Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.

“AI is now omnipresent in our workflows, but it’s come at a cost: a sea of sameness. Lately, products have begun to look and feel homogeneous & indistinguishable, leading to diluted brands and increasingly sterile interactions. Big tech paves the way for others to follow; It’s time to stop settling for “good enough” and blindly following established conventions. Let’s continue to solve user problems and challenge the attitudes of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) through the use of craft.”

Escaping AI sludge: why MVPs should be delightful →
By James Skinner

Introducing Mobbin for Animations →
[Sponsored] The world’s largest mobile & web design reference library just got better. See how world class apps use motion to guide, delight, and create seamless experiences — now live on Mobbin.

Editor picks

When your best work gets tossed →
Why do we still lose every budget fight?
By Dolphia
How the tools we use change the products we design →
The medium is the message.
By Adir SL
Why you can’t fix your iPhone →
And how the entire tech industry learned to profit from it.
By Elvis Hsiao

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

Itshover: static icons feel dead now →

Make me think

The Moylan arrow: IA lessons for AI-powered experiences →
“The Moylan arrow is such an obviously useful idea that it was immediately implemented by Ford and widely adopted by other manufacturers. It’s also an excellent example of good information architecture — and one that provides important lessons as we navigate the AI age.”
Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper →
“Remember when coming up with a great idea was the easy part? Ideas were worthless. What was valuable was the commitment. The grit. The planning, the technical prowess, the unwavering ability to think night and day about a product, a problem space, incessantly obsessing, unsatisfied until you had some semblance of a working solution. It took hustle, brain power, studying, iteration, failures. LLMs have shattered this long-held truth into a million pieces.”
It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons →
“Fast forward to 2025. Apple releases macOS Tahoe. Main attraction? Adding unpleasant, distracting, illegible, messy, cluttered, confusing, frustrating icons (their words, not mine!) to every menu item.”

Little gems this week

UX in board game design →
By Jason Kogan

Beyond conversations: natural language as interaction influencer →
By Pratheep Kumar Chelladurai

The Apple-Sony special relationship →
By Neel Dozome

Tools and resources

Figma Make prompts, with real examples →
What actually goes into a good prompt.
By Lindsey Norberg
UX Research safety →
Post‑COVID user research needs a revised safeguarding plan.
By Dr Urvashi Sharma
UX Research in the age of LLMs →
Define quality, guide prompts, and shape the value of AI outputs.
By Connor Joyce

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Escaping AI sludge, Figma Make prompts, UX for board games was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Escaping AI sludge, Figma Make prompts, UX for board games

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