The Feed & The Thread - January 17, 2026
This episode covers the benefits of chatbots expressing uncertainty and examines when tools mimic human interaction. It also previews future UX trends and highlights community discussions on graphic design employment, AI impact on creativity, and web design techniques. The podcast mentions UX Camp Winter, an online event scheduled for February 21st featuring presentations from industry experts.
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Show Notes
In This Episode
- The importance of chatbots admitting uncertainty in their responses
- Ethical considerations when designing AI with human-like qualities
- Analysis on how UX design is evolving and stabilizing by 2026
Articles Mentioned
- "The Case for the Uncertain AI: Why Chatbots Should Say ‘I’m Not Sure’" by Alexandre Tempel (UX Design.cc) - https://uxdesign.cc/the-case-for-the-uncertain-ai-why-chatbots-should-say-im-not-sure-8d8b4d2bab89?source=rss----138adf9c44c---4
- "When Tools Pretend to Be People" by Bora (UX Design.cc) - https://uxdesign.cc/when-tools-pretend-to-be-people-4283748d33e1?source=rss----138adf9c44c---4
- "State of UX 2026: Design Deeper to Differentiate" by Kate Moran, Raluca Budiu, Sarah Gibbons, The Experts at NN/g (Nielsen Norman Group) - https://www.nngroup.com/articles/state-of-ux-2026/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss-syndication
Community Discussions
- r/Design - Graphic Design Employment
- r/web_design - Video Dither / ASCII Effect Pro
- r/Design - AI Destroy My Passion and Desire to Design
- r/web_design - I Just Ported Kube's Liquid Glass Demo to Pure HTML/CSS/JS
- r/UXDesign - Conversational Interfaces in Agentic Systems: UX Strategy in the Development of AI Agents
Announcement
Chicago Camps is hosting UX Camp Winter on Saturday, February 21st. Get tickets at chicagocamps.org.
About Tent Talks
Chicago Camps hosts irregularly scheduled Tent Talks with people from all across the User Experience Design community, and beyond. Who really likes limits, anyway--If it's a cool idea, we'd love to hear about it and share it!
What is a Tent Talk? That's a great question, we'd love to tell you.
Tent Talks are short-form in nature, generally lasting from 10-20 minutes (ish) in a recorded format--we like to think of them as "S'mores-sized content" because that's pretty on-brand. Tent Talks can be a presentation on a topic, a live Q&A session about the work we do, or the work around the work we do, or really just about anything--we don't want to limit ourselves, or you.
You should send along an idea or topic of your own so we can learn from you, as well! You don't have to be a published author or a professional speaker on a circuit to be good at your job, so please, put yourself forward, and let's have some fun, talk, and share your experience with others!
About The Feed & The Thread
The Feed & The Thread is a daily summary of UX articles found in the industry and some light-touch updates from the UX Community found in online forums. It's brief, and meant as a light-touch overview of what's happening across UX.