The bizarre state of design discourse on LinkedIn

Conversations in the design community on LinkedIn feel…different these days

At the end of every year, I read with great interest the annual State of UX annual report from designers Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga. This year's astute takeaways (a direct evolution of 2024's report on late stage UX) are particularly dire—and sadly very accurate. Make sure to give their report a read!

One notable insight highlights the use of LinkedIn posts by UX professionals who hope that sharing their ideas publicly will help them stand out amongst other job seekers in this cutthroat market. They describe a vibe shift resulting from an emphasis on self promotion and “polarizing” and “controversial” ideas that feed into the algorithm, and a move away from constructive discourse:

[tap tap] Is this thing on?

Historically, posting your thoughts on LinkedIn to boost your job search has worked fairly well. I’ve had plenty of clients and colleagues who have successfully used this tactic, and lots of experience with it myself. Sharing interesting ideas that spark a conversation and spread through the strong and weak ties of your network can illustrate credibility, expertise, and communication skills. Then maybe a hiring manager finds it and you get invited to interview for a job.

While this may still a viable approach, these days it’s much more challenging to make a wave in a sea of posts, and our efforts are more likely to result in frustration rather than the intended outcome. The noise clogs our feeds. Half the posts are about job loss or worse. And they’ve screwed around with the algorithm so much, and without any transparency to enable user success, that reach is down for everyone across the board unless you post frequently and stay in tune with trends in content and media formats.

And like all other for profit social media platforms, LinkedIn is well along its path of enshittification, which I wrote about back in August.

We’re all making it up as we go along

There has absolutely been a shift in how it feels to be on LinkedIn and take part in conversations with our peers. I also believe that much of the polarizing discourse and stupid hot takes come from a place of frustration and anger about the state of design and tech, plus the phenomena of the influencer economy that makes people think they need to be a content creator with hot takes on every last thing in order to get visibility.

People are motivated to post on LinkedIn and Twitter and Bluesky and Reddit by all kinds of reasons. Some us simply want to learn, support each other, be in community, and participate in thought-provoking conversations about important or overlooked topics that affect our day to day and the state of our field. Some of us just want to be Hang Xu. And there will always be asshats lacking in self awareness and communication skills. It helps to see the forest for the trees while also holding ourselves to standards for respectful exchange and letting go of the stuff that bugs us.

As for myself, I’ve had to come to terms with how the platform has changed over the past couple of years and the fact that I can’t do anything about it other than to adjust my expectations—to Keep Calm and Carry On like the old British WWII sign reminded citizens in case of bombing raids. Is that too dark?

Anyway, it sucks, but it’s also ok, because now I have more space to focus on my newsletter (thank you for being here!), podcast, writing, and speaking engagements. Do let me know if there are any topics you’d like me to cover in the future.

Thanks for being here!

P.S. Want to explore working with me on your UX job search, career goals, and workplace challenges? Check out my offerings, or reply to this email and let me know what I can help with! ✨