The world is on fire, and our interfaces are still asking people to “swipe to buy.”

For decades, we, designers have been the architects of distraction. We've optimized for convenience, for frictionless experiences, for the path of least resistance. “Good design,” we’ve said, “doesn’t make you think.”

But in an age of interconnected crises—ecological collapse, social fragmentation, and spiritual emptiness—we must ask ourselves:

• What if the ease we've designed for has made it too easy to ignore what demands our attention?

• What if the design we've celebrated has accelerated our collective crisis?

• What if the metrics we've optimized for have measured everything except what truly matters?

I pasted an Oscar Wilde quote into Notion the other day. As soon as I did, the Ai symbol popped up with the “improve writing” suggestion.

I didn’t click it, but it made me think…If Oscar Wilde was alive today, would he too have been lured to change his words with Ai? Would he have trusted Ai more than his creative intuition?

Ai would most likely have edited Wilde's voice and words by removing “unnecessary” words and simplifying sentences. But would it have been an improvement? If his work is no longer in his voice, how can we say it’s better?

DesignShift: from artificial to authentic

Good design should be about creating multi-sensory experiences. However, today, as designers are asked to prove their worth through spreadsheets and numbers, our work is often reduced to what can be shown or explained using rational thinking.

It seems like we’ve forgotten what it means to engage with the parts of our bodies that can’t be seen on a Zoom call. It seems like we’ve forgotten that feelings that live in our bodies are central to how we engage with the world and other people.

DesignShift: From creating for/from the intellectual mind to creating for/from the living body.

As designers, how do we stay rooted in an industry that is always changing? It’s estimated that 90% of the world's data was generated in the last two years alone. With a constant stream of “new” information, trends quickly become truths as we try to design what’s new and what’s n

When algorithms and that internal voice tell us to read, respond, and engage with everything, how do we let go of reactivity and become rooted in the things that matter?

DesignShift: From Reactive to Rooted.

What can we gain from 🐌slow? That is a question I’ve been asking myself as I’ve taken some time to slow down. For so many years, I was moving at the speed of the industry. Always pushing myself to do a little more, try a little harder, and create a little more. This chase for more made me feel less. Less happy with the work I was doing. Less motivated to create change. Less able to dream about a better future. Guided by the speed of the market, the love I felt for design faded. Creativity lost its magic. And everything started to feel like a task to be completed, rather than an experience to be enjoyed.

Through slowness, I’ve been able to rebuild, recenter, and respark my love for design and social impact. In moments of slowness, I’ve started to see things clearer and feel things more deeply. I’ve experienced what slow feels like when designing my own life. Now, I want to explore what slow can mean for the practice of design.

DesignShift: From speed to market to slowing down.
🐌What would it look like to shift the focus from designing for the speed of the market to designing for the speed of trust, nature, and our hearts and minds?
🐌What does slow design look like? What would it mean for our processes, our outputs, our teams?
🐌What would it look like to design not for the next quarter of a year, but for the next quarter of a century?

Good design is frictionless, right?

Designers quickly learn that friction = bad. We spend most of our time trying to remove friction in order improve experiences. However, is this desire for — or should I say obsession with — frictionlessness always a good thing? Can friction actually enrich experiences?

DesignShift: From Frictionless to Frictionful.

Last weekend while hiking up a mountain, Molly Oberholtzer and I started talking about friction and design. She said this:

“We spend so much time making things frictionless, but by making it frictionless we make it forgettable. Friction is often the most memorable part.”

“When you learn that you can handle some friction, you realize you can handle even more. By always trying to reduce even small amounts of friction, we take away our own power to handle hard things.”

Her reflections made me think... As designers, how can friction help us create more memorable experiences? How can it help us do hard things?

A lot of design is done in the name of innovation and recognition. We try to design what’s new and what’s next in order to become a leader or gain recognition. But as we chase the extraordinary, are we losing sight of what really matters?

DesignShift: From chasing the extraordinary to valuing the ordinary.

Our strive for more often makes us feel less. Less happy with the work we are doing. Less satisfied in our relationships. Less content with the things we create. The same way we fail to notice the beauty of ordinary people, we forget to notice the beauty of an ordinary life.

What would happen if we shifted our mindset from one that is motivated by fear to one that is catalyzed by love?

I often think about how fear drives many of our decisions and actions. The fear of people stealing our ideas. The fear of the competition going to market before we do. The fear of getting fat. Or old. Or forgotten.
Fear can motivate us to take action; To go to the gym when we don’t feel like it or to keep working on our ideas when inspiration starts to fade. But fear also brings with it a sense of not-enoughness. The fear of not doing enough. The fear of not being enough.

What if… fear is not the best way to achieve our goals or save the planet? What if LOVE could be our motivator and catalyst? Fear is rooted in scarcity: I’m not enough and I don’t have enough. Fear prioritizes “me.” Love centers wholeness: I am already enough and there is enough for everyone. Love prioritizes “we”

What if… instead of saying: “l am fighting climate change because I'm scared the world will end” we said: “I love this earth so much, therefore I want to do everything I can to protect it.” Instead of thinking: “I need to share another post because I am scared that I will become irrelevant, we centered the idea of: “I love this topic/idea and I want to gift it to people?”

If we moved from fear to love, how would our work change? If we moved from fear to love, how will our lives change?