UX News
A look at what's going on in the field of user experience.
Designing for emotional dependence
, UX Collective - Medium
How tech companies like OpenAI are addressing emotional safety to make technology more humane.
Hoping for the long-term
, UX Collective - Medium
An interview with Alexander Rose.Image by Dave Hoffer. Inset is the little baby redwood tree I planted in my backyard.Time is money. Move fast and break things. Crunch time. We hear these idioms repeated, and to many, they become true. You can live your life by these sayings if you like.
I prefer:
The horrors of designing for omniscience
, UX Collective - Medium
What happens when systems decide the human is ‘all-knowing’Ever click a button and have a system misbehave with no warning, feedback, or a way to undo, only to feel the repercussions minutes or a few days later?This is what I’ve coined “Designing for Omniscience” (and the horrors thereof). It’s what happens when a system assumes the human on the other end is ‘all-knowing’ and proceeds in silence. This arrogance of finality can scar (or scare) and have real world consequences beyond the screen, and in some cases, can be catastrophic.
Many systems are accidentally designed to act with certainty. I’ll unpack the hidden ghosts of imperfection in interfaces we rely heavily on to handle our finances, ensure smooth healthcare transactions, make online purchases, and govern how we secure our homes and travel.
The paradox of tolerance
, UX Collective - Medium
Karl Popper and the extinction of the rational mindKarl PopperDisagreement feels like a loyalty test.
Even the way we ask questions has changed. We phrase them like traps and treat the answers as evidence. That hasn’t stopped us from talking about sensitive topics, but it’s made talking things out feel very performative.
Instagram’s Latest Update Shows What Good UX Communication Looks Like
, UX Planet - Medium
How transparency and timing turned a risky redesign into a smooth experienceInstagram’s latest navigation update isn’t just a feature change; it’s a lesson in how to communicate design changes without frustrating millions of users.
If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you know this isn’t how they used to do things. In the past, updates just appeared. You’d open the app one morning and the navigation bar was different, buttons were rearranged, and muscle memory went out the window.
Daily UX Writing Challenge: Day 1
, UX Planet - Medium
A UX writing exercise on crafting clear UI messages for travelers during unexpected flight cancellations.I signed up for the Daily UX Writing Challenge, a 15-day exercise to practice writing copy for various scenarios and interfaces.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing the challenges, my thought process, and the final UX writing for each challenge.
Intuitive Interfaces: What Actually Makes Them Clear
, UX Planet - Medium
Removing roadblocks on the user’s way to understanding your productPartners page for the JoyJam music platform by OutcrowdExpectation: Came, saw, conquered.
Reality: Logged in, got confused, left.
Interactive, Intelligent, and Integrated: The New Design System Paradigm
, UX Planet - Medium
Here is a fun teaser from Figma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozENeOTHVoFor years, we’ve preached the gospel of the design system as the “single source of truth.” We built libraries, evangelised tokens, and perfected our handoffs. However, despite all our efforts, the system often remained just that: a library. It was a meticulously organised collection of design assets that lived next to the real product, a reference file that designers owned and everyone else chased.
That paradigm is now obsolete.The 2025 announcements from Figma’s Config and Schema events signal a fundamental shift. The “single source of truth” is no longer a passive file we consult; it’s an active engine we build with. This new paradigm is built on three pillars: the system is now interactive, intelligent, and integrated.
A Report Card for the Net Promoter Score
, MeasuringU
Should you use the Net Promoter Score? Maybe, maybe not.
We’re not here to debate whether you should use it or not (and you may not have a choice). Instead, we want to use data (rather than opinions) to review and grade 13 claims made about the NPS, some from NPS critics and others from NPS proponents. At the end, we give a report card on how well these claims stand up against the evidence.
UX Practitioners’ Satisfaction with Pay Transparency
, MeasuringU
Is sharing pay information a good idea? What happens when companies share more about how they pay their people?
So-called pay transparency refers to company policies that encourage the sharing of compensation-related information, such as salary ranges, pay scales, and compensation structures. This information may be supplied to current employees, job candidates, or the public. If current trends continue, by 2026, about half of U.S. employees will work for companies that practice some degree of pay transparency.
