📰 3 THINGS TO CHECK OUT
- Our July 4th sale is now live. For five days only, you can save $150 on all 4-6 week courses, including our most popular courses like AI for UX Design, Advanced Figma, Designing AI Products, and more. Use code JULY4SALE at checkout to claim your discount.
- For aspiring designers, our sale includes 50% OFF UX Academy Foundations, our beginner-friendly prerequisite course. This offer is valid for the upcoming cohort of UX Academy Foundations launching July 13. Click here to get started, or use code JULY4SALE50 at checkout.
- Experienced designers can take $250 off Advanced Design Craft, our certification program built to hone the craft and judgment that makes designers indispensable. Enroll and claim the discount here, or use code JULY4SALE250.
Your Design System's Newest Author is an Agent
- Director of Design Systems Murphy Trueman notes that AI agents have moved from reading design systems to now actively writing components, updating tokens, generating documentation, and editing design files.
- This shift is already showing up across the industry. At Config 2026, Figma introduced AI capabilities that can create and modify designs directly on the canvas, package reusable team workflows as "Skills," and generate custom plugins — all pointing toward a future where designers increasingly collaborate with AI agents instead of just prompting them.
- "Agent-readiness keeps moving — each phase asks something different of the system, and the systems that handle it are the ones that keep adapting."
The Layers of AI Experience: Designing Beneath the Surface
- Designer and writer Emily Campbell describes how behind every AI-driven interaction are multiple interconnected layers beneath the surface, including context, model behavior, governance, and agent orchestration.
- Design is becoming probabilistic rather than deterministic, and interfaces are evolving from places where users direct AI to places where they oversee it. This requires designers to develop fluency not just in UI, but in all the inputs into the user experience — Campbell calls them "full-stack AI designers."
- "The interface is only one layer of the experience."
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
After discovering UX through a career change from the hospitality industry, UX Academy graduate Garrett Lawson has built a portfolio centered on creating products that are clear, thoughtful, and genuinely useful. His case studies pair rigorous user research with polished visual design, whether he's simplifying product discovery for an e-commerce experience or helping creative professionals balance productivity and well-being through an app concept. Across his work, Garrett demonstrates a consistent focus on reducing cognitive load, improving information hierarchy, and designing experiences that help users make confident decisions without unnecessary friction.
💡 INTERESTING STUFF...
- Establishing Baselines for Impact in UX
- “Creatives have a mid-life crisis every five years”
- 39 Principles for Designing Human-AI Interaction
- What Building from Scratch in the AI Age Teaches You
All we can do [as designers and builders] is punch our card, be in the game, build muscle, stay ready. — Sahil Jain, co-founder and CEO, Samepage.ai
🧪 FROM THE LAB
The New and Improved Data-Driven Design
Connecting design decisions to product strategy is as important as ever, and AI is changing how designers use data to get there. We've refreshed Data-Driven Design to reflect today's workflows and how you can use AI to refine hypotheses, interpret data, uncover insights, and shape stronger experiments. The next cohort launches July 10.
Learn More About Upcoming Courses at a Live Webinar
Webinar: Monday, July 6 at 12pm ET
Get hands-on with the latest leading AI prototyping tools, Figma Make and Lovable. The next cohort launches July 13.
Webinar: Tuesday, July 7 at 1pm ET
Learn where AI can accelerate the design process, from research and ideation to prototyping and testing, and where human judgment is essential. The next cohort launches July 10.
Webinar: Wednesday, July 8 at 12pm ET
Polish your UI skills, sharpen your judgment, and build your edge as a designer. Cohort launches July 10.
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