How can we move beyond the confines of a simple input field to help agents evolve from mere tools into true partners that can perceive our unspoken intentions and spark new ways of thinking?When we share our vague, half-formed ideas with AI agents, are we looking for the predictable, standard answers we expect, or a genuine surprise we didnt seecoming?As the capabilities of AI agents evolve at a breathtaking pace, we increasingly expect them to be intuitive and understanding.Yet, the reality often falls short. Vague or abstract questions typically yield only generic, catch-all answers. This traps us in a frustrating loop of rephrasing and refining, where we might land on a satisfactory result, but only after a frustrating cycle of refinement.Clear questions vs. Vague or abstract questionsThis is a dominant mode of human-AI interaction. But is this the future we reallywant?True connection often sparks in a dialogue between equals. The conversations that leave a lasting impression arent the simple question-and-answer exchanges. Instead, they are the ones where our true intent gradually surfaces through a back-and-forth of clarifying questions, mutual confirmations, and shared moments ofinsight.If AI agents is to make the leap from tool to partner, perhaps we need to reimagine its role. Should it merely provide answers on command, or could it become a true companion in our explorationsone that provokes our thoughts, and ultimately, helps us discover what we trulywant?Speed UnderstandingImagine sending a morning greeting to your family on a hazy, half-awake morning. Your finger instinctively finds the Send button. A light tap, and its done. This simple, natural actionhow different would it have been just a few decadesago?You would have had to carefully type out lines of code on a screen, where a single typo or an extra space would cause the computer to rebuke you with an even more cryptic string of garbledtext.At its core, the difference between these two experiences lies in the challenge of translating between fuzzy human intent and precise computer instructions. Back in the 1980s, Don Norman defined this challenge with two concepts: the Gulf of Execution, which separates our thoughts from the machines commands, and the Gulf of Evaluation, which separates the machines feedback from our ability to understand it.The narrower these gulfs, the more seamless the process of conveying our intent and interpreting the results. Decades of progress in human-computer interaction, from the command-line interface to the graphical user interface, have been dedicated to bridging thisdivide.Whitenton, K. (2018, March 12). The two UX gulfs: evaluation and execution. Nielsen NormanGroup.Todays AI-powered applications are following the same trajectory, continuously lowering the barrier to execution and making it ever faster to communicate in natural language.But does this speed truly mean our intent is being understood?Are AI agents really helping usexplore?Whats the capital of the Netherlands?The capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, but the seat of government, central ministries, parliament, and foreign embassies are all in TheHagueHow high is Mount Everest?The latest official height of Mount Everest is 8,848.86 meters, a result from a joint survey by China and Nepal in2020Generate a working timerdemo.Sure, heres a simple countdown timer in Python. The user can input the number of seconds, and the script will count down and print a message at theendYes. For tasks with a clear intent, a specific goal, and low-context requirementslike summarizing articles, translating text, or doing basic mathAI agents deliver accurate and prompt answers. But when faced with the messy, complex challenges of real life, does that efficiency holdup?Impeccable, butuselessHelp me plan a trip to Japan that the whole family willlove.Of course. To plan a trip to Japan the whole family can enjoy, here are some suggestions you can tailor to your needs. The milder weather in spring (March-May) and autumn (September-November) is ideal for family travel. Determine the trips duration based on everyones vacation time. If youre traveling between cities, consider a Japan Rail Pass, but youll need to calculate if its cost-effective for your specific itineraryOur conversation with the agent seems free of any Gulf of Execution. We had no trouble sending the request, and the agent promptly returned a standard-issue response. But how much is that response really worth tous?The parents want to unwind in a hot spring, the kids are dying to go to Universal Studios, and your partner is hoping for a more niche, authentic cultural experience. Everyone has different hopes for the trip, but the agents generic advice fails to address any of them. But why didnt we just give the agent all these details from thestart?The slot machine conversation trapWhen we turn to AI with these kinds of vague, complex problems, 99% of the time we are funneled into a single input box. Its the dominant interface for AI today, a model that originated with ChatGPTs goal of giving people the most direct path to experiencing the power of large languagemodels.The predominant way we interact with AI is almost entirely centered around the inputfield.However, the thought of cramming every detail into that tiny boxeveryones preferences, the family budget, and all the nuances from memoryand then endlessly editing it, is just exhausting.This is too much trouble, just simplifyit.Our brains are wired for shortcuts. To get our vague idea out quickly, we subconsciously strip away all the context, preferences, and other details that are hard to articulate, compressing everything into the oversimplified phrase make the family happy. We toss it into the input box and pin all our hopes on the agents abilities.Then, like a gambler, we pull the lever and pray for a lucky spin that happens to read our minds. To increase its hit rate with such pitiful context, the agent can only flex its capabilities, calling on every tool at its disposal to generate a broad, catch-all answer.The result isnt a helpful guide that inspires new thinking, but an undigested information dump. This interaction becomes less like a conversation and more like a slot machine, defined by uncertainty. It invisibly adds to our cognitive load and pushes us further away from discovering what we reallyneed.Even as AI agents have evolved to handle high-dimensional, ambiguous, and exploratory tasks, the way we communicate with it remains a low-dimensional channel, ill-suited for expressing our own complex thoughts.However, difficulties in obtaining the desired outcome arise from both the AIs interpretation and the translation of intentions into prompts.An evolution in the user experience of AI systems is necessary, integrating GUI-like characteristics with intent-based interaction.On the usability of generative AI: Human generative AIStop guessing, start exploring the realproblemLets revisit the original idea. If you truly wanted to plan a trip to make your whole family happy, how would you do it without an AI? Youd probably engage in a series of exploratory actionsreflecting, researching, and running what-if scenarios to find a plan that balances everyones different needs.Our daily reality isnt about clear instructions and direct execution; its about navigating vague and messy challenges. Whether planning a family vacation or kicking off a new project at work, the hardest problem we face is often how to transform a fuzzy impulse into a clear and valuablegoal.So how can we design our interactions with AI to help us explore these vague, fragile impulses? How can we build a more coherent, natural dialogue instead of getting stuck in a constant guessinggame?Good design is thorough down to the last detail. Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.DieterRamsLike partners: The power of co-constructing intentDo you think this potted plant would look better somewhere else?Oh? Whats on your mind? I thought you liked it where itwas.Its not that I dont I just feel like nothing looks right lately. I guess Im just looking for a change of scenery.When we talk things over with friends, partners, or family, we rarely expect an immediate, clear-cut answer. The conversation often begins with a vague impulse or a half-formed idea.They might build on your thought: How about by the window? The sunlight might help it thrive. Or they might probe deeper, sensing the motive behind the question: Have you been feeling a bit drained lately? It sounds like you want to move more than just the plantmaybe youre looking to bring something new into yourlife.Human conversation is a dynamic, exploratory journey. Its not about simply transferring information. Its about two people taking a fuzzy idea and, through a back-and-forth exchange, co-discovering, refining, and even shaping it into something entirely newuncharted territory neither had imagined at the start. This is a process of Intent Co-construction.As our relationship with AI evolves from tool to partner, we find ourselves sharing more of these ambiguous intentions. To meet this changing need, how can we learn from our human relationships to design interactions that foster deep connection and co-construct intent with our AI counterparts?Anthropics official introduction: Meet Claude, your thinking partnerscreenshot viaReading between the lines with multimodalityPicture a perfect sunny weekend. Youre driving with the windows down, your favorite album playing, on your way to that new park youve been wanting tovisit.You tell your voice assistant your destination. It instantly displays three routes, color-coded by time and traffic, and helpfully highlights the one its algorithm deemsfastest.You subconsciously take its advice, but halfway there, something feelswrong.While it may be the shortest path physically, the route involves constant lane changes on streets barely wide enough for one car. Youre flanked by parked cars whose doors could swing open at any moment and kids who might dart into the road. Your nerves are frayed, your palms are sweating on the wheel, and you find yourself muttering about the cramped, crowded conditions, nearly rear-ending ane-bike.Through it all, the navigation remains indifferent, stubbornly sticking to its original recommendation.Yes, multimodal inputs allow us to give clearer commands. But when our initial command is incomplete, we still end up with a generic solution. A true partner wouldthink:They seem stressed by this complex route. Should I suggest a longer but easier alternative?Im detecting swearing and frequent hard braking. Is this road too difficult for them tohandle?The real breakthrough isnt just understanding what