Over the years the most common designer complaint has always been "No one listens" and "UX isn't a priority/understood", so I want to throw something controversial out there:
Some of this is our doing.
A quick(ish) thread on why and how to fix it š§µ
#uxdesign#design#ux
Coinbase is now testing 1 person teams + AI agents and announced laying off 700 employees.
Other companies doing this (layoffs + AI):
1. Shopify: No new headcount unless you prove AI canāt do the job.
2. Block: Cutting ~4,000 roles (~40%); Dorsey says AI lets much smaller teams do more.
3. Klarna: Its AI assistant now does work equivalent to about 700 support roles.
4. Duolingo: Went āAIāfirst,ā telling teams to rebuild workflows around AI before hiring.
5. Salesforce: Paused new engineering hires after AI tools boosted dev productivity ~30%.
6. Amazon: Cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs this year in an efficiency/automation push.
7. Meta: Cutting ~10% of staff and freezing thousands of open roles as it doubles down on AI.
882 jobs per day disappearing in tech. This is the pace right now.
And I think that's going to accelerate and move beyond tech.
My POV:
Every single one of these companies is telling you the same thing: one person with AI can do what used to take a team.
They're literally saying it with their org charts.
If you're employed, build a 1 person team on the side.
If you're laid off, build one today. The tools that made your role redundant are the same tools that let you build your own company.
The biggest wave of new startups is going to come from people who got restructured out of exactly these announcements.
Nigeria generates less than 4,000 megawatts for 200 million people. South Africa generates 58,000 for 60 million. Ghana has 86% of its people on the grid. Nigeria has 85 million citizens who have never seen NEPA light in their lives.
The grid collapsed twice in January alone. Generation dropped from 4,000 megawatts to zero. Not low. Zero. All 23 power plants. All 11 distribution companies. Total darkness in the middle of the afternoon. Four days later it happened again.
Meanwhile Nigerians spend an estimated 16 trillion naira a year fueling generators. And the same government that cannot keep your lights on spent 17 billion naira to install solar panels at Aso Rock so the Presidential Villa can disconnect from the national grid entirely by March 2026. The President of Nigeria is leaving the grid. The same grid he is telling you to trust.
So when someone tells you to just buy solar, remember that a basic setup starts at 500,000 naira and the minimum wage is 70,000. The problem was never solar versus generator. The problem is a country with 13,000 megawatts of installed capacity that cannot deliver 5,000 on its best day because the people in charge already have light in their own house and have no reason to fix yours.
Woke up this morning thinking about the quality of life Iām living in this country, literally all my life Iāve been conditioned to live this way, this isnāt the life meant for me as Nigerian.
In the last 48 hrs Iāve not had light for close to 2hrs, dawg this isnāt life⦠me and my flatmates been burning money on fuel, itās crazy, canāt cook cos thereās no light to even store the food.
I have been house hunting since September and all I have been seeing is stupid houses with ridiculous prices, no way Iām going to be paying millions of naira on bare minimum apartments.
Jesus Christ, one of my friends wey japa go UK for January him qualify of life don change, you donāt even need to tell me I can see it from his IG stories, Iām here shirtless while typing this stupid tweet blowing myself with my shirt cos heat wan kill me.
Today Iāll go to work and come back and meet no light still and think of buying fuel for another 900 naira per liter, do you know how insane that is, my dad already had me at this age and already building his own house.
Fuck Nigeria mehn, Iām not the type to crash out but I woke up thinking about the quality of life Iām living and itās so fucking sad. Fuck all of you involved in this shit hole of a county, I fucking hate you all. Fuck APC too, Fuck me & Fuck U too cos we are way too scared to demand a better life for us and for our unborn kids.
Iām not asking for too much just the basic things dawg, the fucking basic things to live a comfortable life, why canāt my own country government give me that, do I have to Japa, how many people fit japa. We really gotta make things work mehn cos this country is damaged.
āWhen anyone reports discrimination in football, or anywhere, the first priority is that they are listened to and feel supported. Focusing on Vinicius ā¦.is a form of gaslighting.. This approach not only harms the individual affected ⦠ā
Wonderful words by @kickitout
This is embarrassing. You set the mob in motion for an obvious lie that takes too little to verify. And it is still up in spite of several other tweets showing you're wrong.
nothing is as beautiful as seeing someone who has been unlucky with quite a lot of good things of life finally getting it, and not just getting it but getting it bountifully. i pray this is you soon.
I always feel a wave of guilt after tweeting things like this because once I hit send, Iām reminded that talking alone doesnāt change much. There has to be more we can do. If you have any links for how to donate to the families affected, please share them.
https://t.co/Mfl6qlGIRG
Here is my process;
I designed two screens and asked ChatGPT to critique both by identifying their weaknesses. Only after that do I ask it to pick a preferred design and explain why. I never reverse this order, as it ensures a fair and objective evaluation based on accessibility, audience relevance, visual appeal, and business goals. This method removes flattery from the equation and consistently surfaces insights I may not have considered on my own. This is how you decouple criticism from ownership.
