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Hi, {{first_name | UXer}}!

This is issue No. 2 of the Experiencing UX newsletter.

Once a month, this is where the real updates live: events, jobs, member Q&As. Slack and LinkedIn are still core channels.

But if you only pay attention to one thing this month, make it this:

What’s cooking at Experiencing UX?

Iowa Startup Week brought Des Moines user groups together for one big meetup. The invite went out about a week ahead. A bit short notice, but the energy was great, and there were many friendly faces from several of the other local tech groups.

Between now and Thanksgiving, I’d like to line up a livestream webinar (BTW: We have a YouTube channel!) titled: “How I Use AI”– a show and tell with 3-4 members. Each person will take about 10 minutes to demo, then we open it up for Q&A.

No polish needed. Show us what you actually do, even if it’s messy. Want a spot? Reply to this email or find my post in the LinkedIn group.

As soon as we get a panel together, we'll announce the date and time.

Other events around town

There’s always something happening in Des Moines. Here are some of the meetups and gatherings you might be interested in …

Member spotlight: Jonna Buse, Owner of Rational Path, a UX & Design Consultancy

Get to know Jonna Buse, a Des Moines-based UX and product designer who has run Rational Path LLC for eight years. For the past four-plus years she’s contracted with the PGA of America, most recently as the sole designer on a membership-management platform replacing a 30-year-old system.

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Have someone in mind for our next feature? Want to volunteer yourself? Hit REPLY and tell us why! 📣

What are you working on right now, and what part of it is actually hard?

Along with other client work, I've been contracting with the PGA of America for the last 4+ years, an opportunity made possible through a coworker/friend in my network.

Specifically for the last couple of years, I've been the sole designer on the technology team working on a large-scale membership-management enterprise solution to replace a 30-year-old system. Up until the past 6-12 months, the hardest parts of this project were deciphering complex business rules, understanding legacy software architecture, and working with a large group of stakeholders to make their jobs easier amid a reluctance to change.

That is, until AI got (really) good at coding.

What's changed most about how you work in the last year?

1-2 years ago, my job was maintaining a design system in Figma and working across all of the product squads to design and deliver flows and screens for each process/feature we were working to replace.

Fast forward to the beginning of this year. Everyone (including myself, product managers, and leadership) is committing production code to this product. Plans/specs/designs are iterated on directly by each team member, then implemented, with PRs being auto-reviewed, most times approved, and then merged by the same individual.

Part of the work I’ve been responsible for is implementing skills/metadata/stories to help the AI agents (and staff driving them) utilize our design system and standards. While we have a couple dozen people rapidly checking in code, the system should not look as if that’s the case.

It seems every time I open the IDE, something new is available (e.g. don’t use rules anymore, use skills instead; or no need to develop locally, everything is in the cloud).

Almost weekly, a better model is now the default, and what worked yesterday could use some adjustments today. The context shifting and rate of change are the hardest parts of the job. We’re all product managers/designers/engineers rolled into one.

Who or what has helped you most in your career here—a person, a group, a job, a break?

I owe almost all of my freelance business opportunities to great people in my network, whether they were managers/coworkers in previous employments or clients I have worked with over the previous eight years.

As two minutes on social media makes obvious, the job market is really difficult for designers right now.

I’m happy to see Experiencing UX revive again. It will be critical for people in this new world to look out for each other.

What’s the best way for someone to get in touch?

[email protected]

Have you heard about America.gov?

America.gov launched September 29 as an AI chatbot that answers plain-language questions about federal services. It draws on about 29,000 government sites, and you don’t need an account.

The UX bet is simple: skip the agency-by-agency maze and just ask.

Much of what’s promised, like applying for benefits inside the chat, is slated for 2027. One civic tech tester who asked about a VA disability claim got sent to the VA’s own website.

Is a chatbot a new front door, or just a new place to get redirected? Share your thoughts in our Slack or LinkedIn group with the 🦅 eagle emoji.

Who’s hiring? A few jobs around town:

Open positions worth knowing about, whether you're looking for a new job or know someone who is.

Hiring? If you have an open role, or you know one that should be on this list, send us a link! We'll share it with our community and make sure to include it next month if it’s still open.

One thing to read this month

The Best Interface Is No Interface by Golden Krishna

Why? Golden Krishna makes a blunt argument: a screen shouldn’t be the default answer. Most apps exist to finish a task, so why make people tap through one to get it done?

The book came out in 2015, but it reads differently now. AI agents are starting to do the task for us. If the best interface is the one you never see, what does that mean for the people who design them?

(Apologies for using a book with a white cover.)

Watch his TL;DR talk here.

That’s all folks! 👋

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