Teamwork and Leadership

UX is a team sport. To drive strategy and render our design decisions into products, we must bring others along with us.

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

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

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

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

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

Systems Thinking

Jun 28, 2025

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8 min read

Can Designers Avoid Meetings?

LLMs are not the first tool to promise that they can free us from having to talk to people so we can "focus on the work." But talking to people IS the work.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

Jun 8, 2025

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7 min read

The glue is the work

Tech orgs only function thanks to people who volunteer for thankless "glue work." This is the space where UX lives; for the field to get respect we need to make this work visible.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

The AI Hangover Era (The Everything App Part 3)

May 31, 2025

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12 min read

The AI Hangover Era (The Everything App Part 3)

Some leaders are starting to realize the extent to which AI has broken their ability to prioritize and ship value. Others are still doubling down.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

AI is not an assistant – it's your new boss (The Everything App part 2)

May 23, 2025

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10 min read

AI is not an assistant – it's your new boss (The Everything App part 2)

As managers continue to outsource data-gathering and decision-making to LLMs, the person above you on the org chart is transforming into a chatbot's clerk – and leaving product teams with the consequences.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

The Everything App is a symptom of Nothing Management (part 1)

May 18, 2025

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10 min read

The Everything App is a symptom of Nothing Management (part 1)

Leaders who surrender their point of view inevitably arrive at the same conclusion: we must solve every problem for every user. This approach demolishes the possibility of real impact.

Pavel Samsonov

LLMs

The AI job crisis is a crisis of groupthink

May 4, 2025

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10 min read

The AI job crisis is a crisis of groupthink

Unmoored from user needs as the driver for decision-making, executives increasingly perform innovation for their peers. Today, that means AI products and AI workflows – no matter the cost.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

If you're comfortable, your principles aren't working

Apr 27, 2025

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9 min read

If you're comfortable, your principles aren't working

Design principles are a tool for delegating and scaling the ability to say "no" to many good ideas, so that they can say "yes" to one great idea. If your principles aren't constraining these kinds of decisions, then they are not actually fit for purpose.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

Taste is a dead end; what you should have is a point of view

Apr 20, 2025

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10 min read

Taste is a dead end; what you should have is a point of view

By justifying decisions on the basis of taste, designers are throwing away the influence they need for preventing low-value feature bloat

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

Apr 11, 2025

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9 min read

Attack of the Template Ronin

Learning “best practices” by rote has produced a cohort of shallow generalists. Solving real-world challenges requires tailoring your methods to the problem's unique context.

Pavel Samsonov

Feedback Loops

Design without feedback is theater (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 4)

Apr 6, 2025

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8 min read

Design without feedback is theater (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 4)

The building blocks of feedback loops are learn, design, build – in that order. It's Design's job to create these loops, because no one else will do it for you.

Pavel Samsonov

Systems Thinking

Design is a leadership skill (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 3)

Mar 29, 2025

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8 min read

Design is a leadership skill (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 3)

A seat at the table is no good unless design is part of the strategy. To find the right place to apply leverage, designers need to embrace systems thinking.

Pavel Samsonov

Feedback Loops

Steering a design career (why design goes wrong and how to set it right, part 2)

Mar 23, 2025

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10 min read

Steering a design career (why design goes wrong and how to set it right, part 2)

The work of design starts long before you open Figma. We must first seek out – or create – conditions in which good design is even possible, by building our own relational power.

Pavel Samsonov

Teamwork and Leadership

The myth of "no design process"

When teams don't understand their own product

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

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

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

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

The people ARE the process

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

Skipping alignment leads to zero-impact UX

The aesthetics of success come at the cost of failure

Aura UX

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

Design struggles to be born

Can Designers Avoid Meetings?

The glue is the work

The AI Hangover Era (The Everything App Part 3)

AI is not an assistant – it's your new boss (The Everything App part 2)

The Everything App is a symptom of Nothing Management (part 1)

The AI job crisis is a crisis of groupthink

If you're comfortable, your principles aren't working

Taste is a dead end; what you should have is a point of view

Attack of the Template Ronin

Design without feedback is theater (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 4)

Design is a leadership skill (why design goes wrong and how to set it right part 3)

Steering a design career (why design goes wrong and how to set it right, part 2)

The Product Picnic