users say, but how they say itcombining their words with environmental cues and situational context. Do they type fluently or constantly backspace? Do they circle a data point with confidence or hesitation? These subconscious signals often reveal our true state ofmind.Hume AI can analyze the emotion in a speakers voice and respond with empathetic intelligence.The AI we need isnt just one that can process text, voice, images, and gestures simultaneously. We need a partner that, while respecting our privacy, can keenly and continuously read between the lines, detecting the unspoken truth in the dissonance between these multimodal signals.To design the best UX, pay attention to what users do, not what they say. Self-reported claims are unreliable, as are user speculations about future behavior. Users do not know what theywant. JakobNielsenNow, lets take this one step further. Imagine an AI that, through multimodal sensing, has perfectly understood our true intent. If it simply serves up a flawless answer like a data report, is that really the best way for us to learn andgrow?Information as a flowingprocessLets rewind and take that drive to the park again. This time, instead of an AI, your co-pilot is a living, breathing friend.When you reach that same algorithm-approved turnoff, you tense up at the sight of the narrow lane. Your friend notices immediately and guides you through the challenge:This road looks rough. Let me guide you to a betterone.Turn right just after that coffee shop upahead.Were almost there. See the people with picnic blankets?The journey is seamless. You realize your friend didnt necessarily give you more information than the AI, but they delivered the right information at the right time, in a way that made sense in themoment.Similarly, AI-generated information can be delivered through diverse mediums; text is by no means the only way. Think about a recent conversation that stuck with you. Was it memorable for its dictionary-like volume of facts? More likely, you were captivated by how the story was toldin a way that helped you visualize it. This power of visualization is rooted in metaphor.we often think we use metaphors to explain ideas, but I believe good metaphors dont explain but rather transform how our minds engage with ideas, opening entirely new ways of thinking. The Secret of Good MetaphorsFiles that look like paper, directories that look like folders, icons for calculators, notepads, and clocksback in the earliest days of personal computing, designers used graphical metaphors based on familiar physical objects to make strange and complex command lines feel intuitive and accessible.Apple Lisa 2 (1984): Features like desktop icons, the menu bar, and graphical windows significantly lowered the barrier to entry for personal computersMetaphors work by tapping into our past experiences and connecting them to something new, bridging the gap to understanding. So, how does this apply to AIoutput?Think about how we typically use an AI to explore a complex topic. We might ask it a direct question, have it synthesize industry reports, or feed it a pile of research to summarize. Even with the AIs best efforts, clicking open a result to find a wall of text can feel overwhelming.We cant see its thought process. We dont know if it considered all the angles we did. We dont know where to begin. What we truly need isnt just a final answer, but to feel like a friend is walking us through their thinkingtransforming information delivery from a static report into a guided process of shared discovery.Metaso: Visualizes its entire thinking process on a canvas as it works on aproblem.But what if, even after seeing the process, the answer is still too abstract?We naturally understand information through different forms: charts for trends, diagrams for processes, and stories told through sound and images. Any good communication orchestrates different dimensions of information into a presentation that conveys meaning more effectively.Google NotebookLM can transform source materials into various easy-to-digest formats, such as narrated video overviews, conversational podcasts, and interactive mind maps. This shifts learning from a process of passive consumption to a dynamic, co-creative experience.NotebookLM (Google): Can autonomously transform source materials into various accessible formats like illustrated videos, podcasts, or mind maps, turning passive learning into active co-creation.However, theres a risk. When an AI uses carefully crafted metaphors to present an output that is clear, beautiful, and logically flawless, it can feel like an unchallengeable finalanswer.Is that how our conversations with human partnerswork?When a friend shares an idea, we dont just agree. Our responses are filled with questions, doubts, and counter-arguments. Sometimes, a single insightful comment can change the direction of an entire project. A meaningful dialogue is less about the period at the end of a sentence and more about the comma or the question mark that keeps the conversation going.Progressive construction through dialogue andmemoryLets go hiking this weekend. I want to challenge myself.Sounds good! But remember last time? You said your knee was bothering you halfway up. Are you sure? We could find an easiertrail.Im fine, my knees allbetter.Dont push yourselfA true partner remembers your past knee injury. They remember youre directionally challenged and that youre not a fan of reading long texts. This long-term memory allows your interactions to build on a shared history, moving beyond simple Q&A into a state of mutual understanding where you can anticipate each others needs without lengthy explanations.Googles Project Astra remembers what it sees and hears in real time, allowing it to answer contextual questions like, Where did I leave my glasses? The Dia browsers memory feature continuously learns from your browsing history to develop a genuine understanding of yourtastesFor an AI to co-construct intent like a partner, persistent memory is not just a featureits essential.Agent failures arent only model failures; they are context failures.The New Skill in AI is Not Prompting, Its Context EngineeringBut memory alone isnt enough; we need to use it to foster deeper exploration. As we said from the start, the goal isnt to get an instant answer, but to refine our intentions and formulate better, more insightful questions.ChatGPT Study Mode. When given a task, its first instinct isnt to jump straight to an answer. Instead, it begins by asking the user clarifying questions to better define theproblemWhen a vague idea or question surfaces, we want an AI that is more than an answer machine. We want a true thinking partner: one that can reach beyond the immediate context, draw on our shared history to initiate meaningful dialogue, and guide us as we peel back the layers of our own thoughts. In this progressive, co-constructive process, it helps us finally articulate what we trulyintend.Where co-construction ends, webeginDeeper insights through multimodality, dynamic presentations that clarify information, and a back-and-forth conversational loop that feels like chatting with a friend As our dialogue with an AI becomes deeper and more meaningful, so too does our understanding of the problem, and our own intent becomesclearer.But is that the end of thejourney?In the film Her, through countless conversations with the AI Samantha, Theodore is compelled to confront his emotions, his past failed marriage, and his own conflicting fear and desire to reconnect. Throughout this process, Samanthas curiosity, learning, and gentle challenges to his preconceptions help him see himself with new clarity, allowing him to truly feel and face his lifeagain.screenshot viaHerThe world of Her is not some distant future; in many ways, it is a portrait of our present moment. In a future where AI companions will be a long-term presence in our lives, their ultimate purpose may not be to replace human connection, but to act as a catalyst for our owngrowth.The ultimate value of co-constructive interaction is not just to help us understand ourselves more deeply. It is to act as an engine, converting that profound self-awareness into the motivation and clarity needed to achieve our potential in the realworld.Of course, times change, but the fundamentals do not. This has always been the goal of the pioneers of human-computer interaction:Boosting mankinds capability for coping with complex, urgent problems.Doug EngelbartReferenceJohnson, Jeff. Designing with the mind in mind: simple guide to understanding user interface design guidelines. Morgan Kaufmann, 2020.Whitenton, K. (2018, March 12). The two UX gulfs: evaluation and execution. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/two-ux-gulfs-evaluation-execution/DOCThe secret of good metaphors. (n.d.). https://www.doc.cc/articles/good-metaphorsNielsen, J., Gibbons, S., & Mugunthan, T. (2024, January 30). Accordion Editing and Apple Picking: Early Generative-AI User Behaviors. Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/accordion-editing-apple-picking/Varanasi, L. (2025, May 25). Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun says current AI models lack 4 key human traits. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-yann-lecun-ai-models-lack-4-key-human-traits-2025-5?utm_source=chatgpt.comPerry, T. S., & Voelcker, J. (2023, August 7). How the Graphical User Interface Was Invented. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/graphical-user-interfaceGerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1),6.Ravera, A., & Gena, C. (2025). On the usability of generative AI: Human generative AI. arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.17714.Co-constructing intent with AI agents was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

AI use cases: why user-centered design matters more than ever.Continue reading on UX Collective

