Evolution of attention, 7 digital sins, improving Elden Ring, learning to code

“As designers, our observational skills set us apart from many other disciplines. Besides looking at direct competitors, it is our imagination to link two abstract concepts together that matter. As we think about our next big idea, perhaps visit the next nature reserve or local zoo for inspiration. You may come across a yellow canary or green owl.”

The evolution of attention →

It’s like having your customer on speed dial → [Sponsored] Dovetail’s magic search allows you to query everything your organization knows about the customer. Pull from interviews, usability testing, industry reports, and user feedback?—?and get an instant, shareable insight. Available on our professional package?—?but UX Collective subscribers can try it free for 30 days.

Editor picks

• Tech’s stock crash and the forgetting trick → Leaders often make claims their track record doesn’t support.
• The future is up for grabs when anyone can make designs → What AI-generated design means for creators.
• Unpacking the 7 deadly digital sins → If physicists have known sin, so too must our tech overlords.

The UX Collective is an independent design publication that elevates unheard design voices and helps designers think more critically about their work.

How Europeans think and feel about immigration →

Make me?think

• AI can strategically lie to humans. Are we in trouble? → “One is that, as a large language model, it may have simply been predicting the next word, and the lie is what popped out. Or it’s also possible that the AI has theory of mind: GPT-4 understood it was in its best interest to feign humanity to fool the contractor. To achieve its given goal of getting the CAPTCHA solved, deception was the optimal course.”
• In the age of AI, what makes people unique? → “Comforted by computers that tell us that they love us, we’ll forget what love is. Wowed by systems that seem to be creative, we’ll lose respect for actual human creativity?—?a struggle for self-expression that can involve a “painful” reimagining of the self. This forgetting process, she warns, has already begun: besotted with our technology, we seem almost eager to narrow our conception of what it means to be human.”
• Does screen time help or hinder creativity? → “As a writer, a quick ‘command-T’ gesture on the keyboard to distract myself with something other than work can become impulsive if I don’t check myself. With its innumerable perks and pitfalls, how do we engage with the benefits of our devices, without wasting precious time on addictive apps?”

Little gems this?week

Improving Elden Ring’s lock-on experience →

Rage clicks are microdoses of pure horror →

I tried Figma Slides; here’s what I’m missing →

Tools and resources

• Synthetic users → Is it possible to conduct user research… without users?
• Learning programming → How programming has made me into a stronger designer.
• Accelerating growth → Your environment can shape you into a versatile, business-savvy designer.

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