AI, KPIs, product teams, and design systems – yet another wave of “innovation” promising to make UX irrelevant. Agencies declared obsolete. Freelancers dismissed. Designers reduced to optimising metrics and churning out patterns.
But if you’ve been around long enough, you know this isn’t new. Change has always been the only constant in UX. And yet, independent UX studios are still here, not despite the change, but because of it. Because they bring what tools, templates, and internal teams cannot: fresh eyes, strategic detachment, and the courage to ask the questions no one else dares.
The changing UX landscape
or here we go again
A great clickbait above, isn’t it? And hardly original. If you run a quick search about the state of UX, the following scenarios inevitably emerge. With the rise of AI tools, design and development are destined to become obsolete. A relentless focus on design systems and pattern libraries renders design repetitive and mundane.
Designers and researchers are tasked with maximising KPIs and stakeholder value, often at the expense of the real needs of users and clients. UX, rebranded as the so-called “product design”, becomes purely an internal function, and the days of freelance designers and UX agencies are apparently numbered. In short, countless practitioners will tell you the UX landscape is changing dramatically. Allow me to offer something a little more original. It’s happening again. It always does. If you practise UX, or life for that matter, the only true constant is just that: change.
Check how to talk about change so that users embrace it.
Remember mobile design? Voice UI? VR? As a UX practitioner with 15 years’ experience, I’ve had the chance, pleasure and pain of witnessing and participating in many such “dramatic changes”. It took me time and reflection to reach a rather simple conclusion which, to be honest, makes me calm and confident in the face of all the doom-mongering. I cannot deny that the changes I’m witnessing are profound and, as a responsible UX practitioner, I must take notice. I cannot carry on as if nothing is happening.
But I can observe these changes calmly, analytically and look for opportunities. Being a UX strategist, designer and researcher, change is the very environment I work in. I study change, I help others harness and adapt to change. Why, then, would I fear it? I’ve experienced this constant change first-hand.
When I began my journey with EDISONDA, an independent UX studio, in 2010, we called ourselves designers and researchers. These days, we think of ourselves as consultants, strategists. We have evolved from merely researching and designing to becoming coaches, supporting those who wish to harness the ceaseless change of the digital landscape for their own purposes, to do so effectively, creatively and sustainably.
We have moved from simply creating artefacts to shaping a vision, devising ways to crystallise it and sustain it in the long term. We have progressed from tactical, low-level work to high-level, strategic UX.
UX strategy
or thinking beyond screens
When working with our team, our most obvious and visible objective is to ensure the digital experience aligns with deeper human goals. Not only the goals of the business or the product but also the lived goals of those who will interact with it.
To think beyond screens means to see beyond the interface. It means understanding that every touchpoint, every click, swipe, hesitation or moment of delight, is not just a metric to be optimised but a conversation. A negotiation of intent between human and machine, between brand and user.
Our job is not just to design buttons or flows. It is to interpret signals, surface truths and design meaningful rituals in a digital context. This demands strategy, an ability to pause, zoom out and ask not just “how” but “why”.
A good UX strategist is not a fortune teller. We do not predict trends. We examine patterns, ask uncomfortable questions and illuminate paths through ambiguity. We sit comfortably in the messiness before clarity because that is where the truth often resides. “Thinking beyond screens” also relates to the relationship we seek to establish with those we work for. Gone are the days when we merely delivered the production of specified artefacts.
At EDISONDA, we aim to deliver both tangible products and a shift in mindset, a blueprint for how to proceed once the project is officially completed and closed.
In other words, we advise our clients on how to think strategically about their digital activities as well as provide them with principles that enable a mature approach to UX. We deliver not only UX deliverables but UX strategy. Here is how we define some of its elements
Results over tools
or a chisel is great, but it’s about the statue
Do not be blindsided or frustrated by the fact that we present the first concept of your app as a pencil sketch. One might say, “How can you sketch things on paper, you’re a digital consultancy?” Whenever I teach at a university, I see many discouraged faces of students expecting me to say, “Now, let’s start the software and design,” while instead they hear, “Let’s fetch a pencil and a piece of paper.”
Why does this happen? As I mentioned before, as digital consultants, we are very prone to becoming blindly enamoured with what is “innovative”, “new” or “the most advanced”. Our task seems to be to use only what is currently popular when it comes to technology and design. This mindset naturally seeps into the toolboxes of designers and developers.
Yet the question one should ask is:
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What is the most appropriate tool to achieve this goal?
Most, however, tend to ask:
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How do I use X to do this?
