We removed bad UX practices… but also the rigor behind thinking
Over the past few months, one observation keeps coming back across product teams, agencies, and brands: we barely talk about UX anymore. Or when we do, it’s quickly and superficially. Today, the real focus is speed. We build fast. We prototype in days. We test, adjust, repeat. With AI, producing something “functional” has never been easier. In a market under pressure — tighter budgets, compressed timelines — this acceleration makes total sense. But behind the rush, one crucial question is systematically overlooked: are we building better… or just faster?
The UX backlash didn’t happen by accident
If we’re honest, the UX backlash was somewhat deserved. For years, parts of the discipline became overcomplicated. Generic personas, rigid user journeys, endless workshops, and massive deliverables that no one ever revisited. At some point, the method started to outweigh the outcome. Let’s be clear: UX sometimes became a comfortable business — a lot of process, a lot of alignment theater, but not always a lot of impact. That’s the reality. But as often happens in our industry, we didn’t correct; we overcorrected. We didn’t just trim the fat; we cut into the bone. Behind those past excesses lay something fundamental: the ability to structure a complex problem, clarify intent, and avoid building in the wrong direction. That layer is now disappearing. In our rush to optimize, we removed bad UX practices… but also the rigor behind thinking.
From “Vibe Coding” to “Vibe Building”
What we’re seeing on the product side is a carbon copy of what the tech world has experienced for years with the classic trap: “we’ll build fast and optimize later.” With generative AI, this flaw has scaled exponentially. “Vibe coding” has become the norm — quickly generated code, assembled on the fly, functioning on fragile logic. It works beautifully… until it doesn’t. Then come the consequences: technical debt, structural inconsistencies, and massive rewrites. On the UX and product side, we have reached that exact same stage. Call it “vibe building.” We build fast, test fast, move fast… but without truly framing the problem. And just like in tech, what isn’t structured upfront always becomes expensive later. Except here, technical debt isn’t the only issue. We are generating massive Experience Debt (UX debt): products that feel disjointed, features that clash, and a slow, invisible erosion of user retention that no quick fix can solve.
The major blind spot: Creative tech and brand experiences
While a pure “build fast” mentality might pass on hyper-simple transactional products, it becomes incredibly risky the moment you step into creative tech, digital activations, innovative e-commerce, or interactive systems. In these ecosystems, the experience is the product. Perception creates value. Narrative drives conversion. Without a minimum level of UX structuring, you inevitably end up with unclear experiences, broken storytelling, and invisible friction. The visual layer hides the problem: a project can be beautiful, smooth, and technologically impressive, yet completely ineffective at driving real business outcomes.
What we see at WADP
At WADP, we see this playground shifting clearly. Over the past two years, across all the projects we’ve been involved in, barely 30% still included a properly structured CX/UX approach. On those 30%, the value is immediate. Clients see it, teams feel it, and partners align effortlessly. On the remaining 70%, the early warning signals are already flashing: product inconsistencies, fragile user journeys, rushed decisions, and the constant, costly need to backtrack. For now, the damage isn’t fully visible to the naked eye. But as we move through 2026 and head into 2027, these projects will hit a wall of complexity where the lack of initial structure becomes critical. When that wall hits, the market will face a double crisis: failing products, and an industry wondering where all the experienced UX profiles we pushed out of the system went.
Shipping fast without thinking means paying twice
“Shipping fast” without proper thinking isn’t optimization; it’s problem displacement. We see the same cycle over and over: a poorly framed problem leads to a misaligned solution, which gets tested on fragile foundations, leading to premature validation, and ultimately — a few months later — a complete rebuild. Shipping fast without thinking simply means paying twice. The issue is that speed — currently perceived as a supreme competitive advantage — quickly matures into a strategic weakness. It creates an illusion of progress while masking a total lack of direction.
The real challenge: bringing accuracy back into speed
The goal isn’t to slow down. The goal is to bring accuracy back into speed. Building has become easy. Understanding hasn’t. The market has successfully removed the excess, but it has accidentally discarded the essential: the ability to make solid, human-centric decisions before moving fast. You cannot replace human empathy in user interviews, or the ability to uncover the why behind quantitative data, with a tech builder or a PM builder alone. Roles are evolving — including ours in digital project leadership — but people still use tools to interact with content, products, and services. It’s unfortunate that part of the industry chose to sideline UX expertise. Yes, the discipline needed to become more ROI-driven, more business-focused, and more tactical. But it never deserved to be pushed aside entirely.
Direction beats speed
I don’t have all the answers. But as an industry, we need to realize that we are losing invaluable talent. We will pay the price in the coming years when those profiles are gone and companies finally start measuring the real ROI and retention of all these “ship fast” projects at scale. UX remains vital — especially now, when generic AI patterns are copied and pasted without any adaptation to context or brand identity. At WADP, our conviction remains unchanged: value doesn’t come from the rigidity of a method. It comes from the ability to stay pragmatic in complex environments. And being pragmatic means protecting the skills that cannot be replaced by an AI agent. Speed is no longer your advantage. In many cases, it has become your greatest vulnerability. Direction is the advantage. And it always has been.