Fast, Cheap, and Thoughtless: The New Design Crisis

Agile scrum board from before Jira

I’m not afraid of a process. In fact, I prefer one I can rely on. A framework that helps me explain where I am, where I’m going, and why things are taking the shape they are. But that’s not the kind of process today’s leaders want. Their process is a loop of presentation and approval, a machine that requires continuous fuel in the form of mockups and updates, one that grinds through design without ever questioning why it exists in the first place.

The irony is that while they demand speed and output, they often stall true progress. They avoid the harder, slower work of discovery and understanding. They’ll reject the idea of spending a few hours talking to users but will spend weeks fine-tuning a button color. They’ll skip the step where we define what success looks like but be first in line to measure whether we’ve hit it. They’ll claim to be agile, but they fear any suggestion that the roadmap might need to change, because real agility requires the uncomfortable work of listening, adapting, and letting go of ego.

The result is design that pleases everyone in the room but no one in the real world. Features ship, deadlines are met, decks look good, but the end user is left dealing with the mess. It’s not that they don’t care, they do (at least on paper), but their version of care is built on performance, not on patience. They want proof before curiosity, speed over insight, and results they can measure without having to feel anything.

But feeling is part of the job. And it’s not fluff, it’s how we gauge intuition, reaction, and behavior. It’s how we read between the lines of what a user says and what they actually need. It’s how we know when something feelsright, even if we can’t yet prove it with numbers or clicks. Design is a practice of sense-making, and sometimes that means leaning into discomfort and ambiguity before arriving at clarity.

So no, I don’t reject process. I reject performance masquerading as process. I reject the idea that doing good work must always look like being visibly busy. I reject the notion that the faster path is always the better one. Because the truth is, if you want design that actually solves something, you have to be willing to slow down, ask better questions, and trust the people who feel their way toward the right answer.

This is where we get to AI

In a recent post on LinkedIn, Jared Spool shared a series of AI-generated screens with the caption, “Let me show you this new AI-generated UI!” His takeaway was clear: none of these designs would survive even a basic design critique (link here). And I agree with him. But here’s the thing, it’s not just AI-generated work that wouldn’t pass critique. A lot of the work coming out of real design teams wouldn’t either.

Corners are being cut. Context is being ignored. Craft is being deprioritized in favor of speed and output. It’s not just the fault of the tools we’re using, it’s how we’re using them. Whether the screens are made by humans or machines, they’re often being shaped by the same broken incentives: deliver more, faster, with less friction and more “wow.”

I think we’re in for a rough patch. There’s going to be a lot of noise, a lot of gimmicks, and a lot of products that look polished but fall apart in the hands of actual users. But I also believe that if designers stay grounded and if we keep pursuing our craft, asking hard questions, insisting on understanding the problem before proposing a solution, then we’ll make it through. The pendulum will swing back. Bold leaders will emerge who remember that product development is for solving real problems, for real people.

AI isn’t the villain here. It’s a tool. A very powerful one. It can help speed up some of the more mechanical parts of the process, like creating variations or exploring directions quickly. But like any tool, it needs to be wielded with care. By people who understand the discipline. People who know when to move fast and when to slow down. People who aren’t afraid to feel their way to the answer.

Because at the end of the day, AI can’t feel. It can’t see the nuance in someone’s frustration, or understand why a design doesn’t sit right even though all the elements are technically there. It can’t walk into a critique with a gut instinct and defend it with context. That’s our job. And if we do it well, we can help shape a future where tools like AI support the work and not replace the craft.