The obvious truth is that every great idea begins with something very simple. Some like to jump straight from this moment of “enlightenment” to advanced tools that allow the creation of very detailed artefacts. In this process of selecting the tool, assessing its capabilities relative to the idea, and setting it up, the original idea is often lost. As a result, the designer has all the tools perfectly aligned on the workbench, but the original spark that inspired action has withered away.
Knowledge of and skill in using a given tool or method have become badges of honour for many designers. It is true that what is offered by research, prototyping and development software requires extensive knowledge, training and expertise. The very speed at which these tools evolve makes designers spend more time honing their skills in:
- Figma autolayouts,
- image generation prompts
- KPIs
…rather than focusing on ideation, critical thinking and playing with an idea.
Therefore, having the first concept of your app shown as a pencil sketch is not proof of a classical design education or us saving on prototyping software. It is about making a conscious choice of tool for a given stage of the creative process and for a given purpose. This is exactly the first step every researcher and designer at EDISONDA undertakes.
We firmly believe that skill in using a particular technique, software or technology is secondary to consciously and intelligently choosing the right tool to achieve the goal. While established product teams have predefined tools and procedures in place, which is beneficial when maintaining an existing product, at EDISONDA we choose tools only after the concept is well understood and agreed upon.
Creation is rarely a simple process. There is no “spark of genius” that presents the beholder with a fully formed, singular solution.
It is about taking a sometimes very foggy concept, turning it around in one’s mind at a high level, adding a piece here and removing another there.
It is about discarding the “darling ideas” we had an hour ago and returning to them later. This all requires total focus on the idea itself, not the tool being used.
UX strategy is not only about having a tested toolset when beginning a project but, more importantly, about knowing when to start thinking about particular tools. A proper chisel is essential if you want to create a beautiful sculpture, but it will not imagine for you what you want to create, and it should never hinder your thinking.
The burden of knowledge
or overspecialisation leading to stagnation
The other type of “burden” we can consider was not created to make designers’ lives more difficult. On the contrary, design systems, pattern libraries and simple “inspiration galleries”, when used properly, help create a cohesive interface, build consistency and speed up delivery. But there is a shadow side.
This wealth of knowledge, documented patterns, best practices and endless case studies, can become an anchor. Instead of liberating us, it ties us to what has worked before. The more you know what “should” be done, the less likely you are to try what might be done. It is a paradox: the deeper our expertise, the harder it becomes to see with fresh eyes.
We see this in product teams immersed in years of domain-specific thinking. The patterns are so familiar, the edge cases so anticipated, that there is no space for the unexpected any more. The work becomes about fine-tuning the machine rather than questioning the machine’s purpose.
Agencies, especially independent UX studios, offer something different. We are not here to out-expert your experts. We are here to ask the naive, disruptive questions. The ones an internal designer might fear to ask. The ones a stakeholder might have forgotten need asking.
At EDISONDA, we step in without your blind spots. We do not carry your past solutions. We have not built our careers justifying a particular legacy system. This is not ignorance, it is strategic detachment. And this is where insight emerges.
In our experience, overspecialisation often leads to stagnation. You get faster at solving problems you already understand, but worse at recognising new types of problems. UX agencies operate at the margins, where the lines blur and definitions fray. That is where new solutions live. We do not dismiss experience, but we treat it as a tool, not a truth.
We respect design systems, but we retain the right to challenge them. We appreciate best practices, but we remember they were once someone’s bold experiment. We embrace expertise, but we know that expertise without curiosity becomes a cage.
And so, at EDISONDA, we carry our own burden of knowledge lightly. We stay open on purpose, because that is what allows us to see what others have stopped seeing. While knowing much, true expertise is priceless, but the beginner’s mind protects us against specialisation which, in design, ultimately leads to stagnation.
Keeping up with the pace
or on critical thinking about “what’s in”
The world spins fast. Every week there is a new plugin, a new framework, a new AI tool that promises to reshape design. To automate it. To make it faster, better, cheaper. And in many ways, it delivers. But at what cost?
We live in an era where the ability to keep up is celebrated more than the ability to slow down and reflect. Where knowing how to use the latest tool is equated with progress, and questioning whether we need the tool at all is seen as resistance.
But this speed, the breathless pace of “innovation”, often confuses motion with meaning. We have seen it happen. A team spends weeks integrating a new system, only to realise it solves a problem they never had.
A designer builds a pixel-perfect Figma prototype, yet no one asked whether the flow made sense. A researcher collects hundreds of chatbot interviews but never once has a real conversation with a human being. This is not progress. This is performance.