I scale this method when comparing reference designs to my own, without revealing which one is mine. This forces the tool to evaluate each option without bias. Once a preference is chosen, I then share context and ask it not to justify (this part is important), but to investigate my design choices through that lens. The goal isnāt validation, but reflection: what would it do differently now that the constraints are clear?
I also rely on ChatGPT for writing (high-stakes) UI copy, especially in moments that require precision; modals, banners, warnings, nudges, and key disclosures. Itās been a huge relief and time-saver. The quality of writing in these areas has consistently been clear, purposeful, and well-structured. Elaborate or succinct, as the case may be.
When it comes to user flows (I wonāt go into too much detail, my employer is active on this appš ), ChatGPT has helped me strip out unnecessary steps and introduce meaningful friction and strategic complexity (as we deal with people's money) where it matters. Itās been a valuable partner in simplifying interactions while still preserving user intent and control.
While I donāt fully trust its visual judgment, and neither should you, I deeply value its reasoning and UX thinking. Its ability to challenge assumptions and support design logic is unmatched, and thatās what makes it so indispensable to my process.
Addendum:
You must know HOW to ask the right questions so you can filter out sycophancy. If you don't know the "how", you will keep getting blind validation from this mighty complex autocomplete machine. The how is what shows a meta-awareness of how prompt framing influences AI (or human) responses.
Everyone thinks they're a good designer. So if everyone is good, then you need to be great to stand out. Being great is more than just able to create visuals and solutions. That's only half of it.
You need so many more things here are just a few.
You need: Knowledge, wisdom, trust, speed, work ethic, attitude, will, determination, taste, eye, creativeness, reputation, respect, character, gratitudeā¦plus understands graphic design, spacing, typography and yes, know how to actually do the job you're trying to get.
Notice didnāt say follower count or engagement stats. Stop wasting your time with those vanity metrics. If everyone has 10K followers, who actually has 10K followers? I'd rather have clients paying 10K.
Now you might be thinking? Hey I have all those things and should be getting work. Most saying that don't. You still only have decent work, not good yet. And you still need to pass through the good phase to become great where you're endless booked. This isn't a bad thing stop thinking it is. You don't magically become great after a handful of years of creating basic designs.
And just to be clear, even the greatest designers aren't always booked. We all have our cycles. I often went 2-3 months every year without work. Those were the best times because I knew they were coming and I used those times to do fun things wether time off or building new ideas. It's how Epicurrence was born.
The great designers don't complain about the lulls, they embrace them. They take the time to go after their dream clients or projects, not just the ones that reach out.
You also need to know when to pivot. 2-3 times out of my 20 year freelance career, I knew the patterns of when lulls happened and a few times I just went full-time for companies for a bit. Still freelanced on the side because that was always the goal. When my job was done full-time, I'd go back to freelance.
You're going to have long careers. I'm 20+ years in and have seen this industry change drastically constantly. You're chasing engagement now, but that's temporary. I don't think most of you want to go down that rabbit hole. When does it end? 10K followers? 20K? 50k? 100K? 500K? When will you be happy? If you need followers to get work and are more focused on that, your work may not be good enough, yet. Work will come when you focus on getting work and put in the time.
There's a fine balance. Promote yourself everyday and if you do it right, followers will naturally come. But you don't want followers, you want clients. Followers can = clients but doesn't matter if you're not good enough yet. That only comes from great work and having all the right skills to get their attention and close the sell.
If you want to be an influencer, focus on engagement. You can make good money if you have the right brand (most don't). But influencer type money is a time suck. You have to want to do that or it's something you do on the side out of love for your industry and others (like me) so it doesn't matter if you get paid or not.
I showed up here for everyday since 2009. You've got to put in the time to earn it. Occasionally super stars are created and can punch through. I was not a super star. I just worked harder than everyone around me, took more risks than most, and knew I didn't need to be the best I just needed to show up and be reliable.
You think you've done everything, but did you move to the heart of it all? I moved to San Francisco during the design bull run. Are you during the AI start up run? Not saying you have to move, you don't these days, but when I say I went the extra miles, I went the extra miles. There were 4-5 of us that got ALL the freelance work for like 4-5 years in SF. We owned the market. I was the least smartest one but got just as much if not more of the work.
I also see designers these days saying people don't want to pay premiums for good work. They just don't want to pay premium for decent work. I hope that stung. It should. Some need a reality check.
I did free work, discounted work, and so much flexibility it's what help make my career. And that's when there wasn't as many designers. Now there everywhere and so many are over charging. So many are under charging. Don't feed into the you should raise your rates posts. The only thing you should do is what you want and what gets you paid! If you're not making money, lower. If you are, raise. It's pretty simple.
I never once thought I was great, which always made me work harder than most. I always knew there was someone better than me, which always made me try harder to catch up. Every job I ever had I was always terrified of getting fired, so I worked harder than most.
All it takes is one client to start the referral cycle. But it's up to you to have the right attitude and work ethic to take it to the next level. GO GET IT.