Designing interactions that resist enclosure.World shipping routes (flow map)sourceHi, Kevinhere.I find very interesting, in many ways, the current atmosphere in (our?) society. And Im not only thinking of the overrepresented discussions around artificial intelligence. In my informed view, AI is not (just) a technical innovation or revolution proposition anymore (if any), but a socio-political proposition that fits a broader transition, motivated by social and geopolitical dynamics, but also climatechange.What I would like to explore here are some vectors of this broader landscape. I recently came across a very interesting thesis that, conversely, fits other relevant signals: that our global economic system, namely liberal capitalism, is transitioning towards something different as aregime.How is this useful to design, one mightask?Ill come back to this later, but to keep it short, design operates mainly (not only) within the confines of what is perceived as good, desirable, and valuable. And we can see how this change, which has already taken form, is shaping design practices and designers own perception of what and how they are doingdesign.From liberal to mercantile capitalismThis section draws heavily from the French collective Stup.medias work. If you can, I invite you to look at their very well articulated post.Our economy isnt a monolithic and immutable thing, but rather a dynamic and evolving system. Arnaud Orain, a French economist and historian who recently published Le monde confisqu: Essai sur le capitalisme de la finitude (XVIXXI sicle) (The Confiscated World: Essay on the Capitalism of Finitude (16th21st Century)), proposes that we are heading toward more than just an iteration of our current neoliberal capitalism. His thesis, which corroborates many vectors of change observed by other economists, is that the very rules of the game are changing: we are moving away from a liberal capitalism to what Orain calls Capitalism of the Finitude.To understand its significance, we have to come back to the main characteristics that constitute the system we have experienced since the end of industrialization: liberal capitalism.STUP.MEDIA - La fin du libralisme ? Entretien avec Arnaud OrainAs the Arnaud Gantier, who interviewed Arnaud Orain, explains:[Under liberal capitalism] parties of the left and right that take power share quite a few values: market economy, competition, free trade, and facilitating access to private property. The main economic disagreement that remains [between the left and the right] is defining a more or less important role for the state in the economy. To illustrate this, the opposition is between social programsfor example, housing allowances or building social housingor tax breaks for construction. This is the type of opposition that has dominated economic debates in Western countries since at least1945.But what Orain points out is that before that period of time, our world was governed by a capitalism that was not liberal, which did not care about competition, free trade, or individual freedoms. Because in an imparialist and expansionist world, the purpose of capitalism was to enable states to be more powerful than their neighbors. And we see today many superpowers moving towards a more explicit form of imparialpowers.Obviously we see this with Russia. Chinas New Silk Roads also have this dimension, with the construction or rehabilitation of infrastructure. There are actors, for example in Pakistan, who consider the port of Gwadar to be a new East India Company, a new form of colonization being put in place by Chinese firms. We are obviously thinking of the United States of America, with desires for acquisition or protectorate over Greenland, and the Panama Canal returning to the U.S. sphere. That is just one sign. But there are many others, notably all the limits to the freedom of trade at sea, which is a truly central idea because almost everything we consume daily is transported over thousands of kilometers across theoceans.But why talk about mercantile capitalism then? The interesting part that Gantier highlights is the role of merchants and traders in the history of capitalism, but overall in the history of societies and their politicsbetter exemplified nowadays by the influence of billionaires on governments.[In the 17th and 18th centuries] the planters were the farmers in the French colonies who used enslaved labor to produce sugarcane, [] were powerful, armed, and sold highly valued products. But in reality the ones who controlled this economy were not the planters themselves, but the merchants and traders, who were indispensable for transporting both enslaved people and sugar. They could choose which planter or producer would be able to sell their goods and thus become rich. So they held thepower.Interestingly, the history of our liberal period, which sees merchants and companies as peaceful organizations, trade as a way to avoid wars, and capitalism as a way to enrich workers, does not provide the necessary model to understand the effects that these merchants and their companies have, whether the emancipation of workers they can sometimes allow or, on the contrary, their central role in colonization andslavery.This view of history is too partial and is fundamentally contradicted by the present. We can start with the most radical examples, like private military companies. For example, the American firm Constellis, formerly Blackwater, or the Wagner militia, which have grown in importance in recent years. What they do is employ soldiers under contract. They are private armies, and in the last ten years they have been deployed all over the world, whether in Iraq, Yemen, Israel, Mali, Ukraine, and they often leave behind crimes against humanity.We also see this in high-intensity conflicts, for example in Ukraine, which reminds us that wars are won in factories, that is, by companies. It is no coincidence that GDP was invented during World War II. It was an indicator to measure production capacity. Who can produce the most missiles, tanks, fuel, food, clothing, shoes. So controlling industrial capacities, controlling companies, merchants, traders, this entire world, is not an abstract question. It is a major powerissue.Whats changing might be better encapsulated in the notion of company-state: companies that are both merchants and possess sovereign powers. This was true of many companies back in the 17th and 18th centuries, who could buy and sell things, mint money, administer justice, and raise armies, and it is becoming more apparent that, today, many companies are in such a position. These companies are sometimes aligned with the public power, and sometimes in competition with it. For these reasons, big modern merchants depend less on free trade than others, and we see this clearly in theirmedia.In an adjacent case, I find interesting the recent takeover by a techno-corporate power of the digital open-source community, marking here again the decline of liberal ideals, and the colonization and exploitation of yet another form of territory.GitHub's Fall: Microsoft's AI Takeover, Developer Betrayal, and the Next Fight for Digital SovereigntyAnother interesting change is that, for long, liberal capitalism worked mainly on the idea of seduction and promises of improved living conditions. Mercantile capitalism does not bother with promises of enrichment for all in order toexpand.What Orain is saying here is simply that for socialists, the more violent capitalism becomes, the less it relies on seduction to expand, and the easier it becomes to present socialism as a positiveidea.Today many [French] people think they can improve their living conditions outside union struggles. For them unionism is even hidering the improvement of their personal situation. But that can changequickly.In a mercantilist capitalism where companies are increasingly monopolistic, the workforce has no real alternatives. There is not one employer really better than another when there are very few. In each sector you do not have a choice among a dozen companies. It is either one or the other. They probably talk to each other and align their working conditions. In such conditions, unionism and socialism appear as logical choices to improve ones condition.Finally, Arnaud Gantier concludes with some very interesting points.First, we should acknowledge the death of neoliberalism. Many still operate on obsolete ideas of a neoliberal world declining, among which are most traditional political parties. Ideas that are no longer promoted by the parties we see rising in the polls (in Europe). For instance, many far-right parties rising in popularity are in fact mercantilist, notably because they display ideas of labor exploitation, and they consider the grandeur of the nation to come before the rights of those who live and work there. This model of capitalism no longer rests on the existence of a large middle-class and social policies.Second, the role of the most visible representatives of these neo-mercantile companies, the billionaires, is a consequence of actors no longer bound by the same rules. They all own media, and their political actions go far beyond humanitarian actions, making them obvious political enemies. Here, neo-mercantilism describes a capitalism, that is, private ownership of the means of production dominated by merchants, and with it the decline in influence of the traditional economist-intellectuals that marked neoliberalism.Finally, climate change plays an important role in this economic transition by adding a compounding factor in precipitating this neo-mercantilism, by adding social and resource pressures hence the term capitalism of the finitude coined by ArnaudOrain.So, in summary, Orains thesis can be summed up as such: Liberal capitalism is giving way to a neo-mercantilist capitalism of finitude where state power, monopolies, logistics chokepoints, and company-states dominate, and allegiance becomes a central political problem.This transition is marked by key signals/components:Re-imperialization of great powers and growing limits to freedom of theseas.Merchants as political actors, historically and today, via debt, logistics control, and media ownership.Militarization of enterprise, including PMCs; war as industrial capacity.Shipping giants under state pressure and possible self-militarization.Allegiance problem of multinationals through opaque corporate architectures.Company-states in tech with sovereign attributes (space, satellite, platforms).Divergent capitalist blocs: exporters of branded goods prefer free trade; defense/logistics fit mercantilism; media lines mirrorowners.Return of monopoly capitalism, making nationalization and unionization logically salientagain.Chinas model of national champions and enforced corporate allegiance, with systemic fragilities.Political realignment in Europe: neoliberalism fades; the far right is mercantilist rather than liberal; the lefts anti-billionaire stance gains traction.This is great and all, but why should designers care?Well, modern design practices have been mainly in service of a liberal capitalism. The modern idea of liberal arts and applied arts, which gave birth to most current Western (globalized) design movements, and the history of neoliberalism and its means of production have always been tightly coupled. When Dieter Rams talks about good design, he does it in a neoliberal globalized worldview, built on the shoulders of prior movements such as Bauhaus. Thats