability, must be able to access the information any multimedia provides (I.E., videos or audio).Provide captions for any pre-recorded audio that is time-based (I.E., syncing audio with text-based captions)Provide an audio description for pre-recorded videos (I.E., an animation without audio showing how to tie your shoes)Provide captions for all live video content (I.E., a news organization’s live broadcast)For more details, visit WCAG 1.2-Time based media.Example of a live news broadcast with closed captioning4. Headings and labelsWhen headings and labels aren’t used properly or aren’t used at all, users have a hard time processing content and completing tasks — from reading an article to filling out a form.Provide clear headings and labels that describe the page content or input fieldEnsure labels and headings that visually convey structure and relationships are programmatically associated to their content (I.E., the page heading includes a <h1> tag)Ensure individual cells in a data tables are programmatically associated to their parent column or row header (I.E., the cell named “Blue” is associated to its parent column named “Colors”)For more details, visit WCAG 1.3-Adaptable.Ensure the heading tags properly convey the web-page’s content structure5. Support screen readersMany people use screen readers, such as NVDA or JAWS, so they can use any website or software. Ensuring digital products are compatible with screen readers seem challenging, but there are ways to proactively support screen readers.Use semantic HTML elements, like <button>, and avoid non-semantic elements, like <div> and <span>, that don’t contain built-in meaningProvide a text alternative for meaningful images using the alt attributeEnsure all interactive elements have a corresponding name, role, and valueEnsure the focus indicator is always visible so the user knows where they are in the interfaceFor more details, visit WCAG 4.1-Compatible.Tools to use for an accessible design processTo help meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA standards, there are tools you can incorporate in your UX process to create accessible designs and hand them over to your development team.1. WAVEWAVE is a free accessibility evaluation tool developed by WebAIM. WAVE offers multiple browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. After adding the extension to your preferred browser, all you have to do is visit your website and activate WAVE to get an automated evaluation.Note: Automated tools only find about a third of accessibility issues, so a manual evaluation is still needed after using WAVE.WAVE is a free accessibility evaluation tool that works on any live websitePros of WAVE:Offers multiple extensions for your preferred browserAllows you to easily see the tab order and structure of a web-pageProvides recommendations on how to correct accessibility issuesCons of WAVE:The icons representing potential accessibility issues are overwhelming and difficult to understand which icon goes to which element2. StarkStark offers a plug-in for both Figma and Sketch that designers can use to thoroughly check and annotate UX designs for developer hand-off. This ensures that developers know the specifics for alt text, tab order, and heading levels.Stark’s plug-in for Figma allows you to annotate designs and check color contrast ratiosPros of Stark:Offers a range of features to check designs for contrast and typography issues, as well as annotate for developer hand-offProvides color suggestions when the color contrast ratio doesn’t meet WCAG, Level AA requirementsProvides a vision simulator to test designs against different types of color blindness (I.E., protanopia)Cons of Stark:It can be difficult to select the correct layer when annotating designsSome advanced features in the plug-in are paid to use3. JAWSJAWS (Job Access with Speech) is one of the most commonly used screen readers. JAWS allows users with limited vision to access and use digital products, and is beneficial to test your digital product with to ensure it’s compatible with screen readers.Note: JAWS’ free version only allows you to use it for 45 minutes before restarting, and is best used on Chrome or Firefox browsers.JAWS screen reader running on a Mac through the Parallels virtual machinePros of JAWS:Ability to highly customize the JAWS settings, such as the voice synthesizerProvides output both through audio and braille devicesFreedom Scientific offers trainings to learn how to use JAWSCons of JAWS:Includes a steep learning curve compared to other screen readersOnly accessible through a Windows operating systemHas a limited free version–must pay to access the full versionConclusionReady or note, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) will be enforced on June 28, 2025. So any company (public or private) that provides ICT or operates digital products that an EU citizen can use is subject to the EAA.Any new product introduced to the market must comply with WCAG 2.1, Level AA to meet the requirements of the EAA and EN 301 549.Web accessibility is no longer optional — it’s essential. Though building inclusive products is the right thing to do, you may be subject to legal action if you avoid it. Is your digital product ready?SourcesWCAG by Level Access, “EN 301 549 Conformance: An Overview”Accessibility Works, “European Accessibility Act Compliance Requirements: The Next GDPR”WCAG by Level Access, “The European Accessibility Act: Technical Aspects of Compliance”European Union, “Types of legislation”W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, “WCAG 2 Overview”W3C, “WCAG 2.1 Guidelines”Ready or not, the EAA is here was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In this writing, I discuss how the Generative AI (GenAI) system, DeepSeek, handles the request to suggest a tetrad color harmony that…Continue reading on UX Collective »

