Interactivity

Beyond The Black Box: Practical XAI For UX Practitioners

In my last piece, we established a foundational truth: for users to adopt and rely on AI, they must trust it. We talked about trust being a multifaceted construct, built on perceptions of an AI’s Ability, Benevolence, Integrity, and Predictability. But what happens when an AI, in its silent, algorithmic wisdom, makes a decision that leaves a user confused, frustrated, or even hurt? A mortgage application is denied, a favorite song is suddenly absent from a playlist, and a qualified resume is rej

The Death of Ownership in Web Design — and Everything Else

Ownership is quietly disappearing from every part of our digital lives. From Photoshop to Spotify, Kindle to Netflix, we’re trading permanence for convenience — and losing control in the process. Web designers felt it first, but now the subscription trap has swallowed everything from creativity to culture.

Silicon clay: how AI is reshaping UX design

What do the last five years of academic research tell us about how design is changing?AI is reshaping the UX practitioner. Photo by Elijah CrouchIt would be something of an understatement to say AI has impacted the world of UX design.But how, exactly, has it affected UX and its practitioners?The answer isn’t straightforward, as every new AI development is accompanied by social media hype, hot takes and flexing, as designers try to prove to the world — and possibly themselves — that they know wha

Designing (or not) for community

Is design standing in the way of me showing up in community?A screenshot from https://www.instagram.com/p/DPkNek0ke20/?hl=enI recently saw a post from The Nap Ministry that said:“Hey, here to say you don’t have to start a project, club, new invention or initiative as we focus on community, connection and the analog world. You can just hang out with your friends, say hello to your neighbor and spend more time offline.”The post struck a chord in me. I’m often the first to create a themed party or

Getting started with Lovable: the no-hype beginner tips to building with AI

AI for Non-TechiesI spent my first week diving headfirst down the Lovable rabbit hole while building my course for moonlearning.io for non-technies.Spoiler: I didn’t ship a unicorn before breakfast, but I did come out with a grounded beginner guide to get you started right.From the outside, Lovable looks almost too simple: type a prompt, boom, full-stack app.Inside? A whole different ecosystem nobody prepares you for.This first week taught me far more than I expected. No hype, no “SaaS in 10 min

The Subjectivity of Surveys

Hi, I’m Nikki. I run Drop In Research, where I help teams stop launching “meh” and start shipping what customers really need. I write about the conversations that change a roadmap, the questions that shake loose real insight, and the moves that get leadership leaning in. Bring me to your team.Paid subscribers get the power tools: the UXR Tools Bundle with a full year of four top platforms free, plus all my Substack content, and a bangin’ Slack community where you can ask

User Experience and Customer Experience - What’s the Difference?

At first glance the two terms appear to be identical don’t they? Our users are our customers and thus they’re the same thing. Except, of course, they’re not. So what’s the difference?What is User Experience (UX)?Author/Copyright holder: A-dit-ya. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY 2.0The user experience is product (or service) specific. It is the experience that a user (or customer) has when they interact with that product. We can measure the results of the user experience to some extent too. We

Is It Time to Rethink Human-Centered Design?

Human-centered design helped shape the modern web—but in today’s AI-driven, globally connected world, it’s time to expand the definition. The next era of design will need to balance empathy with ethics, systems, and sustainability. It’s not about replacing humans at the center—it’s about including more of what makes us human.

Designing for signals: how intent & instrumentation shape AI-powered experiences

As AI mirrors how we design and learn, our role evolves from creating interfaces to defining the signals that shape intelligent experiences.A quick note before we dive in. This essay continues the thinking I introduced in From design to direction: bridging product design and AI thinking. While it is not required reading, it might give helpful context as I build on some of the ideas from that earlier exploration. Do not worry, I will be here when you return.Illustration for how signals will be ke

What do Figma’s updates mean for Design Systems?