actually one of the main criticisms of ViktorPapanek.Todays UX/CX, product, and service design are predicated on the rules of a liberal regime. What is defined as good design and the means through which it is valued (e.g., customer satisfaction, conversion rate, users autonomy and consent, etc.) and operated will likely become obsolete as the systems conditions mutate.If capitalism is indeed pivoting from a liberal, competition-led order to a mercantile one organized around state (firm blocs, choke-points, and extraction), then digital designs mandate and its yardsticks shift withit:Value theory: Liberal UX treated people as choosing users; the mercantile turn will likely treat them as managed subjects inside vertical stacks (identity, payments, logistics, compute). Good becomes what secures allegiance, reduces contestation, and locks channels.The real client: Expect more briefs from hybrids of state and gatekeeper firms. Good design will likely be redefined in law, not justtaste.Metrics mutate: The center of gravity will likely move from conversion and NPS to contestability, compliance, and provenance.If you think this connects well with the notion of enshittification and techno-feudalism, this is no accident.Anyway, if the debate nowadays revolves mainly around the impacts AI has/will have on liberal professions (such as artists and designers), we might be very well myopic to the very context in which this is unfolding.The error of many designers is to treat it as yet another technical or alignment challenge to solve (supposedly between user needs and a technical system), while failing to recognize that AI is not just another technology, it is a catalyst to unfold certain political ideals, which in turn unfold a certain aesthetic (see triopticdesign).Community update: New channel, exploring the trioptic design, and thoughts on the challenges of designing for AIFinitude, violence, AI, andfascismI would like now to connect what we just explored with another highly compatible thesis: the idea that Platform capitalism (that is, a capitalism dominated by digital platforms, themselves owned by merchants) enabled a new form of fascism, what Bertram Gross calls Friendly Fascism.Platform capitalism already happened, and likely enabled the transition we see towards neo-mercantilism, as platform ownership reorganizes power: labor is platformized, markets become gatekept, and public rules increasingly run through private UXthat is, interfaces and interactions that govern quasi-public life (speech, trade, work, ID, mobility), but are designed, owned, and enforced by private companies rather than public law. See how this description fits the notion of company-states we just discussed?https://medium.com/media/7f095163971aca53be6b5ad8dda13ca6/hrefIn his work The New Aesthetics of Fascism, Ben Hoerman, who draws from B. Gross work and many others, explains how fascism has been redesigned for platform capitalism into a friendlier, quieter form: it advances through technocratic bureaucracy, corporate control, culture-war monetization, and AI-driven aestheticization that makes cruelty look normal, pretty, or ironic so people wont resistit.From The New Aesthetics of Fascismfounder-cult montage as political influence.It highlights several key signals/components:Form factor shift: from overt militarism to technocratic bureaucracy, corporate control, and manufactured mediastaging.Culture-war governance: class conflict is displaced by culture war, algorithmically amplified; soft authoritarianism hollows institutions while the shellremains.Bureaucratic violence: repression by policy stack: union-busting, surveillance, deregulation, and paperwork that punishes instead ofguns.Corporate neofuturism: minimal, cold, speed-obsessed tech aesthetics plus founder cults and deep ties to the military-industrial complex.Eco-fascist drift of solarpunk: harmony-with-nature visuals repurposed to whitewash regimes and sell exclusionary nationalism.Everything as content: politics becomes spectacle for mass consumption; nothing is obscene anymore normalizes the previously unthinkable.Irony pipeline: edgy sarcasm and memes trivialize harm and provide a shield against critique: justjoking.AI slop and deepfakes: endless reproduction dilutes meaning; deepfakes become an oppression tool (noted as overwhelmingly pornographic in surveys).Cute-wash: moe/anime aesthetics soften or trivialize violent or exclusionary messages, making friendly fascismliteral.Edgelord/incel iconography: dehumanizing caricatures and eugenic attractiveness metrics repackage hierarchy andcruelty.Oligarchic alignment: private firms and unelected elites increasingly steer policy; corporations enable the drift so long as profits are protected.Desensitization + cynicism: constant spectacle and ironic remixing create meaninglessness, eroding shame and consequences for fascist rhetoric.From The New Aesthetics of FascismFuturist quote glorifying war and scorning women, rooting todays style politics in earlier manifestos.Difficult to not see many convergence points with neo-mercantilism indeed. Although fascism is not an intrinsic feature of mercantile capitalism, its imperialist feature and allegiance politics (here mainly expressed through culture war as a means of control) make the perfect conditions for fascism togrow.From The New Aesthetics of Fascismexamples of AI cute-washing that normalises coercive state power and recast militarism as friendly orheroic.Also, the idea of a pervasive violence that comes with this new system is very well encapsulated in this sentence:nothing is obsceneanymore.This new aesthetic, facilitated by AI, is about making the violence acceptable, the obscene beautiful, and the absurd funny or sarcastic. Because then, you wont do anything aboutit.This isfineMemes and AI generated images turn everything into irony, in a kind of meta-self-fulfilling realization of the now-famous illustration of a cartoon character sitting in a room on fire who tells the audience, This is fine. Except here the character knows they are in an illustration, as an allegory to inaction in times of crisis, but diverted and subdued from its original meaning. In a cynical way, the scene becomes, then, purely performative: it has become the very thing it was denouncing.From The New Aesthetics of Fascismspectacle used to launderpolicy.If climate change adds ecological, social, and economic pressure, it is turned not into a force for change (as many hoped at some point) but into another form of controlwhether it is believed to be real or not isnt even remotely thepoint.Nothing escapes the cultural reappropiation of this new engine: solarpunk and Afrofuturism have been subdued and repurposed to serve ethnic exclusionism, eugenist exceptionalism, and social hierarchies. Corporate minimalism signals purity. Christian symbolism, echoing neo-Christian nationalism and fundamentalism, has replaced Nazi mysticism.From The New Aesthetics of Fascismmanosphere iconography normalizing hierarchy.Beyond the very finitude of our world, exemplified by the effects of climate change, the system behind this aesthetic is, itself, finite. Much like the architecture of fascist regimes of the 1930s, there is an order, a hierarchy, and the intent to find perfection through its minimalist completeness (purity). Its made to erase any sense of personality and diversity. It is huge and yet enclosed. Furthermore, it projects the grandeur of the nation while being inhuman to itsvisitor.Examples of Nazi architectureauthoritarian grandeur as closed, finite aesthetics, and classical scale as a tool ofpower.Why should designers care?This new fascism does not only live in images; it lives in decisions. It lives in roadmaps, risk registers, taxonomies, policy playbooks, moderation criteria, brand charters, data schemas, model prompts, vendor contracts, and KPIs. These are design artifacts. They decide what is visible, sayable, and countable before any interface is drawn. Designers operate inside this assemblage. We convene the workshops, write the definitions, choose the thresholds, and specify the workflows that become everyday governance. Because aesthetics is the materialization of these choices under political constraint, the look is not separable from the order that produced it. The friendly tone is an artifact of process, not justtaste.The likely impact is a rotation of purpose. Where liberal practice prized optionality and consent, briefs will increasingly ask for stability, risk containment, and allegiance. Decision artifacts will be evaluated by their throughput and their capacity to suppress volatility. Designers will be pulled into culture-war administration: incident playbooks, trust and safety roll-ups, and brand suitability rules that quietly redefine who may speak and on what terms. Metrics will follow. Fewer teams will be rewarded for enabling criticism or organizing; more will be rewarded for reducing appeal rates and moving enforcement faster. The professions autonomy will narrow as state-platform blocs set the frame and as procurement translates political priorities into non-negotiable requirements. Aesthetic conventions will harden around this: streamlined authority, hygienic calm, the absence of trace or conflict. It will feel professional. It will also be political.Counter-strategy begins where decisions begin. Treat every key artifact as a site of resistance. In policy and taxonomy, name harms and externalities explicitly; make provenance, ownership, funding, and edit history first-class fields. Use aesthetics to witness rather than to launder: show cost, labor, and risk at the level of the artifact.The Trioptic design approach follows from this: socially, return people from spectatorship to participation by designing recourse and assembly into the system; aesthetically, break the spell by materializing what the order tries to hide; politically, write enforceable rights into specifications so that power meets constraints upstream.New Space, Anti-science, and AstrocapitalismFinally, this is the last piece of the puzzle. In this interview, Arnaud Saint-Martin, a French sociologist of sciences specializing in the space domain, discusses the notion of astrocapitalism he developed in his recent book Les astrocapitalistes: Conqurir, coloniser, exploiter (Astrocapitalists: Conquer, colonize, exploit).Les astrocapitalistesThe reason I connect Astrocapitalism with our discussion is because it is the extension of platform capitalism and company-state power (mercantile capitalism) into orbital space: private mega-constellations and launch providers, aligned with national projects, enclose orbital commons, privatize gains, socialize risks, and normalize minimal regulation