Developing creative intuition, leaning into courage, and resisting editing away our unique voice.I pasted an Oscar Wilde quote into Notion the other day. As soon as I did, the AI symbol popped up with the “improve writing” suggestion.A quote by Oscar WildeI didn’t click it, but it made me think…If Oscar Wilde was alive today, would he too have been lured to change his words with AI? Would he have trusted AI more than his creative intuition?AI would most likely have edited Wilde’s voice by removing “unnecessary” words and simplifying sentences. But would it have been an improvement? If his work is no longer in his voice, how can we say it’s better?Our authentic voice is our workAs creatives, our authentic voice is our work. Whether we’re writers, singers, designers, painters, or sculptors.I’ve realized lately that I wish for us all to become less concerned with being perfect and more concerned with developing our unique voice and following our own intuition. When we read poetry, we learn that a sentence might not be perfectly correct but it speaks directly to our hearts. It breaks grammatical rules but it’s also able to break us open in ways we could only imagine.With our computers constantly prompting us to change and “improve” our writing, thinking, and making, we have to ensure we don’t lose our unique expression. We must make sure that we don’t lose touch with our creative intuition, that we continue to lean into courage, and that we don’t edit away what makes our work distinctly ours.DesignShift: From artificial to authentic1. Keep developing your own voiceWhen I use AI for my writing, I often find myself questioning if the AI’s version is really better than my own. I’m frequently confused about “why” it changed something, and even when I ask about the rationale, I find the explanation isn’t that convincing.Some would tell me that I’m just not prompting AI well enough to get the best result, but I keep asking myself what this tool is in service of.However, I’ve noticed how our tools encourage perfection, and doubt can start to creep in when AI suggests one thing and our intuition tells us something different. This happens to me on days when I show up to work with self-doubt — days when I’m deep in uncertainty about my own abilities. On those days, I trust AI more, and the prompt to change my words makes my swaying confidence even more rocky.On days like these, I remind myself of poetry. Through poetry, we learn that a sentence might not be perfectly correct but it speaks directly to our hearts. It breaks grammatical rules but it’s also able to break us open in ways we could only imagine. One such powerful voice is Maya Angelou, whose words “just do right” have stayed with me.In her wisdom, she says:“You know what’s right. Just do right. You don’t really have to ask anybody. The truth is, right may not be expedient, it may not be profitable, but it will satisfy… your soul.”Image from https://bookstr.com/article/10-writing-quotes-from-maya-angelou-to-inspire-you/These words move with rhythm, but they also remind us that we DO know what’s right. No one knows our voice better than us. And that is what people want to hear. We don’t always have to ask someone else or ChatGPT for a better way to say something. Trusting our own voice makes all the difference.The same way that a design that breaks the rules sometimes becomes more impactful, I remind myself that embracing my unique voice will take me further than a perfectly crafted bullet-style post powered by a robot.2. The courage to be seenThe other day, I read a quote that said “creativity is the courage to be seen.” While writing this post, this quote kept surfacing in my mind. As creatives, it takes courage to show up as our unique selves. It takes courage to show both the good and the bad. It takes courage to be all that we are. The reward for showing up vulnerably and authentically is connection.How we connect to topics. To someone’s story. To each other. When someone speaks from their heart, unedited and unfiltered, it helps us feel something.Connection happens when someone truly sees us for who we are and embraces all of it. That is true connection.There’s a difference between the desire to be seen and the courage to be seen. The desire is often rooted in external validation — wanting to be liked and wanted. Much of our online world is crafted this way. We edit (with or without AI) in order to be liked and followed. We make sure that our voice matches our brand and we craft one-minute elevator pitches to ensure people understand exactly who we are and what we have to offer.However, the courage that helps us connect to others lies beyond the poses and the polish. The courage to be seen is about showing up as our full selves.3. Connection happens in the cracksConnections and feelings are found in the cracks. They are discovered between the lines. In the awkward pauses and the unpolished thoughts. They exist in unedited, real expressions rather than perfectly written, bullet-pointed lists generated by a robot.As Joshua Schrei said on the Emerald podcast:“Art dies when culture decides that there is a certain way you have to say certain things. Then you don’t have art. You have a press release.”Poetry, art, and also the human experience thrive in its willingness to not make complete sense. For example, the raw, uninhibited expressions of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat show us that perfection isn’t necessary for profound impact. When we share our authentic selves, we invite others to do the same. We often think that the world expects and craves perfection. We’re taught rules… but the human experience is flawed. The cracks make us able to connect with others.Creativity is about connection, and connections are formed in the cracks. When someone shows their weakness or vulnerability, we get permission to show ours.At the heart of it all are feelings. Creative work is about feelings, and even though ChatGPT can act empathetic, it’s not the same as real feelings. Because real connection is built through brokenness. It’s in the cracks that connections are formed.In times of robotsIf Oscar Wilde lived today, would AI have given him prompts? Would AI suggest “improvements” to the works of literary and artistic icons? Would Midjourney have offered to enhance Jean-Michel Basquiat’s expressive style?Would these creative icons have been lured to edit their unique expression to appeal to the masses at the creative direction of a robot? My intuition tells me that they would have resisted the prompts and leaned into their uniqueness even more — and that is what I hope for all creatives today. With our computers constantly prompting us to change and “improve” our own writing, thinking, and making, we have to ensure we don’t lose our unique expression. We must make sure that we don’t lose touch with our creative intuition and that we don’t edit away the uniqueness and the cracks that breed connections.In times of robots, I hope we can lean into our humanness even more. In times of robots, I hope we will remind ourselves and each other that our unique voices matter. In times of robots, I hope you will connect through your cracks without editing your uniqueness.Links and resources:Maya Angelou: Just do right (video)Trickster Jumps Sides: Disruption and the Anatomy of Culture (Podcast)DesignShifts: a better future for and through design (website)The Power of Poetry | Shayna Castano | TEDxLSSC (TED Talk)Burning Questions — James Victore is an irreverent prophet for the creative industries (article)From artificial to authentic was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Maybe it’s the state of the world, or just the state of my life, but it feels like everything in the world of digital content has gotten more fraught.Photo by Riccardo, PexelsIt’s a weekday morning and I’m sipping coffee, scanning my calendar for my meetings today, preparing my work, swimming in a slog of newsletters, flipping between tabs open to current events in our very anxious, uncertain world, and trying to start my day with a deep breath.​Yet I keep thinking: Why does this feel so hard?I know I don’t have to know it all right now. I’m taking another breath, remembering the words I wrote a couple years ago.It might be hard because things are tough right nowI’ll acknowledge the obvious: The world is a scary place.The pandemic alone brought mental health issues to an all-time high — nearly 41% of U.S. adults experienced “psychological distress” during the pandemic, and since then, it’s been a rolling collection of additional anxieties.There are political upheavals, cultural shifts, and other changes happening every day, every hour, that feel uncertain.Thousands are losing their jobs in America, particularly dedicated civil servants.Diversity, equity, and inclusion practices are being chopped and impacting the future of higher education, government enterprise, and beyond.The identities of millions are being challenged politically.And in between, those of us working in the digital space — websites, development, digital marketing, etc. — are trying to keep up on how to do our jobs and do them well. At least well enough to cut through the noise. At least well enough to help the person on the other side of the screen, whoever that may be and whatever they may need.As I’ve been combing through the news, I find myself getting depressed, anxious, angry. I don’t have a lot of influence individually of what I can change but I can join voices