The primary value of a UX designer is no longer the ability to produce artifacts, but the ability to make informed decisions about product direction.

Why is the role of the UX designer changing?

The scarcity of design production has ended.

For much of the last decade, UX value was tied to the speed and quality of execution. Designers were measured by the screens they shipped and the flows they completed. This logic applied when design tools were slow and production was a bottleneck.

Modern design systems, component libraries, and AI-driven automation have removed this friction. AI can generate layouts, write interface copy, and cluster research data instantly. Because production is now commoditized, execution no longer defines seniority or impact. Organizations no longer struggle to create options; they struggle to select the right ones.

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What defines judgment in a UX context?

Judgment is the technical and cognitive ability to evaluate design choices against human behavior and business constraints.

Judgment is not synonymous with personal taste or intuition. It is a professional discipline used to:

• Identify the correct problem to solve before production begins.

• Recognize when automated tools produce "false clarity" or generic solutions.

• Analyze the second-order effects of a design change on a complex system.

• Determine when to simplify a flow and when complexity is necessary for the user.

While execution results in visible UI, judgment shapes the underlying logic that prevents user friction. As AI accelerates the volume of design output, human judgment becomes the primary constraint that determines final product quality.

How does the designer's day-to-day work change?

The UX designer is moving from a maker of assets to an arbiter of direction.

In high-performing product organizations, designers now operate further upstream. This transition requires designers to own the following responsibilities:

1. Defining exploration parameters: Setting the boundaries for what automation should and should not generate.

2. Filtering signals: Deciding which user insights are meaningful and which are statistical noise.

3. Translating insights: Turning research into a specific, actionable direction for the product team.

At the UX Sofia 2025 conference, I discussed this shift with industry peers. The consensus among lead designers was that teams can now build features faster than they can reason about them. This creates a "decision debt" that only human judgment can resolve.

Why does judgment matter for product outcomes?

Products fail more often due to misjudged priorities than poor visual execution.

When execution leads without judgment, products suffer from "feature factory" symptoms. This results in:

• Overdesigned systems: Adding complexity because tools make it easy to do so.

• Underexplained flows: Neglecting the user's mental model in favor of rapid delivery.

• Premature flexibility: Building complex settings and options before the core value is proven.

UX is uniquely positioned to intervene because it sits at the intersection of behavior and systems. This responsibility cannot be automated because it requires contextual accountability.

What does judgment-driven UX look like in practice?

Effective judgment often results in fewer features and clearer intent.

Designers who lead with judgment produce work that is quieter but more durable. Evidence of high-level judgment includes:

• Systems that scale without requiring constant redesign.

• Flows that feel obvious to the user without external explanation.

• Decisions that reduce future maintenance work for engineering teams.

In my experience leading design teams, the most valuable contributors are those who ask better questions before opening a design tool. They understand business pressure without absorbing it blindly and protect users from internal organizational complexity.

Closing reflection

UX is not moving away from making things.

It is moving toward deciding which things deserve to exist.

As tools continue to accelerate execution, judgment becomes the work.
Designers who embrace this shift will remain relevant, trusted, and influential.

Those who cling to execution alone will find themselves competing with machines that never get tired.