through seductive New Spacevisions.Its relevant key signals/components discussed during the interview are:Vision work as ideology. Futures are framed as desirable and inevitable; New Space functions as a political project, not just tech progress.State firm fusion. Start-up rhetoric transforms the state; governments adopt the New Space lexicon and build national champions.Orbital enclosure & massification. Mega-constellations (e.g., Starlink) crowd orbits and frequencies; a Fordism in space logic scalesrapidly.Platformization in orbit. Closed user-bases, lock-in, and sovereign constellations (Starlink/Kuiper/Guowang; EU IRIS) mirror platform capitalisms walledgardens.Regulatory minimalism. Talk of space traffic management often displaces stronger planning/limits; current rules leave externalities unpriced.Privatize gains, socialize risks. Publics carry debris, spectrum, security, and environmental burdens; firms capturerents.Hegemonic geopolitics. U.S. leadership is staged as get in line at venues like the IAC; space power is openly strategic.European mimicry + sovereign cloud/space. Large data-center and sovereign infrastructure pushes reveal energy/water/material loads and securitytheater.ConclusionIt is important to recognize what is happening, this reorganization of power, and take a step back from narrow discussions that may give the illusion that these changes and how they unfold are about technical or alignment challenges to be solved. However, we should not focus only on the negative impacts and ramifications of this transition.The three theses are, in fact, three angles on the same movement. Liberal competition yields to mercantile blocs that secure chokepoints and allegiance. The obscene is normalized by an aesthetic that folds cruelty into paperwork, humor, and spectacle until nothing bites. The frontier shifts upward into orbit, where platforms and states co-manage enclosure. None of this sits outside design. It is organized through design. Aesthetics is the materialization of decisions under political constraint. The message cannot be separated from the space that producedit.There are opportunities: the transition does not only remove, it also reveals where to intervene and with whom. It reminds us that designers are makers, and makers do not have to exist only by serving someone elses power, money, or agenda. The artifacts we make are set conditions for others; they are means forchange.There is another route that matters, and it belongs to culture. Artifacts of fascist regimes present themselves as total. They project grandeur yet are closed and finite: their power is to exhaust the imagination of difference. Designers can counter by making room for plurality by adding diversity and ambiguity on purpose, not as noise but as a practice.The twentieth-century lesson from music and art is useful here: scenes in the seventies, eighties, and nineties grew by selecting, curating, sampling, decomposing, and recomposing. They created meaning by recombination and citation rather than by a single heroic line. Similarly, we can compose systems that are forkable, repairable, and open to local authorship. We can create patterns that permit remix, rather than forbid it, that curate dissent inside the work so that difference is not an afterthought but a condition ofuse.The conclusion is not that design should save the world. It is smaller and harder. Design should accept that it already governs parts of it. If that is true, our task is to make that governance legible, contestable, and open to correction. To make alternatives when the market offers only enclosure. The future will be designed all the same: the choice is whether we design it as if people and worlds will have to live inside it, and whether we leave enough opportunities for others to participate and make it theirown.Thanks forreading!Kevin from Design & Critical Thinking.The future of design in a transitioning economy was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Weekly curated resources for designersthinkers andmakers.The main thing Ive realized after talking with dozens of designers in 2025 is that design cant be a cost center and hope to survive. In an uncertain economy, many organizations are looking to reduce costs. If youre seen as nothing but a cost with little benefit, your team may be on the choppingblock.So if executive whims are throwing you around, dont just learn to follow orders or question them to the point of being seen as a roadblock. Learn to get executives to realize that what theyre proposing is a bad idea on theirown.How do you deal with an executive demanding features? By KaiWongThe easiest feedback tool for UX teams & designers [Sponsored] Tired of chasing screenshots, Slack threads, and vague emails? With Pastel, clients leave all their feedback in one place, no login required. Loved by 10,000+ creatives including teams at Calendly, Dropbox Bentobox andmore.Editor picksWhy good UX isnt enough Lessons from the internal combustion engine.By JonDaielloGenerative AIs dehumanization problem The defects of traditional media, on steroids.By NeelDozomeAI + the age of choice Less noise and more quality.By Chris RBeckerThe UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about theirwork.Dicing an onion the mathematically optimal wayMake methinkWe must build AI for people; not to be a person AI companions are a completely new category, and we urgently need to start talking about the guardrails we put in place to protect people and ensure this amazing technology can do its job of delivering immense value to the world. Im fixated on building the most useful and supportive AI companion imaginable.Vibe coding and the illusion of progress While artificial intelligence has revolutionized how we write code, it hasnt touched the fundamental human work of discovering genuine user needs, validating solutions through real-world testing, and adapting products based on market feedback. This distinction matters now more than ever, as AI-powered development tools create a dangerous illusion of progress that threatens the very foundation of successful product building.Easy will always trump simple Simple and easy arent inherently in conflict, but are instead orthogonal. Simple is an absolute concept, and easy is relative to what the software designer alreadyknows.Little gems thisweekWhat GPT-5 could have learned from Apples headphone jack By YoujinNamFrom skim to substance: designing the future of reading By Wira IndraKusumaWhats human agency, anyway? By Helena MathiesenTools and resourcesAI in UX research What to automate, augment, or keep in human hands.By JuheeDubeyDesigning how AI thinks A scrappy guide to prototyping conversational AI.By MikeWaszazakDesign beyond sight How to make your product work with screen readers.By Gabriella ChuffiSupport the newsletterIf you find our content helpful, heres how you can supportus:Check out this weeks sponsor to support their worktooForward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribeSponsor aneditionDealing with feature requests, AIs dehumanization problem, AI in UX research was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We often shy away from showing our soft side at work. But what if thats our biggest strength.Heart in brackets.We can measure our success in many ways. Picking supportive metrics is a big part of a UX designers job, so my idea to check how my team was doing wasnt anything spectacularly unusual.We approached it from multiple angles: collaborating with colleagues from development teams, conducting research with directors and managers (the one shelf up approach), engaging with clients, and providing 360-degree feedback for every team member. I wanted to know how we were seen as a team, as smaller project sub-teams, and as individual people.It was also the time when we were preparing a big presentation summing up what wed done so far, the scope of our skills, and the directions for our teams growth. A team we proudly called DesignQueens.I remember the moment. It was the end of the workday. I was going through the slides the girls had prepared (specifically, Asia), and then right in front of my eyes it appearedand heartwritten in brackets, slipped into my job title: Urszula Kluz, Head (and Heart) of ProductDesign.And it wasnt the KPIs, it wasnt the certificates, it wasnt the survey results. Those two little words in brackets were, my friends, the best measure of my leadership I could everimagine.No dayIts been two, maybe three years since that moment. In the meantime, Ive changedjobs.It was a Friday. We were wrapping up two intense weeks of work, closing out the quarter for the whole organization. Lidija, the product lead I was working with, an absolute work titan, was crushing it in every meeting. I watched her craft with admiration.While everyone else was finishing their wrap-ups, I was tinkering away on a little side project: a proposal for a new feature for our product. I knew it was a bit of a subversive idea, so in the meantime, I had researched it, prototyped it, and even discussed implementation with the developers.Proud as a peacock, I peeked into Lidijas calendar. A half-hour slot. I write: Lidija, Ive got a great idea Id love to tell you about; perfect topic to end a heavy week and step into the weekend with asmile.And she replies: Ula, todays my No Day. How aboutMonday?No Day. And thats when my admiration turned intorespect.Her self-awareness (of herself, of our relationship, of me, of the product) was unique. She knew her current state could affect not only a design decision but also the motivation of a team member and she could manage that consciously. Most importantly, she was honest with herself and withme.So, my friends: if these two stories have struck a chord with your curiosity and youd like to know a bit more, readon.Just please, dont treat this as a complete leadership guide; thats not even what Im aiming for here. Think of it more as the account of someone whos been there, and with time is now collecting and making sense of her own experiences.Because yes, you can. You can be the change you want to see in theworld*.Tender and a bit mischievousBefore I built (or maybe its more accurate to say: we built) my dream team, I had already worked as a co-editor of a magazine, a curator of group exhibitions, and the head of my own graphic designstudio.And while my work in all those different fields brought more or less spectacular successes (always delivered with flying colors), I would walk away feeling lonely and physically drained.So when Micha came to me and said: Ula, what you do, your approach, is brilliant. We need to build you a team, I didnt feel like it was a compliment or some big career