Small amounts
of lots of things

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Personas are dead. Tech zombies are here.
Picture this: RyanAir [I know...], cheap flight, uncomfortable seats, loud and late.
We took off from Luton 30 minutes behind schedule because a family was late. I wasn’t annoyed about the delay. Not after this story started to unfold.
ai induced hallucination
An AI-induced hallucination.
This thing isn’t a response. It’s an intervention.
But before everything else, it can be an AI-induced hallucination, mine.

the expected death of user centered design alin buda
The case against user-centered design.
I’m going to throw up a fallacy here: The real job of a designer has very little to do with the customer. Before you cast your stone, let me explain.
It will take a while, but I promise, before the end, I’ll get to the point.
Stay with me.

blueprint for products
A blueprint for building products.
A clinical, no-BS guide from a problem to the customer’s wallet. Every block in this diagram has a purpose; each step builds on the last. None of it’s negotiable if you’re serious about making an impact with your product.
we need to talk about friction
We need to talk about friction.
The term "friction" has been stripped of its depth. When designing products and services, we shouldn’t obsessively remove every obstacle; we should eliminate pointless speed bumps while engineering the right kind of resistance.

Friction isn’t the enemy. It never was. What’s missing isn’t convenience—it’s context. It’s the bridge that connects value with benefit and effort with reward.

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400
Ten minutes ago, I turned down drinks with a group of extraordinary people I had worked with for five weeks. I didn’t want to say no. I should have said yes.
But I didn’t. Not because I didn’t enjoy working with them or lacked gratitude but because something about this project stuck with me. It won’t leave me alone. I’ve been thinking about what it meant for me as a professional and a person.
Dear leader by Alin Buda
Dear Leader
Dear leader, I know you’re busy, so I’ll get straight to the point.
Imagine you’re in your office early one morning, coffee in hand, trying to rally your people around this grand vision only you can see. You’ve got your slide decks, an idea for new collaboration tools, and planned workflows.
thought on ai ii alin buda
Thoughts on AI - Part Two.
Hybrid Intelligence is the messy, chaotic bridge between human creativity and the rise of machines that think. How we navigate this moment will define not just the future of work, but the future of humanity itself
rethinking design system
Rethinking Design Systems.
Design as a function will not survive the age of AI unless we, as designers, grow up and start sharing our toys. The design system as it exists today must die and be rebuilt into something that serves a higher purpose.
This will take some mental gymnastics, but if you are willing, I’ll do my best to change your mind, as Morgan Wallen says in his song “Spin You Around” (1/24).

the slow and quiet death of our shared reality alin buda.
The slow and quiet death of our shared reality.
Our shared reality is disappearing. Technology offers powerful tools to diminish and reject the reality that holds society together. Technology intertwines the senses that help us experience this world. We don’t meet in person; we use technology to shop for food, distractions, and love. Carefully crafted user experiences handle our connections.
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An afternoon with NotebookLM.
Today, for six hours, I ran an experiment with Google’s NotebookLM, an AI tool designed to riff on ideas. I imagined a scenario for the two AI podcast hosts.
They were supposed to be recording their final episode. It has been done before, but not this way.
love letter to designers
A love letter.
This is a love letter and a warning to the next generation of designers. If it seems that I have a bone to pick with Figma, stay tuned for my other open letter.
pioneers ai
A call for pioneers.
Throughout history, humanity’s progress has relied on pioneers—those brave few who set out into the unknown, risking everything, guided by little more than instinct and purpose. They weren’t driven by profit but by survival and the knowledge that if they found something new—land, resources, a better way to live—they could return and uplift the rest of their tribe.
roller coaster thoughts on ai
Thoughts on AI - Part one.
A week ago, a friend sent me a link and a few words in a message. I was happy to hear from my dear friend, so I clicked that link.
hero paradigm foundations colour advertorial
Paradigm Foundations.
It took me almost eight months to build Paradigm Foundations, but it has taken me more than fifteen years to get to the start of those eight months — fifteen years of building, breaking, and learning.
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Paradigm StageOne.
In tech, we're stuck in a never-ending loop of inefficiency, misalignment, and avoidable breakdowns. We have countless collaboration tools and popular frameworks, but something crucial is missing. More importantly, what is someone like me, a middle-aged design generalist with a life in pieces, going to do about it?
As it turns out, a lot. But let me not get ahead of myself.
a call to arms
A call to arms. A collection of thoughts.
Alright, I’ve wanted to share this for a while, so bear with me. It’s a bit long and is not written as a story but more like a collection of thoughts. You'll have to let me know if you think it’s worth anything.
My goal is to explain why I became a generalist a few years ago and may offer you a way out of a hyperspecialisation mindset or an excuse. I'll let you figure out the details.
The AI Pin - A product review.
This review is an analysis through the eyes of a Design Generalist and an entrepreneur.
When I wrote [a product review] in the title, I meant that.
I've used Product levels and simplified market definitions to frame the lenses I look through. Hold tight if the words in the previous sentence sound strange; it will get weirder before [hopefully] making sense.
We are storm.
To those who are too busy or quickly bored, here is a summary in a sentence: It has designers in it, it is about today, has little to no action, and the events unfold far and beyond this collection of words.
Untitled.
I wrote this piece as a note to myself, but someone else could use this insight, too. I hope it won't increase the cacophony of current conversations (Design vs. Product vs. the rest of the world).
Let's do this...
Yes, but what does it mean?
My thesis is that every organisation is a point of view addressing a market need or an entity that has a point of view and, to make it relevant/profitable, creates a market. How? Investing in context and framing the value/benefit they deliver. Okay, but what does this mean?
The battle for how.
Before proceeding, let me set the proper context. We must recognise the limitations of human nature and our vulnerabilities—our perceptions of reality can be distorted, and our capacity to construct, process, and respond to it is relatively poor.
Title about AI goes here.
This is hard because we all perceive the context in different ways. Not everyone perceives the emergence of AI as important. Culture, education, the consequences of our decisions and actions, our personality traits, and the context shape our reality from moment to moment.
The AI Pin.
Not a product review.
We've all seen this movie before.
Fantastic technology, extraordinary features - for an untrained eye, a solution in search of a problem to solve.
Is the AI pin a great product?
Copyright © Alin Buda. All rights reserved. Trademarks, brands and some of the images are the property of their respective owners.
Some images were sourced from Pexels™ and Unsplash™.
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