in my community, write letters to my representatives, and keep voting for the values that align with me and protect others.In your circle of influence, you can control your health, your mind, and how you show up for those around you. Focus on that and try to remember you’re Just Human.It might be hard because technology is changing how we do our jobsArtificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for a long time. In truth, we’ve used it in many forms over the years, from search engines to our phone voice assistants and more.But to my rattled brain, it feels like I woke up one morning and AI was everywhere and it was the only way forward to do our job, and gosh darnit if we don’t use it, we’re in trouble.One day I was just a content strategist, humming along, doing what I’ve done for 15 years. And then suddenly I need a robot to do it better. Yet some research tells us using AI makes us lonelier and makes work less enjoyable in some ways.Don’t get me wrong: AI has its place. I’ve found it incredibly useful for content editing, tightening, formatting content for HTML.But it’s new and I’m learning. So that’s OK, right?Apparently not. The speed at which AI is adopted and expected to be used is quite frankly, startling. Browse any job listing on LinkedIn and you’ll see AI and AI tools as part of the requirements for job.My advice: Learn what you want, at the pace that’s comfortable. You can’t learn it all today, or tomorrow. You can only learn a little bit at a time.Remember learning to read? Me neither. But I can assure you it wasn’t in a day or two. It took years. Just like learning to write in cursive took practice. And riding my bike took some falls.It took time and patience. We have the right to exercise that now, as grown-ups. So take your time. Say to yourself, “Let me try,” and dismiss the voice over your shoulder or in your head telling you to go faster.It might be hard because we’re taking this…too seriously?Hear me out: In a world that’s so deadly serious (no pun intended), it seems we’re bringing that heaviness into how we do our work.One thing you’ll never hear me call my work as a content strategist: Referring to it as a vocation. While I love the work I do, it’s not all I’m meant to be.I like to tell people: I work to make websites better. The end. I do that by:talking to real peopleunearthing challenges and opportunitiesemploying useful, approachable strategies to make user experience betterbuilding website navigation and architecture that connects pages and information in meaningful waysteaching accessibility, inclusionary content, and the value of making information easy to read and understand for all people​There’s more, of course, but you get the gist. And I’m one tiny fish in a sea of people who do this and do it well.But a quick scan of my inbox newsletters, LinkedIn posts, any other articles about user experience, and you’ll be bombarded with a five alarm fire of what we all need to be doing better, pushing harder, hustling, self-publishing, and learning All The Things.A quick tip: You don’t have to run a four-minute mile. Take your time. Time a breath. Walk, don’t run. Focus on what you do well, and identify things you want to learn now, and make time to practice them. Don’t drown in the overload.It might be hard because we’re being too hard on ourselvesDo something with me. Stop reading, stop thinking. Follow this instruction:Close your eyes.Take a deep breath in. Count to four. Hold for a count of three. Release for a count of four.In…1, 2, 3, 4…hold…Out…1, 2, 3, 4…We’re trying to keep up: At work, at home, everywhere in between. There are chores to be done, tasks to be completed, people to stay in touch with, events to attend, and somehow still need to squeeze in a restful night’s sleep.We’re going too fast and too hard.As I recognize this in myself, I’ve been exercising the right to say ‘no’ to things I can’t prioritize. I’ve been putting my phone down and in another room so I can pick up my embroidery or crochet hook and do something analog.I make time at the end of the night to put the dishes away, tidy the living room, clear my office desk.And I’ve been making time for the people and things that make time for me, who reach out and say “Let’s get together and have a laugh.”And for goodness sake, please find a way to laugh.That alone may be a tall order in a world of chaos right now. But as the great Kurt Vonnegut once said, “I’d rather laugh than cry. There’s less cleaning up to do afterward.”Slow down. When you have a moment of free time, don’t ask what you should be doing. Ask what you want to do.And at the end of the day, pat yourself on the back. “You made it another day,” you can say quietly to your rattled brain as you wind down for the evening. “Good job, you.”When did UX & content get so hard? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Peeping under the hood of Microsoft Copilot but quickly slamming down the lidContinue reading on UX Collective »

Adopting a systems thinking mindset could help us to better embrace the change happening in the UX design profession.Continue reading on UX Collective »