promotion. Instead, I got chills thinking about sleepless nights and doing all the work for and instead ofothers.Luckily, I had enough courage and curiosity to approach building a team differently this time. And no, I didnt know how to do it. I only knew one thing: it had to be different in every possibleway.And that it wouldnt be comfortable forme.Different frommeThe time came for my first recruitment. I went through all the CVs myself and invited about a dozen people for interviews. Patrycja was my last interviewee thatday.I asked her to tell me about her favorite project. She shared her screen and for a few seconds, I was staring at a perfect world: a spotless desktop, neatly structured folders, and file names (seriously, not a single new or final_v2 in sight). And in the design files, every layer, every component had a proper name, following a thoughtful namingscheme.At first, I could barely focus on what she was saying. I was so impressed by her orderliness.And what Im about to say is important:My first instinct was a voice full of insecurity: You cant hire her; shell expose your messiness. What will she think of you as aleader?My second instinct was a voice of reason: With her, you have a chance to getbetter.And then, for two hours (seriously!), Patrycja spoke passionately about her project, and I silently celebrated the thought of working together.And indeed, thanks to Patrycja, I developed this internal filter that, during later recruitments, helped me spot subtle hooks in CVs and create interview settings where a persons unique qualities couldshine.Thats exactly what happened in the last interview I ever conducted Or actuallyhehAgata conducted it with me:) Because for the entire hour, it was me (and the product owner) answering her questions: about our values and how we put them into practice, about the project and team structure, about the flow of running projects, roles, and responsibilities.This young woman, who thought of herself as a junior, with those mature questions, outpaced more than one senior in my eyes. By the end of the interview, I didnt need to ask her a single question. I knew I was talking to someone deeply self-aware.Building a team by cloning yourself might be easier than working with people who challenge your internal status quo. But its precisely those people who help you question your own assumptions and become better in directions youd never plan for yourself.In To Succeed Together, We Need to Value What Makes Us Different, Kim Scott explains how homogeneous teams often suppress individuality and innovation, arguing that true progress comes when we honor one anothers individuality rather than demanding conformity.Special opsunit.This strategy of seeking out the different one led us to build a team with a really wide range of skills. It meant we could match people to projects (and projects to people) in a way that met all sorts of demands. And of course, looking at the team and our hard skills, we aimed to grow so that all the key product design skills were covered, while still letting each of us specialise in our own path, and at the same time build a strong shared foundation.But Im not going to get into the hard skills here. Whats far more interesting is applying the different one principle to soft skills. Thats especially crucial if you see a designers role not just as a screen drawer, but as a partner who brings in data and represents the users point of view in strategic decisions.Lets be honest: in agency work, you rarely get clients with a deep understanding of UX. More often, the whole job of education and communication around UX lands squarely on the designers shoulders. Thats why a diverse team matters so muchit gives you the ability to match the right person to the right people (and here Im deliberately saying to people and not to the project, because its about the humans who runit).Heres how it worked forus:PatrycjaFearless PathfinderIncredibly independent, proactive, humble, and brave. After just two years on the job, she could run complex projects on her own and stand as an equal partner to ProductOwners.AgataRational ExplorerShe had research for everything. She could always back up her decisions rationally (right here, right now) even in stressful situations, because she had a huge reservoir of knowledge and knew exactly how to useit.AsiaWow Factor MavenShe could solve a visual problem in a matter of moments, leaving everyones jaws on the floor. She wasnt afraid to design live with the client and was irreplaceable whenever a true wow effect wasneeded.JustynaEmpathic PeacemakerHer smile and way of being could melt even the iciest hearts. You know the DunningKruger effect? Well, Justyna was a master at talking to that type of client who thought they knew something, and could work her magic so they actually ended up learning something.Pretty impressive, right?Tools that supportgrowthYou know, there are two kinds of pearls: the perfectly round ones that work great in a classic necklace, and the unique, baroque ones that need the right setting to truly shine. I had the latter. And the setting was: rhythm, structure, and strategy.RhythmRhythm is a pattern that gives you the comfort of predictability and automates processes, reducing the number of unknowns. Thanks to that, it creates safe conditions for growth and creativity. Its important for the team to discover its own rhythm and be able to modify it flexibly.Heres what it looked like for us (take it as an example, not a recipe): twice a week we had calls to share insights from projects. We often ran a dozen topics in parallel, so democratizing knowledge was a great development tool (for both the team and individual members). It was also a moment to solve ongoing problems before they turned into fires. Every now and then, such meetings turned into knowledge sharingexchanging thoughts after trainings, readings, or testing new knowledge.Activities covering a longer period or a larger number of events (e.g. a retrospective after implementing a new workshop formula) we organized as one- or two-day workshops in inspiring places. Sometimes that meant escaping a storm in the mountains, petting dogs, or floating on a lake on inflatable unicorns.The last element of this rhythm was knowledge exchange with other specializations (e.g. analysts or the Q&A team), thanks to which our solutions were consistent with the rest of the process and stayed in touch with the realities of delivery.Rhythm gave us daily fluidity, but on a larger scale, we also needed a clear team structure in the organization.StructureOur team structure looked something likethis:I was the first point of contact for other departments needing graphic support (marketing, sales, delivery), and at the same time I acted as a filter protecting the team from distractions, so that no one interrupted their work. Knowing the project roadmaps and each designers workload, I could efficiently coordinate priorities.But the most interesting element of this structure was the idea of having two designers in a project, even if the project was small. The first person acted as the lead for about 80% of the time, the second, as support for the remaining 20%.As you can probably guess, its not easy to convince managers and clients to involve two people instead of one in small projects. And thats where the third element comes in: strategy.StrategyStrategy is nothing more than understanding problems and needs, and finding solutions that benefit all parties, while being fully aware of the costs, in the longterm.Take, for example, the case of having two designers on a single project, even a small one, and lets look at what that meant for eachside.For the designers:Faster growthjuniors had someone to learn from, seniors built leadership skills. Exposure to a greater number of projects (even in smaller scopes) sped up experience building.Workflow fluidityit was easier to switch lanes between projects and step in where the need was greatest.Lifeand this is the most important point. When life happenedmigraine, heartbreak, or period painthere was always another person in the project who could take some of the load off your shoulders.Creative slumpseveryone has them. Theyre easier to handle when you can bounce ideas off someone who knows the context but brings fresheyes.For theclient:Peace of minddesigners often supported Product Owners, so their absence (vacation, illness) carried significant risk. A backup reduced that risk almost without extra financial cost.Faster, more effective deliverythe process was less likely to stall, and decisions could be made morequickly.For the organization:Practical standardization across projectsfrom project workflow to naming conventions inFigma.Competency mapreal, not wishful, which made career path planningeasier.Project stabilitywhich translated into financial stability for both designers and the organization.The cost? The discomfort of having to change the way youthink.All nice and shiny, right? Only how do you put it into life when a change in the organization seems big, not about financial costs, but about the discomfort of thinking and acting differently, and the organization itself has little UX awareness?You need to have a well-mapped set of stakeholders and know with whom and how to talk. Ill tell it on the example of my leader from a product company, Lidija, because what she did was puremastery.In our organization, user testing while creating software was not a standard. That really bothered me; we were working on a specialist application for a very specific professional group, I wanted to be sure it would be intuitive for them, and at the same time I couldnt look for users outside the company (the project was under NDA). So I asked Lidija forsupport.Her move was brilliant: she found in the organization people who not only had the required technical knowledge but could also become ambassadors of the testing as a standard approach. They were both managers of other products (hardware and software) and people actively engaged in company life outside the structures. This gave a chance that the topic would spreadfurther.She talked to them live (important!) and invited them to tests, so they could see with their own eyes that they can be simple, not time-consuming, and cheap. She also added a clear business argument: tests give functionality and usability based on real needs, not wishes. She warned about the cost: just half an hour once aquarter.The effect? Not only did she help us improve the product (and gave me peace of mind), but she also introduced a change that the whole organization could benefit from. Its exactly this acting beyond the usual patterns that gives it that mischievous character. Genius.TendernessAwareness, being present, and observing are one thing. Its only when you add actionor an intentional lack of actionthat tenderness happens.To me, its the most important trait of a leader, and it can show up in manyforms:Care. When Lidija first noticed Id slipped into my crazy mode (thats what she called it and, I have to admit, nailed it), she said: Ula, I can see youre rushing. Slow down. I dont want you to burn out. I think very few employees hear such genuinely caring words from an employer, leader, or client. And she managed to spot it even though wed only known each other for a few weeks, were almost 900 km apartand she still reacted with tenderness.Silent support. I wanted Patrycja and Asia to see what incredible designers they were in a bigger context. So I suggested they take part in the lska Rzecz competition (where, by the way, they succeeded). My goal was for them to see their exceptional abilities.Freedom to decide. Tenderness is also trust, allowing someone to make different decisions than I would have made myself. That goes for design choices as well as harder situations, like dealing with mobbing or defining your own careerpath.This kind of tenderness lets a leader go way beyond standard feedback tools. All the sandwiches and 360 feedback methods dont stand a chance against the feeling of truly being seen andheard.