A shift towards token-first and AI-assisted systemsFigma releases updates at a pace that feels pretty overwhelming. A new feature drops, you learn about the feature, then integrate it into your workflow. But soon after, more features are released and your workflow feels outdated again…like it’s an endless enhancement cycle.For many designers, especially ones who manage large Design Systems, it’s hard to find time (and energy) to understand which features actually matter and how each Figma update

Why you need design maturity in a product organisation, and how to get it

An exploration of causes, costs and competitive advantages connected to design maturity in product organisationsHigh‑performing product organisations depend on maturity across all disciplines — design, product management, engineering, data, editorial, architecture. When one discipline is not being fully utilised, the whole organisation suffers, because maturity is systemic. But design maturity is sometimes misunderstood as a craft issue. Sometimes design is equated with usability. But true desig

UX/UI Tools vs. Design Principles: What Are Hiring Managers Eager to See in Your Portfolio?

Without your tool of choice, are you still a designer? UX/UI design tools are the conduits through which designers craft innovative, problem-solving solutions. Mastery of a design tool helps you work faster and build better designs. New features unlock new possibilities and allow you to push the boundaries of your creativity. Now, imagine your chosen tool vanishes from the face of the earth! This scenario may seem fictitious, but it can (and has) happened. The fantastic news is that it’s the des

Why is real-world ASR still ~85% when lab models claim >95%?

Curious to hear what approaches people are taking, what the bottlenecks are, and whether anyone here is pushing toward the goal of "AI that understands you, the first time."I've been diving into the gap between benchmark ASR performance and real-world speech. Models like Whisper and Deepgram show impressive >95% accuracy in ideal conditions. But in the wild — accents, noisy environments, emotional speech, code-switching, overlapping speakers — accuracy often drops sharply, ofte

How design leaders use OKRs to win user research budget

How to get your team to stop seeing user research as an expenseContinue reading on UX Collective »

Designing decisions: Behavioral psychology that moves users

Visual foundations are an art that must be mastered, but stable cognitive patterns, the ones widely used in design, marketing, and behavioral science, are a law that we need to follow.Image was generated by Nano Banana (Google Gemini)For us as designers, this means diving deeper into psychology and user cognition. For our users, applying these principles and laws translates into simpler, more intuitive interactions and a smoother overall experience.What may seem like ordinary observations or bes

Biophilic design is the wellness revolution happening all around us

Inside the movement rethinking the design of our cities, spaces and systems through the wonder of natureThe aerial view back towards Victoria Station (Credit: Ricardo Frantz, via Unsplash)As I step off the train at London’s Victoria Station and make my way through the concourse, I can’t help but feel part of something.Maybe I’ve been exclusively working from home for too long. Maybe it’s the separation from the human energy of urban centres. Or maybe it’s simply excitement for where I’m heading 

Unfit for uncertainty: Rethinking decision-making for missions

How outdated decision logics are undermining Labour’s ambitions for a mission-driven government.Image credit: Virpi OinonenGiven Labour won the last general election on the promise of national renewal and a mission-driven state with a “relentless focus on long-term ends” after years of crisis management — frustration is understandable. After the Budget this week, it feels as if political ambition has met the practical reality of sustaining long-term political direction inside institutions design

We are entering the era of thought-shaped software

We are in a transitional period: from the era of software shaped like household objects to the era of software shaped like thought.We have a big choice to make: we’re about to jump into a new era of technology — meaning different values, expectations and powers — and we need to choose what it looks like.*1 The transition itself is unavoidable, but the details are up to us. Today we must chose between a. a future where our software environment has a thought-shaped interface on top of all the old

Masonry: Things You Won’t Need A Library For Anymore

About 15 years ago, I was working at a company where we built apps for travel agents, airport workers, and airline companies. We also built our own in-house framework for UI components and single-page app capabilities.We had components for everything: fields, buttons, tabs, ranges, datatables, menus, datepickers, selects, and multiselects. We even had a div component. Our div component was great by the way, it allowed us to do rounded corners on all browsers, which, believe it or not, wasn't an

Facebook has made it impossible to delete Pages – dark patterns everywhere

I'm honestly shocked at how bad the current Facebook interface has become. I’m trying to delete a Page I own, and the platform basically makes it impossible. The options have moved or disappeared, the Page Settings menu leads to the wrong profile, Business Suite doesn’t show the Page, and the “Access and Control” section doesn’t list it at all.Facebook keeps bouncing me between: – personal profile settings – business portfolio settings – Meta Business Suite – classic Page UINone of them giv