Christian Lane Performs is up: the desktop concert from Leadership By Design 2026. Covers, originals, and stories from a career that runs from Loud Lucy on DGC and an Alanis Morissette tour to writing and producing in Chicago. Watch & Listen: chicagocamps.org/christian-la...

Somebody Meant This, the Leadership By Design 2026 conversation with Emily Haines Lloyd, is now up: twenty years of writing copy for brands, two tiny books, and the part she keeps for herself. Watch: chicagocamps.org/emily-haines...

Dan Saffer closed Leadership By Design 2026 with Six Futures, and the session is up. Apps don't have one future in an AI world, they have six, and a single product can occupy three or four at once. Watch: chicagocamps.org/dan-saffer-s...

Natalie M. Dunbar's Leadership By Design 2026 session is up: boundaries as architecture rather than barriers, and how to keep a UX practice healthy under constant demand. Watch: chicagocamps.org/natalie-m-du...

Jessica DeMartini's Leadership By Design 2026 session is up: a practical framework for integrating AI across the end-to-end design process, drawn from ongoing interviews with designers and managers. Watch: chicagocamps.org/jessica-dema...

Adam Cutler opened day two of Leadership By Design 2026, and the keynote is available for replay: what AI can produce, what it can't, and the judgment that picks between them. Watch: chicagocamps.org/adam-cutler-...

Anne Cantera's Leadership By Design 2026 keynote is up: the skills designers need when experiences move across chat, voice, screens, agents, and people. Watch: chicagocamps.org/anne-cantera...

Christian Crumlish's Leadership By Design 2026 session is up: a year of building an AI product-management assistant, the real failures, and why the human has to own the loop. Watch it: chicagocamps.org/christian-cr...

Guppy Ahluwalia's Leadership By Design 2026 session is up. Re-orgs, RIFs, and LLMs as tools in the operational toolkit, and a framework for scaling without headcount-heavy org charts. chicagocamps.org/guppy-ahluwa...

Caitlin Steele's opening keynote from Leadership By Design 2026 is up: Defensible Space. Design has the lowest manager ratings in tech. Her argument is that the conditions changed, not the people. chicagocamps.org/caitlin-steele-defensible-space/

Leadership By Design 2026 starts tomorrow. Still room! Eight sessions across two days, plus a conversation with Emily Haines Lloyd and a concert from Christian Lane. Free, or $26 if you have budget. 10a–3:30p Central, online. chicagocamps.org/event/leader...

Dan Saffer closes Leadership By Design 2026 with Six Futures. Remove all friction from an activity and you don't make it efficient, you hollow it out. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Natalie M. Dunbar at Leadership By Design 2026: The Business of Boundaries. A boundary isn't a barrier, it's a definition — this is the space where the work gets done well. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Adam Cutler at Leadership By Design 2026: What's Yours to Keep. An LLM is an intern with infinite confidence and stamina and no taste. Somebody still has to know good from almost good. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Anne Cantera closes day one of Leadership By Design 2026: The New Design Stack. Experiences move across chat, voice, screens, agents, people. Which modality and when, and that's the new skill. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Hilarious Tales of Failure — Christian Crumlish at Leadership By Design 2026. A year of building with AI: agents that confidently lied, a job that died silently. Not the highlight reel. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Guppy Ahluwalia at Leadership By Design 2026: Token Times. Re-orgs, RIFs, and LLMs are all in the operational toolkit now. Building lightweight practice instead of headcount. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26 if you have budget. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Opening Leadership By Design 2026: Caitlin Steele on Defensible Space. Design has the lowest manager ratings in tech. Her argument: the conditions changed, not the people. Sept 17 & 18, online. Free, or $26 if you have budget. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

The full Leadership By Design 2026 schedule is live — eight sessions across Sept 17 & 18, online, 10a–3:30p Central. Tickets are free. $26 if you've got budget, or Pay What You Can. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

Actively looking for full-time, remote Senior UX/Product Designer roles. Bonus points for healthcare, biotech, or ed-tech. Appreciate your support & connections. Thank you.💛 Portfolio: conniechen.design Support: • paypal.me/conniechiiiwa • venmo.com/u/conniechii... • buymeacoffee.com/conniechiiiwa

Connie Chen

Connie Chen | UX Designer + Mentor

conniechen.design

Leadership By Design 2026 — online, Sept 17 & 18, 10a Central. Eight design leaders on holding a practice together through layoffs, reorgs, and AI mandates. Free with a Need 1, Take 1 pass. $26 if you can pay. chicagocamps.org/event/leadership-by-design-2026/

So wait, we can’t call it the design “industry” any more? Some people really drink their own sauce and think it’s the fountain of… something. They’ll be back with a survey for you to fill out soon so they can report on it all.

Daily updates from the UX Industry & Community are cool, so we thought it’d be interesting to learn what the various patterns and signals are across UX in weeks, and in months. And then we did: patternsandsignals.com

Weekly Signal — July 13 – July 19, 2026 — Patterns and Signals

Industry writers argue for human oversight in AI workflows while the community reports that generic outputs are creating design debt.

patternsandsignals.com

We have a daily dose of industry and community updates - and we’re surely missing some great article feeds. If you’re sharing content, share with us so we can share you! Feedandthread.com

The Feed & The Thread

UX industry news and community discussions curated into a daily briefing with a podcast.

feedandthread.com

I'm running a free online 1 hour accessibility webinar in September! Catching accessibility issues in mockups is cheaper than fixing them in code. I'll cover how to check your mockups, documentation examples and you will get plenty of resources to help. 📅 Tue, Sept 1, 2026 · 19:00 CEST

Spotting Accessibility Issues Early — Online Workshops

Accessibility is not only a developer problem, it's team work! And many issues can already be spotted, prevented, and documented during the design phase. In this 1-hour webinar, Stephanie Walter will show designers and open-minded curious developers how to review mockups for common accessibility issues.

smashingconf.com

Still unemployed & it’s been hard catching up with finances. In need of help with rent, bills, & medications. If you can help financially or share this post, I’d really appreciate it. Thank you.💛 - paypal.me/conniechiiiwa - venmo.com/u/conniechii... - buymeacoffee.com/conniechiiiwa

Speaker proposals are open for UX Camp Summer 2026. Theme: Rebuild: Shipping Real Products In A Constantly Changing Stack First-time & experienced speakers are welcome with new talks, and existing talks ready for a new audience. Submit your proposal: chicagocamps.org/events/submi...

Call for speakers: UX Camp Summer 2026 is now accepting proposals. We welcome first-time speakers, experienced presenters, new talks, and existing talks that deserve a new audience. Submit here: chicagocamps.org/events/submi...

Replay is up: Billie Mandel + Jessica DeMartini — The AI Reality Check: Hype, Harm, and How UX Leads. A candid discussion on what’s newly possible, what deserves real concern, and how UX can lead with clarity through the noise. chicagocamps.org/billie-mande...

Replay is up: Niketa Jhaveri — Design Leadership in the Age of AI: Leading with Clarity, Courage, and Chaos-Taming. A practical session on leading through ambiguity, creating room for innovation, and keeping teams focused as priorities shift. chicagocamps.org/niketa-jhave...