Pavel Samsonov

Problem designer. Sick of rectangles.

Problem Design

Your problem framing is sabotaging your strategy

Jan 18, 2026

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7 min read

Your problem framing is sabotaging your strategy

Skipping to designing the solution before you have adequately designed the problem is not speeding you up, but slowing you down.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

See what is happening, not what is supposed to happen

Jan 11, 2026

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11 min read

See what is happening, not what is supposed to happen

The stories we are telling around user research and LLMs have locked us into a doomed framing. Reject the very notion that it is "better than nothing."

Pavel Samsonov

Problem Design

Jan 4, 2026

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7 min read

Your metrics are an avoidance strategy

Being able to quantify outcomes doesn't make them meaningful. Moving past artificial metrics requires building shared intention with colleagues.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

Dec 26, 2025

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6 min read

Bouncing back from burnout

The causes of burnout are systemic. You can't get out of it just by trying harder.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

AI Fatigue VS the Executive Echo Chamber

Dec 20, 2025

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7 min read

AI Fatigue VS the Executive Echo Chamber

The backlash against "AI-in-everything" is rising. Only execs are surprised.

Pavel Samsonov

Feedback Loops

Dec 14, 2025

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9 min read

Stop doing UX cheerleading

Design is being hijacked to create legitimacy for bad ideas. We can do better.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

Dec 7, 2025

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9 min read

The myth of "no design process"

Process can add friction, but trying to get rid of friction by getting rid of process dooms design to irrelevance.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

When teams don't understand their own product

Nov 23, 2025

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7 min read

When teams don't understand their own product

A usable product starts with the conceptual model, but designers have "optimized" that work out of the profession. It's time to bring it back.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

Without UX governance, your app turns to "sludge"

Nov 15, 2025

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7 min read

Without UX governance, your app turns to "sludge"

Break out of the feature delivery mindset and attend to the architecture and maintenance of the product.

Pavel Samsonov

Problem Design

Nov 9, 2025

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6 min read

This meeting could have been a picnic

Well-designed meetings are just as important to our work as well-designed artifacts.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

Amazon's layoffs are driven by something even stupider than AI

Nov 2, 2025

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8 min read

Amazon's layoffs are driven by something even stupider than AI

Andy Jassy wants you to think that velocity can make up for lack of strategy. But "build, measure, learn" only works if you're willing to learn.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

The social lives of ideas (Don't Just Do Things, Part 3)

Oct 27, 2025

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6 min read

The social lives of ideas (Don't Just Do Things, Part 3)

No amount of outputs will help maintain unbroken intent all the way through to delivery.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

All your problems are people problems (Don't Just Do Things, Part 2)

Oct 19, 2025

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7 min read

All your problems are people problems (Don't Just Do Things, Part 2)

If you want to do strategy, you must be willing to do process transformation first.

Pavel Samsonov

Problem Design

"Just doing things" is not a path to value (Don't Just Do Things, Part 1)

Oct 12, 2025

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7 min read

"Just doing things" is not a path to value (Don't Just Do Things, Part 1)

Action for the sake of action feels good, but the path of least resistance leads you to surrender your own agency.

Pavel Samsonov

User Agency

Oct 5, 2025

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6 min read

UX so bad that it's illegal

Big tech is divesting from user-centered design, and getting into hot water with the law.

Pavel Samsonov

Feedback Loops

"Workslop" was the logical outcome of productivity maxxing

Sep 27, 2025

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7 min read

"Workslop" was the logical outcome of productivity maxxing

Local throughput optimization always externalizes costs onto downstream colleagues.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

Sep 21, 2025

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8 min read

The people ARE the process

Cutting down on collaboration tricks you into thinking you're going faster, but it destroys the divergence effects that make the design process valuable.

Pavel Samsonov

Metrics and Data

Research is a leadership skill; don't cede it to AI

Sep 12, 2025

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9 min read

Research is a leadership skill; don't cede it to AI

The role of UX is not only to change the behaviors of users, but also to influence the behaviors of stakeholders. Adding AI tools to this process only undermines alignment.

Pavel Samsonov

Problem Design

Skipping alignment leads to zero-impact UX

Sep 7, 2025

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9 min read

Skipping alignment leads to zero-impact UX

Deliverable artifacts are only a small part of the social system that product development entails. Any "productivity" gained by ignoring that system is an illusion.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

The aesthetics of success come at the cost of failure

Aug 31, 2025

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7 min read

The aesthetics of success come at the cost of failure

It's easy to get a seat at the table. Just agree to become part of the problem.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

"Human in the loop" is a thought-terminating cliche

Aug 24, 2025

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10 min read

"Human in the loop" is a thought-terminating cliche

Without thoughtful guard rails, asking people to clean up after machines doesn't make machines better — it makes people worse.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

Aug 17, 2025

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8 min read

Aura UX

Shortcuts to establishing the legitimacy of design sabotage your ability to achieve anything meaningful.

Pavel Samsonov

Metrics and Data

The ROI of UX is so massive that no one will believe you

Aug 10, 2025

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7 min read

The ROI of UX is so massive that no one will believe you

User research makes the most difference when findings challenge closely-held assumptions. But the truth is often unpopular.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

Aug 1, 2025

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10 min read

The AI age is the "age of no consent"

"Inevitability" means design decisions are no longer informed by user needs; now they are unilaterally imposed. The users are the ones being designed.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

Jul 27, 2025

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7 min read

Design struggles to be born

The golden age of UX is over. But the momentum that it brought is not yet extinguished, and a new generation of design leaders is seizing it.

Pavel Samsonov