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The Agentic Design Stack  |  UX is the future of AI
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Season 7—Spring 2026  ·  12 episodes  ·  Through-line: the human architecture of institutional change
Boring AI
is Good AI
Gordon
Why AI Scaffolding
Matters More than Use Cases
Flowers · S6
Decentralized
AI is the Future
Goertzel
Canonical
Knowledge is Key
DosSantos
What AI as
Cheap Prediction Means
Gans
Cheap Prediction,
Expensive Change
Goldfarb
Folk Law &
Fax Machines
Pahlka
Inside The
Infinity Machine
Mallaby
Crisis Is
Your Opening
Nitze
The Confabulation
Machine
Ratliff
No Strategy
Without Vision
Evergreen
When Agents Have
Wallets, Trust Is Currency
Cohen Freue
Nuclear Fusion,
No Power Lines
Frankle
The Checklist Your
Deck Is Missing
McMillan ← Latest
Fellows › John Ferrara
Contributing Author

John Ferrara

UX+Game Designer
John Ferrara

John Ferrara has worked in in user experience design since 1999, designing interfaces for websites, desktop applications, and video games. Since 2006 he's been with Vanguard, and before that did significant work for Unisys and General Electric. He's been a forceful advocate for closer connections between UX and game design at the IA Summit, EuroIA, and Games for Health. He’s the author of the new book Playful Design: Creating Game Experiences in Everyday Interfaces, published by Rosenfeld Media. His nutrition education game Fitter Critters was a top prizewinner in the Apps For Healthy Kids contest, sponsored by Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign. Before entering the professional world, he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in communications. Feel free to follow John on Twitter at @PlayfulDesign.

Contributions to UXM

2 pieces
1
Book Excerpt  ·  Crisis Engineering

The Crisis Worth Using

The five indicators of a genuinely useful crisis—and the difference between the kind that opens a window for transformational change and the kind that merely accelerates collapse. Excerpted from Crisis Engineering.

7 min read April 2025 ◆ The Useful Crisis
2
Guest Article

When the Window Opens: A Field Guide to Crisis Seizing

Written for UXM as a companion to the episode. Not theory—what Marina actually does when she walks into a failing system with a 90-day mandate and no authority to hire. Practical, specific, and unsettling in the best way.

11 min read April 2025 ◆ The Useful Crisis

Ideations

1 cluster
The Useful Crisis
S7 Ep. 4  ·  7 pieces  ·  April 2025