Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.
“In the last week of February 2026, something unusual happened. A sitting US president took to social media to brand a private technology company a political threat. The Secretary of Defense designated that same company a supply chain risk, a classification previously reserved for foreign adversaries. And hours later, a rival AI lab swooped in and took the government contract that had just been refused.”
Product ethics have never mattered more →
By Dora Czerna
Introducing Mobbin for Animations →
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Editor picks
- The designer’s dilemma →
Made to create, learning to curate.
By Dora Czerna - The AI adoption theatre →
When innovation becomes performance.
By Marcos Rezende - Designing at the edge of AI harm →
A call to reclaim our practice.
By Kem-Laurin Lubin, Ph.D
The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.
Obys’ Design Books: showing design in ways the screen never could →
Make me think
- Nobody gets promoted for simplicity →
“I think there’s something quietly screwing up a lot of engineering teams. In interviews, in promotion packets, in design reviews: the engineer who overbuilds gets a compelling narrative, but the one who ships the simplest thing that works gets… nothing.” - A design turn →
“Designers are anxious. Layoffs have not let up, AI has seemingly trivialized our magic skill of making things, and practicing designers describe the assembly-style nature of software design as soul-crushing.” - Are AI productivity gains fueled by delivery pressure? →
“That gap between “looking done” and “being right” is exactly where the extra professional pressure begins to mount. This is really caused by the way we still measure knowledge worker productivity — by the sheer number of artifacts they produce, rather than the outcomes of the work.”
Little gems this week
You’re still designing for an architecture that no longer exists →
By Adrian Levy
The world’s cheapest compliment →
By Pedro A. Brêtas
When design teams get rid of writers, nobody wins →
By Nick DiLallo
Tools and resources
- User personas of consequence →
Using the ICF framework to improve your user personas.
By Chris R Becker - How to show value →
Want people to pay for your stuff?
By Rita Kind-Envy - Integrating UX into capacity planning →
How to take control of your workload.
By Jeremy Bird
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Product ethics, AI adoption theatre, an architecture that no longer exists was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.