A fortnightly editorial letter for practitioners working through the messy middle of AI-assisted UX. Frameworks, audits, judgement calls, and the operational craft most newsletters skip. Written by Jamie Pow.
One editorial dispatch every other Sunday. Operational, not motivational. You can unsubscribe in one click and I keep the list small enough to read replies personally.
No spam, no upsells, no "boost your career" promises. Just operational notes from someone still doing the work.
No surprise themes, no sponsored slots, no week-in-news roundups. Each issue picks one operational angle and works through it properly.
How established methods behave on real projects. Where heuristic evaluation buckles, where JTBD outperforms personas, where severity rubrics earn their keep and where they don't.
The categories of work that benefit from AI support, the categories where it actively damages the output, and the soft-tissue middle ground where you need a framework to decide.
What hiring managers actually screen for in 2026. How case studies are being read post-AI. What's still negotiable in offers and what isn't. No "manifest your dream role" content.
Audit logistics, stakeholder playback, research scoping, design QA. The unglamorous infrastructure that distinguishes a senior practitioner from a confident-sounding mid.
Not a back-issue archive; the live letter goes only to subscribers. The titles below are representative of the kind of operational thinking you can expect.
The four pattern types Nielsen's heuristics genuinely cover, the three they don't, and what to reach for when you hit the gap.
Why "tell me about a project" is a misleading interview prompt, and the three-part structure that gives the strongest signal in under six minutes.
Three buckets that decide where AI can carry the work, where it can support, and where it has no business being. Includes the failure modes I keep seeing in audits.
Why the playback deck is the single highest-leverage document in most UX projects, and how to structure it so the recommendations don't get lost in slide design.
The next dispatch goes out 31 May. Subscribe today and it's the first issue you'll see.
Fortnightly. Unsubscribe in one click. Hosted by Buttondown, GDPR-friendly.
Once every two weeks, on a Sunday morning. Occasionally a one-off dispatch for a new flagship resource — never more than once a quarter, and never without warning in a previous issue.
Long-form editorial prose, around 1,200 to 1,600 words. No bullet-heavy "10 things designers should know" pieces. Each issue picks one operational angle from the four threads above and works through it with examples and frameworks.
No sponsored content. Occasional affiliate links to genuinely useful UX tools, always disclosed in line. The Letter doesn't take ads or pay-to-play placements.
It goes into Buttondown, hosted in the EU, used only to send you the Letter and to send the resources you've requested. Never sold, never shared. Unsubscribe is one click from any email and removes you immediately.
Yes, but quietly. New flagship downloads (the Case Study Template Pack, audit frameworks, future stakeholder playback templates) reach the list a week before public release. No artificial scarcity, no "limited time" pressure — just an editorial courtesy.
Not at the moment. The letter is for subscribers; the public archive on this site stays as the writing under /blog/. If a future issue feels broadly useful I may publish a version, but the original always reaches the list first.