Comparing the outage experience of PSEG and Verizon Fios We recently had a storm that took out both power and Verizon Fios. The frustrating part was how well PSEG communicated and how disjointed Verizon was. The app and web did not sync, call centers had no idea what was happening, and the automated line...
Continue readingUX as an AI Model Differentiator
Spotify Why the next battleground for AI platforms isn’t raw intelligence — it’s how they feel to use. We are living through a moment of profound AI convergence. The underlying models — the transformers, the reasoning engines, the multimodal stacks — are rapidly reaching feature parity. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, and a wave of...
Continue readingUX in 2026: Less Design Theater, More Decision Architecture
Spotify UX in 2026 won’t look louder, flashier, or more futuristic.It will look quieter, sharper, and less noticeable. That’s not a downgrade.That’s maturity. The role of UX is shifting from crafting interfaces to shaping how decisions happen across systems, products, and organizations. The best UX in 2026 will feel invisible because it removes effort...
Continue readingThe Changes UX Has Made That Actually Improved the Product World
Spotify UX is often framed as polish. A layer of friendliness added at the end of product development. That framing misses the real story. The biggest contribution UX has made to the product world isn’t better interfaces.It’s better decisions. Over time, UX has quietly changed how products are conceived, built, and evaluated. Not perfectly....
Continue readingWhy UX Sometimes Fails Us
Spotify UX is supposed to make things clearer, easier, and more humane.So when an experience feels confusing, bloated, or frustrating, the instinct is to say UX failed. That’s only partly true. UX doesn’t usually fail because designers are careless or unskilled.It fails because the conditions around UX quietly undermine it. Most UX failure is...
Continue readingThe Most Annoying UX Component: The Dropdown Menu
Spotify Every product team uses dropdowns. Every design system includes them. Every developer can implement one in their sleep. And users hate them. The dropdown menu is the most overused, under-questioned component in UX. It creates friction in almost every context, yet teams cling to it because it feels neutral, familiar, and easy to...
Continue readingWhy Zillow Needs to Evolve: The UX Problem Hiding in Plain Sight
Spotify Zillow changed how people search for homes. It made real estate searchable, visual, and self-directed. But somewhere along the way, the experience stopped evolving. The problem is not the data. The problem is how the experience handles uncertainty, decision-making, and emotional context. Buying a home is one of the most emotionally and financially...
Continue readingDesign Intelligence: When Systems Start Designing Themselves
Spotify Design systems used to be rulebooks. Now, they’re becoming living organisms. With AI woven into the workflow, design systems are no longer just repositories of components and tokens. They’re active participants in the creative process. They observe, adapt, and learn from how teams design, what users respond to, and how products evolve. We’re...
Continue readingWith AI in Design, Now Is the Time to Make Sure Your Design System Is Amazing
Spotify AI isn’t replacing design systems, it’s amplifying them. As automation, generative tools, and intelligent assistants become embedded in the design process, your system’s quality now determines how well those tools perform. The stronger your foundation, the smarter your future workflows become. If AI is the new engine, your design system is the fuel....
Continue readingWhat Makes One Chief UX Officer Over Another? Experience, Luck, or Placement?
Spotify I’ve been watching the rise of young CXOs in the UX space, many with what appears to be minimal experience, and I keep asking myself: What really determines who becomes a Chief UX Officer over someone else? Is it years of practice, chance opportunities, networking, or being in the right place at the...
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