Silicon Valley design guru John Maeda distinguishes between three categories: “classical” designers, who create physical objects or products; “commercial” designers who innovate by seeking deep insights into how customers interact with products and services; and “computational” designers, who use programming skills and data to satisfy millions or even billions of users instantaneously.
—Clay Chandler on the Design in Tech Report
SXSW 2026: UX to AX
If you have a personal Anthropic or OpenAI key, you can try out the apps I made for the report. Your key isn’t stored in local storage by default, but in general you should “clear” it after you’re done. Be secure! —JM
SXSW Session
Design in Tech Report 2026:
From UX to AX
Mar 18, 2026
11:30am – 12:30pm CT
Austin Marriot Downtown
Waller Ballroom C
2027 Design in Tech Report: The Costs and Benefits of AX
I’ve submitted a proposal for the 2027 Design in Tech Report to SXSW.
UX made complex systems usable by improving the journeys people navigate. AX removes the journey altogether, teleporting people directly to their goals. This seductive “easy button” promises dramatic gains in speed and access, but shifts costs into tokens, trust, control, labor, and human agency. Tracing AX from SEO to agents, this research-backed Design in Tech Report asks what designers must measure, protect, and reinvent as they move from designing interfaces people use to designing systems that AI agents can act through.
Proposed Takeaways:
- How AX changes the role of the interface by letting AI agents navigate, decide, and act on a person’s behalf.
- Which costs AX hides or shifts, including tokens, trust, control, labor, and the loss of human agency.
- How designers must adapt their methods when they are designing less for direct use and more for systems that agents act through.
Let’s see what happens …
The Tree-Shaped Designer
The 2026 Design in Tech Report started with re-thinking the T-shaped designer …
But it made sense to think of a “Tree”-shaped designer instead.
It’s easier understood in simplest form:
CURIOUS WHERE YOU STAND ON AI MATURITY?
Take Noah’s assessment
Inequality, Equality, Equity, Justice Series by Tony Ruth
I commissioned these in 2019 and had to take them off of the internet due to an artist’s claim. These versions don’t have that restriction. I made crafted them on recraft.ai with its very designer-friendly image generation models (disclosure: I am an investor).