(I also love how Arvind Mehrotra frames it in How to Drive Better Outcomes with Compassionate Leadership: compassion is not just about empathy, but about concrete actions that boost both well-being and performance. Thats exactly the kind of tenderness Imean.)When a leader gives space and responds attentively, others start doing the same, first with each other, then with people outside the team. The result? A culture where you can openly talk about being overloaded, ask for help, or admit a mistake before it blowsup.Things thatconnectsDecide.Thank you.You nailedit.Do you needhelp?Why didnt it work? What did Imiss?I needhelp.I dont know, but Ill findout.Im sorry.Cost:Sometimes we work toward the organizations goals. Sometimes our own. Sometimes what your manager asks for, or the KPIs you agreed on together. And sometimessomething bigger. Something that goes beyond the project, the organization, even time and place. And then, losing ithurts.On the kitchen board, next to photos of my loved ones, hang notes from the girls. In my backpack, I still carry the Swiss army knife from Lidija. Its been years, I missthem.You could call it a cost. I call it agift.Because if you miss something, it means it was worthit.* from Gandhis Be the change you wish to see in theworld.** the DunningKruger effect is a cognitive bias where people with low expertise tend to overestimate their abilities, while those with greater knowledge often underestimate themselves because they understand the complexity of thesubject.Tender leadership with a bit of mischief was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thoughts on process, problems, and possibilities.Continue reading on UX Collective

Not all design happens inFigma.I love tools, especially if they make my work easier and more enjoyable. This article is about one such tool:Raycast.Its difficult to explain what Raycast is it does so much even though its UI is 99% text but I can confidently say that not being able to use Raycast would bother me more than not being able to useFigma.Rather than trying to explain it in abstract terms, Ive prepared a collection of real-world use cases that paint a clearer picture of why it's become so important to me and many other designers, developers, and product managers.Disclaimer: Raycast did not sponsor this guide, and there are no referral links. Im writing this out of my passion for design tools and workflows. In the future, I plan to write similar guides for Gmail, Slack, Notion, Linear, andothers.I use a Mac, but Raycast is also available for Windows, so check their website for the equivalent shortcuts and features.Ill start with the native extensions, which are available out of the box. Raycast also has an extensive open-source library of third-party extensions. I talk about those furtherdown.1. Window management1.1 CustompresetsRaycast lets you resize apps into custom positions and aspect ratios. Its handy when Im using an external display and I want to see my browser in the size of, for example, a MacBook Pro14.To create your own presets, open Raycast and type Create window management command (Itll show up way before you finish typing allthat).In my example, I used 1512 x 982 px to simulate the MBP. But you can use any resolution youneed.You can choose any resolution you want and precisely where in the screen its rendered.1.2 Cycle through tilingoptionsWhile Windows and finally, Mac both have window tiling and snapping, Raycast takes it to a whole newlevel.You can move windows around by just typing the initials of the size and position you want, for example, bls = bottom left sixth and trq = top right quarter As you probably guessed, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to eachone.Another neat thing is that for some options, if you press the shortcut again, it cycles between 1/3, 1/6, and back to 1/2. This helps me very quickly create the layout that Iwant.Windows tiling options with shortcuts.2. Clipboard historyRaycast keeps a history of everything you copy to your clipboard, which is super handy. But that history can get very long, so if you press +P, you can filter it to only show links, images, or evencolors!I use the links clipboard to manage the links to my sources when Im writing. I also find it handy to keep track of certain color codes when Im designing.Use casesQuick access to color codes copied recently.Keeping track of links for Linear projects, Figma, or Notionfiles.3. QuicklinksRaycasts quick links are like bookmarks, but they work everywhere and are muchfaster.Can you not use browser bookmarks? You could, but that means opening the bookmark in your browser and copying the link from the URL. The moment you open the browser, you risk being distracted by whats there. You also need more mental resources to do the app-switching and to visually find the bookmark.I also find searching for bookmarks by typing much easier, and youre not limited by the amount of space in your bookmarks bar.Use casesQuickly sharing a link to book ameeting.Sharing a link to your design system or other frequentfiles.Sharing a link to your portfolio orwebsite.4. RaycastnotesYou can launch a text file from any app to take quick notes. Theyve become my go-to way to take notes. In fact, this very article started as a Raycastnote.My favorite thing is that I can both open and close them with the same shortcut. I use +N, you can set it to whatever you prefer. And they support markdown as well as all sorts of common formatting options.Use casesTaking notes during user interview sessions.Capturing quick ideas during meetings.5. Appearance toggleLets you toggle between Light and Dark modes without having to go into System Settings. Simple but useful. I use it a lot when Im working with code to test how things look in bothmodes.Use casesTest how a product looks in Dark and LightmodesRest your weary eyes atnightYou can assign a keyboard shortcut to toggle your computers appearance evenfaster.6. Raycast AIpresetsIts only available on the paid version, but it gives you access to lots of models from a single chat interface. Its super easy to compare how each model responds to a prompt, for example. And thats just the beginning.While this is more of a general-purpose feature, its useful for designers as our effectiveness depends a lot on how well we communicate. From product decisions to project briefs, its hard to overstate the value ofwriting.6.1 AICommandsRaycast comes loaded with some useful prompts to help you work with your writing. Just type AI commands to search throughthem.6.2 AIPresetsIf the AI commands are not enough, you can create your own presets for prompts you use often. For example, Ridd from Dive Club uses it to mimic his writing style when hesstuck.https://medium.com/media/9134d1760719e887d70da7d699cf2480/hrefUse casesDraft product decisions, meeting notes, and projectstatusesVibe-codingExplaining what a certain piece of codedoes7. SnippetsSnippets are reusable chunks of text that you paste into any app. But whats even cooler about them is that you can use dynamic data that changes based on different things.For example, I have a snippet for the titles of my notes from customer conversations. It has 3 dynamicfields:{clipboard}Uses the text in my clipboard, which I use for the customers name.{date}Uses todaysdate{cursor}Places my cursor in the chosenpositionThe whole snippet looks likethis:Customer feedback from {clipboard} {date}:- {cursor}When I run it, it pastes the following output and places my cursor at the end of it so Im ready to starttyping:Customer feedback from Jennifer Hansen Aug 16, 2025:- It might sound intimidating at first, but once you create a few, youll start getting the hang ofit.Use casesPaste in todaysdateCurrent timeStatus updates in Slack channels or any other repetitive piece oftextProject updates templates8. Search screenshotsIts a gallery with all the screenshots youve taken, and whats more, you can search bytyping.I use screenshots a lot when doing a design audit of an app or to map out the current flow of a feature. And since it has OCR, I can search them by certain words has been incredibly useful.You can also press ++R to open the highlighted screenshot in theFinder.A hidden gem of this feature is that you can add custom folders to the scope of the gallery. Besides my screenshots folder, I also added my visual inspiration folder, which is where I store visually interesting things I find online or out in the realworld.Raycasts interface for visually searching through screenshots.Use casesQuickly reference recent screenshots.Browse specific imagefolders.Third-party extensionsThese are extensions created by the Raycast community. Theres an ever-growing universe of them, so I often check to see what I canfind.Heres a list of the ones Ive been using most frequently sofar.9. ColorpickerPretty basic here. It lets you pick a color from anywhere on your screen. You can assign a shortcut for easy access. I use+C.Use casesGrabbing a HEX color from any website, picture, orvideo.Converting HEX codes to virtually any other colorspace.10. Open a SlackchannelI use this at least 10 times a day. You can connect a Slack workspace to Raycast, and the extension lets you search for a channel and open it directly inSlack.The reason I love it so much is that I can go straight to where I need to read or write something and not get distracted by