Last week, I gave the opening talk at Makesensemess, Abby Covert’s annual celebration of “sensemaking.” I focused on something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: How do we hold onto our sensemaking skills in dark times? How do we stay alert and critical in a world that, as Abby put it in her own talk that day, increasingly encourages us to “outsource our sensemaking”—whether to AI, to algorithmic newsfeeds, or to corporate overlords? 

In other words: what good is sensemaking in a world that doesn’t value it? In a world that, right now, often feels… pretty senseless?

Here’s the answer I gave. 

The systems that are working to harm us—systems of oppression, of extraction, of authoritarianism—they all have the same goal: to strip you of your humanity. To alienate you from yourself. To teach you not to trust your intuition or your sense of reality. Because systems of harm thrive when you don’t know which way is up. When you’re too confused to fight back. 

When you stop questioning the narrative. 

Politically, we can see it all around us right now—bad actors capitalizing on our exhaustion, on our overwhelm. Here’s just one example: the images the US Department of Labor has been posting on X this fall.

If you stop sensemaking—if you stop looking at the world with a critical lens, stop unpacking assumptions, stop digging into unstated motives and underlying messages—you might stop processing what’s really going on with images like these. They’re so simple, after all—how sinister could they be? 

But these are not just some bland posts applauding workers. They’re not patriotism. They’re propaganda. They’re a collection of AI-generated illustrations of one specific type of person, in one specific type of outfit, with one very specific type of haircut. 

The images are purposely simple: they’re designed to be easy to swallow, slick and smooth and nostalgic. But everything about them signals toward a darker message—a message about which workers we value, and which we don’t. About who America is for, and who it isn’t. 

Sensemaking is what allows us to see through propaganda like this. It helps us refuse easy, shallow answers. It helps us resist manipulation, gaslighting, brainwashing. Because true sensemaking—whether you’re doing UX work or reading the news or anything else—has never been about embracing simplicity for simplicity’s sake. It’s about wrestling with and wrangling the complexity around us. It’s about making things clear and honest—not palatable but fake.

This is true for propaganda and disinformation campaigns. But it turns out, this is also true when it comes to your professional life. 

When I open up LinkedIn these days—something I do a lot, what with my business being, you know, work—I’m bombarded by takes about the UX job market and the future of design. And most of them are pretty fucking bleak. 

There’s the parade of posts about how UX is dead. Or dying. Or pointless to even try to practice under late-stage capitalism. 

There are the grifters telling you that you’re just one get-rich-quick scheme away from quitting your 9-to-5 grind forever (spoiler: the scheme is just three MLMs dressed in a trenchcoat).  

There are the fearmongers telling anyone in their vicinity that the sky is falling. That no one should pivot into the field anymore. That there are no jobs, no career paths. Nothing but a sea of AI slop and layoffs coming for any of us, forever. 

And of course, there are a thousand people still telling you that the answer is to hustle harder. Get up earlier. Get on that grindset.   

These posts are loud. They are confident. And right now? Damn, are they tempting. Because even the negative proclamations—the ones that tell you design is cooked, and the job market is hopeless, and every company in the world is a toxic trashheap? They still give you an easy answer: A villain to blame all your pain on.

And just like propaganda thrives when we’re exhausted—when we’re overwhelmed and too tired to know which way is up—so do grand proclamations. So do self-appointed gurus.

But the reality is, anyone peddling easy answers in difficult times is lying to you. Anyone who spends their days insisting that everything is futile will be unable to see possibilities. And anyone telling you that there’s only one right path to take—theirs—is probably trying to sell you something.

Don’t buy it. Instead, remember who you are. Remember all the skills you’ve honed over years of separating noise from insights, of designing thoughtful user flows, of solving customer problems, of turning content messes into useful, usable information that helps people get things done. 

Remember that you are a sensemaker. You don’t need to outsource your thinking, or your beliefs, or your decisions about your career, to anyone—not to AI, not to authoritarian propaganda, not to big tech billionaires. And definitely not to overconfident randos online. 

You just need to come back to yourself. To your values, your needs, your strengths, your boundaries. To an honest assessment of the tradeoffs you can live with—and the ones you can’t. The answers might not be as tidy as the ones shouted at you online. But they’ll be something a whole lot better: yours. 

We’ve been trying not to spam you with posts about our new conference, Throughline. We get it: you’re here for essays and tools to make your work life better, not tons of marketing.

But here’s the thing: we’re throwing everything we have into planning this conference—into building a great attendee experience, treating our speakers right, and hitting hard on the themes we know folks in UX are struggling with right now. And so I hope you’ll understand why we’re gonna keep mentioning the conference, whenever we can. After all, we’re spending months working near full-time on it. Of course I want to make enough money on it to pay our speakers, our producers, and ourselves!

But Throughline is also a labor of love: love for design and UX, yes—but more importantly, love for the people who make up this industry. People who are brilliant and creative and kind—and who, in this current climate, are also overwhelmed and uncertain and worried about the future. We think the talks we’ve curated—and the opportunities we’re planning for attendees to connect around those talks—are an important part of moving this field forward.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing a few big updates about the conference—including one we’re especially excited about next week, when our scholarship application opens. We’d love for you to help us spread the word, and we’re grateful to have you in our community as we try something new for 2026!