The Feed & The Thread - January 18, 2026
This episode covers the emergence of Authentic Experience (AuX) and the shift towards emotions as key features in design. It also discusses why chatbots should embrace uncertainty. Community highlights include discussions on UXDesign forums about corner radius trends and Intuit's web design standards, plus a look at new browser utilities replacing paid subscriptions. The podcast mentions UX Camp Winter, an online event on February 21st featuring presentations from industry experts.
Tent Talks by Chicago Camps · The Thread, The Feed
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Show Notes
In This Episode
- The emerging concept of Authentic Experience (AuX) and designing intelligence over interfaces
- Emotional design and why feelings are becoming key features in UX
- Why Instagram's ad breaks feel worse than regular ads
- Community discussions on mobile-first design, form field accessibility, and productivity tools
Articles Mentioned
- "The dawn of Authentic Experience (AuX)" by Darren Yeo (UX Design.cc)
- "Feelings are the new features" by Vadym Grin (UX Design.cc)
- "Why Instagram's ad breaks feel worse than ads" by Fabrizia Ausiello (UX Design.cc)
- Also mentioned: New pieces from Nielsen Norman Group, CSS-Tricks, and UX Planet
Community Discussions
- r/Design - Building a vector graphics viewer for mobile
- r/UserExperience - Replacing paid subscriptions with free browser utilities (2025 stack)
- r/web_design - No-excuses checklist for modern small business web design in 2026
- r/Design - Form field types and email field accessibility
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.