other unread discussions that would otherwise take me outflow.Use casesQuickly opening a DM with a colleague or a specific channel without being distracted by irrelevant, unread conversations.Jump straight into your list of unread messages.11. TailwindCSS ColorpickerIt lets me quickly search and copy the color code of any Tailwindcolor.Tailwinds comprehensive color library is very useful, not just when designing in Figma, but also when working in otherapps.Tailwind recently switched to the OKLCH color space, which Figma, as of writing, still doesnt fully support. So I relied a lot on this extension to set the equivalencies in our designsystem.Use casesUse Tailwind colors in any app without having to open theirwebsite.Tailwinds website now defaults to OKLCH, but with the extension, you can very easily get the HEX or RGB code of anycolor.12. Open a FigmafileSimilar to opening a channel in Slack, this extension lets you search for and open any Figma file from your workspace. It also shows a nice preview of eachfile.Use casesShare the link to a Figma file without having to openFigmaNavigate your Figma projects morequickly13. LinearA very powerful extension for those of you working withLinear.You can search, read, and create issues. You can also search for projects and open them directly fromRaycast.This extension has drastically reduced the number of times I go into Linear, which is great because I find their UI very distracting.Use casesSearch for and read the content of LinearissuesShare links toissuesSearch for projects and read theirissues14. GooglefontsLast but not least, this extension lets you browse the Google fonts catalog, pick variants, and download the files or copy the HTML code to import to your projects.To be honest, I find it way nicer than browsing Google Fontss website, especially if I already have an idea of which fonts Im going to gofor.Use casesQuickly browse the Google FontsscatalogCopy the import HTML code or download the font files to yourcomputerI have barely scratched the surface of what Raycast can do for your design workflow. I plan to go deeper into some of these features, as well as how they play with other tools like Figma, Slack, Notion, and Linear, in later articles.If you have any questions, feel free to drop a comment here or DM me on LinkedIn. Im always down to geek out with fellow designers.Further readingDeveloper productivity MichaelKuncioRidd from Dive Club shows his Raycast setupYouTubeRaycast for designers was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How the industry has shaped me to embrace data-driven design.Ive been working as an interaction designer and PM for years. When I first came to the US a decade ago, I wasnt sure how Id fit into the job market. I wasnt from here and didnt know the playbook. Through trial and error, I eventually found myself in the then-booming role of UX designera job that felt relatable, in demand, and easy to explain to others at thetime.Like many in the field, I leaned heavily into the mantra of data-driven design. Every choice had to be backed by numbers, validated by user tests, or confirmed by analytics. For a while, that approach was powerful. But Ive come to believe its no longer the true advantage of a designer. In fact, its becoming obsolete.Over the last decade, the digital product industry has centered itself on process: templates, frameworks, and ways to integrate design into business efficiently with data. But in doing so, designers, myself included, have slowly boxed ourselves in. Much of what designers produce todaystructured iterations, data-driven optimizationsare exactly the kinds of tasks that AI can do faster, or lower-cost labor can docheaper.My observations with data-driven designData-driven design is easily replicable, especially with AI. Its a great tool for an operator, but that has risked some designjobs.It flattens experiences. Optimizing for numbers alone converges toward sameness: endless scroll feeds, grid layouts, the samefunnels.Its reactive. Most available data reflects only the past. Leading indicators are often hard to identify or measure. As a result, we tend to focus on lagging data, making iterations reactive rather than inventive or preventive. When KPIs miss badly, debates over what to tweak can become paralyzing.The uncomfortable truth is this: by clinging to the data-driven process as our identity, weve made ourselves replaceable. You can see it in the job marketroles shrinking, tasks offloaded, design increasingly treated as a commodity.But Ive also noticed recent signs of a shift. After the euphoric rush of AI, some teams are realizing the limits of automation. AI improves productivity, yesbut when it comes to fine-tuning, to the subtle judgment calls that make an experience feel rightit falls flat. And thats exactly where designlives.Looking back at history, the pattern is clear: many of the most important products werent born from data at all, but from ambiguous, even irrational designchoices.Creative AmbiguityFeels right!iPods clickwheelThe click wheel was born less from data and more from a designers hunch about rhythm. Controlling thousands of songs with a tiny screen seemed impossibleuntil someone spun their thumb around a wheel and realized it could feel like scratching vinyl, a gesture with cadence and playfulness.Sometimes stupid things only seem stupid at first, but if you break through, it actually becomes smart.TonyFadellThe 3rd generation replaced the mechanical buttons with touch buttons, placing them in a separate location. The issue was that the wheel and the controls were no longer together, making the interaction less seamless. The 4th generation solved it by integrating the navigation and the control into a seamless single touch button. (Image source: KenSegall)Satisfying to see it working!Dysons transparent vacuumWhen James Dyson proposed a clear canister that displayed all the dirt being sucked up, designers told him: nobody wants to see their dust. Dyson flipped the logic: the visibility wasnt disgusting, it was satisfying.I persisted, because I found it really fascinating that you could see exactly what was happening I wouldnt have got that from researchId have gotten the exact opposite.JamesDysonThe DC01 vacuum cleaner, a bagless design, was inspired by how sawdust was removed from the air by large industrial cyclones at a local sawmill. Using clear plastic for the dust collector was a provocative choice, but it directly represented its functionshowing how the suction worked more effectively without the traditional use of a bag. (Image source: The Guardian)More living, more fluid!Snapchats ephemeral messagesOne of the defining traits of digital products is the effortless access to past content. Snapchat inverted that logic. Instead of permanence as the source of value, what if the value was in disappearance? Evan Spiegel described it as removing the pressure associated with permanence. The result was messaging that felt playful, intimate, and aliveless like an archive, more like a conversation. Most importantly, ephemerality nudged users to return frequently, knowing messages and stories would vanish if theydidnt.Snapchat isnt about capturing the traditional Kodak moment. Its about communicating with the full range of human emotionnot just what appears to be pretty or perfect.SpiegelBy 20152016, many users were already screenshotting snaps they wanted to keep or using third-party apps to save them. Snap saw this behavior and recognized people wanted a way to preserve certain moments rather than lose them forever, which lead to the release of Memories. (Image source: Gadgets360)The Emergence of the Walkman EffectSonyWalkmanSonys market research was clear: nobody wanted a tape player without a record button. Akio Morita, Sonys co-founder, ignored the data and pushed ahead with the Walkman (1979). He believed people didnt yet realize they wanted private, mobile music. He was right. The Walkman redefined how people consumed music, introducing the Walkman Effectgiving listeners control over their environment.The public does not know what is possible, but we do. Instead of doing a lot of market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public.AkioMoritaThe Walkman, designed to enhance the listening experience in public spaces, was initially released with two earphone jacks for sharing music, but the feature was later removed as it wasnt widely used. (Image source: Bibliore)Iconic and Abstract: Absolut Vodka Campaign(1980s)In the 1980s, Absolut Vodka took a bold approach to advertising. Instead of describing the vodkas taste or craftsmanship, the team fixated on the bottle itself and treated its silhouette as a cultural canvas. No focus group or market data suggested this would workit looked risky, even puzzling. Yet the playful, surreal representations of the bottleas a halo, a snow globe, a stageresonated, and more importantly, made people curious about this mysterious foreign-born vodka. The campaign became one of the longest-running and most recognizable in advertising history, proving that imagination and ambiguity could break through traditional advertising templates.Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.ScottAdamsAbsoluts advertisements initially sparked curiosity among American consumers, highlighting the mystique of this foreign brand. Over time, using the iconic bottle silhouette, the campaign incorporated more cultural references to stay relevant and engaging. Eventually, print ads reached their limits, and the campaign expanded into broader advertising channels. (Image source: ReferralCandy)Its about the positioningI apologize for titling the article Data-driven is deadI admit I wanted it to sound a little more controversial. In fact, I love working with data, and the examples I mentioned above also evolved based on consumer reactions. More importantly, they were fundamentally functional. But Ive also found that relying on it too much can narrow the scope of the conversation and doesnt always help steer the direction when were far off course. I simply think its somewhat outdated to present data-driven design as your core role. Yes, as a professional, you should pay attention to business performance and client behavior. However, we should also feel confident talking about feeling, intuition, and creative ambiguity. That positioning makes me feel more optimistic as a product designertoday.References:Tony Fadell tells us the story of the iPod-based iPhone prototype | TheVergeA Conversation with James Dyson In Three Parts | TheCore77SNAPCHATS FAILED EPHEMERALITY |AMODERNCaseThe Sony Walkman | Commoncog CaseLibraryData-driven is dead was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.