At EDISONDA, we are not anti-tool. We are not nostalgic for a pre-digital past. But we are critical thinkers. And we believe that adopting a tool, a method or a trend should always follow a clear question: What are we trying to achieve, and is this the best way to do it? Sometimes that means embracing the new. Other times it means stepping back.
Discover how we integrate AI tools into our processes.
We are not interested in being “cutting-edge” for its own sake. That edge cuts both ways. What we are interested in is fit, the elegance of using just enough technology to solve the problem beautifully, sustainably and with integrity. Keeping up with the pace, for us, does not mean chasing every wave. It means learning how to read the tides.
It means saying no to hype. It means pausing before implementation. It means understanding that just because something is possible does not mean it is necessary. And that just because everyone else is doing it does not mean it is right for you.
Real UX work is about insight – it is about building the right thing, not the flashiest one. And that requires time, attention and judgement. So yes, we know how to move fast. But we also know when to slow down. And we believe that is not just a luxury, it is a responsibility.
Because thoughtful design, like thoughtful living, does not happen at full speed. It happens in the spaces between the trends. In the pauses. In the questions. And those are the spaces where we thrive.
At EDISONDA, we resist the performative adoption of trends. We embrace them when useful, challenge them when hollow and always ask the same grounding question: Does it help us build something valuable? The real art lies in discernment. Knowing when to ride a “what’s in” wave and when to let it crash harmlessly by.
Discovery and experiments
or starting from a blank slate with volumes written
Just as too much focus on tools and methods during the initial creative process can hinder progress, there is another factor which, from our perspective, can paradoxically impede a fruitful ideation phase.
Paradoxically, because there is nothing inherently wrong with knowledge and experience. But when you are presented with a dreamt-up “blank slate” project, encouraged to go beyond what is known and proven, this is precisely when prior knowledge and established practices can get in the way of the creative process.
It is visible on many levels, from reusing design components because time has already been spent creating them (the sunk cost fallacy) or because they are prescribed by a design system, to limiting our thinking to our immediate context of technology, domain or industry. When we say “blank slate”, we do not mean absence. We mean permission. Permission to ask: what if we did it differently? What if we did not just refine, but reimagine?
This is why we often create space for forgetting. We use constraints to provoke new ideas. We deliberately avoid premature structuring. We walk into workshops not with blueprints but with questions. We suspend judgement, even if only for an hour, to let the strange and the new come forward.
And this is where agencies thrive. While internal teams often carry the full weight of organisational memory, including roadmaps, OKRs, legacy code and stakeholder dynamics, we arrive lighter. More playful. More willing to say: “Let’s try something absurd for a moment.”
This does not mean being reckless. On the contrary, true experimentation is disciplined. It is not about chaos but about structured curiosity. It is about asking: “What if we looked at this from an entirely different perspective?” and then following that thought not just with a shrug but with a method.
Sometimes that means building a quick prototype of an idea no one believes in, just to see how it feels. Sometimes it means challenging the assumptions hidden in a user story. Sometimes it is as simple as asking:
“What would this look like if we ignored the business model for 30 minutes?” Discovery is not a phase. It is a mindset.
It is not something we do before the work. It is the work – and experimentation is not about throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks. It is about crafting conditions where unexpected insights emerge, where you are genuinely surprised by something you did not even know you did not know. And when that moment arrives, when something clicks that could not have emerged through process alone, that is when we know the real work has begun.
This is what independent UX studios bring to the table: not just fresh eyes but the courage to look at the familiar and see the unfamiliar in it. The skill to hold both the blank slate and the volumes already written, and still be willing to draw something new.
At EDISONDA, we treat discovery as an active stance, not passive observation. It is about listening with intent, synthesising with clarity and questioning with humility. We bring tools, yes. We bring experience. But we also bring curiosity. We deeply respect the volumes written with your knowledge and expertise, but just for a moment, we want to lay a blank slate in front of you.
UX studios as strategic partners
or why the real UX still lives
I believe there is a quiet renaissance taking place around us. It may be difficult to notice among all the flashy billboards about AI, but it is happening. While some pronounce the death of UX or its assimilation into generic product roles, independent studios continue to shape, provoke and elevate the craft.
Because we are not beholden to a single backlog, we are free to look up. We are able to ask: is this the right product to build? Is this the right way to serve your users? Is this even the right problem to solve? We are translators of chaos, architects of clarity. And this is where the real UX lives, not in screens or specifications but in vision.
As strategic partners, we do not offer a magic formula. We offer perspective. Courage. And the commitment to walk alongside our clients, not in front of them and not behind them.
