The name of this community comes from a line I love: the trouble with users is they're only human. (Attributed to Don Norman) I've been thinking about it a lot in the context of AI. The tools are moving fast, and there's real pressure to keep up: new models, new features, new workflows every week. It's easy to feel like falling behind on the tools means falling behind. I'm not the only one talking about this, but I wonder if we've got the risk backwards. I think the designers who will find their way through this AI race won't (just) be the ones who mastered every tool the week it launched. They'll be the ones who never lost sight of the person on the other side of it. The only part of the system that isn't getting a version upgrade. Here's a question I keep returning to: what's one thing you know about the people you design for that no dashboard or AI summary could have told you? That thing is your job security. Share with us what it is.

I've got a confession to make. The work I most look forward to at the moment isn't strategy or accessibility. It's a children's picture book I'm working on self-publishing. It's also, unexpectedly, teaching me new lessons in inclusive design. A picture book is arguably more image than words, and an audience that will not politely pretend to be engaged. Plus, once it's out there, it's kind of hard to release a fix or an update. 😅 Respect your audience. Don't over-explain. Let the medium do its share of the work. Sound familiar? I sometimes think the things we do purely for joy end up teaching us more than the things we do to get better. So... what's yours? The thing outside work that has quietly made you better at work. I'd love to know.

We often assume the person blocking us needs more information. So we build a better deck, find one more statistic, rehearse a sharper case. But most people who've decided something isn't a priority aren't under-informed. They're protecting something — a deadline, a budget, a promise they've already made to someone upstairs. More information doesn't move them, because information was never the obstacle. What I've found works better: before making your case, ask one question. "What would this need to not put at risk for you?" It changes the conversation from you versus them to both of you versus the problem. Sometimes the answer tells you exactly how to shape your proposal. Sometimes it tells you this isn't the moment, which is also worth knowing before you spend your credibility. Try it this week and report back. I want to hear what the immovable people in your world are protecting.

Tell us about a piece of work you're still proud of that nobody really noticed. Not the award-winners. The quiet ones. The flow you untangled that stopped a hundred support calls no one ever traced back to you. The wording you fought for that finally made something make sense. We often assume good work speaks for itself. It doesn't. It usually whispers, and it's often whispering to an empty room. So this is the room. Brag quietly below. I promise I'll cheer for you.

Next time you need someone to care about a fix, try swapping the compliance version for this. Instead of: "This isn't accessible." Try: "Right now, someone can't finish this because [specific real thing that breaks for them]. Here's what fixing it means for them, and for us." The formula: name the person, not the rule. Name the impact, not the standard. Try it once over the next week, in a meeting or a message. Come back and tell me what happened when you did.