Designers: you need to read science fiction

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

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

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

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

Editor picks

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

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

The vibrant evolution: Microsoft’s colorful transformation →

Make me think

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

Little gems this week

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

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

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

Tools and resources

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

Support the newsletter

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

• Check out this week’s sponsor to support their work too
• Forward this email to a friend and invite them to subscribe
• Share open positions on our job board
• Sponsor an edition

The AI feature race, adapting to Figma UI3, advanced Figma tips & tricks was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.