Can UX designers still dream?

Figma templates and A/B tests are tools of conformity. They optimize for efficiency, not imagination. But UX isn’t just a craft—it’s cultural engineering. We’re building the cognitive spaces where people think, feel, and act.

Do you remember the first time you used a touchscren? The “wow” moment that happened when first hailed a cab on an app, or had a video-call on your phone? You surely remember the first moment you had a conversation with an AI.

These were pivotal moments. They changed culture, they changed our lives.

And it’s time to dream about the next ones. And for us, as designers, to contribute our part to that dream.

UX became a monoculture. What was once a new territory, full of promise and possibility, with the vision to use digital technology to connect people, to improve lives, to empower others… has become the province of metrics, templates, optimisations.

Let’s be real: the spark is gone. As technology matured over the last decade, the tech world became a monoculture. Paywalls everywhere. Innovation replaced with desperate attention grabbing. The same apps, content, patterns, repeated everywhere ad-nauseum. And that’s … boring.

Once upon a time, we thought technology could uplift the human spirit. Of course, things have since changed. The 2010’s made us less naive. But does that mean we should stop dreaming?

Yet, even the discourse on “uplifting the human spirit”, today, is all about hype, attention-grabbing and politics. Sure, we all want “tech for good”; but our presuppositions of what “uplifting” means are contaminated.

• Is uplifting “removing obstacles” and streamlining? (the optimizer’s argument)

• Or is it “providing meaningful challenge”? (the gamifier’s argument)

• Or it “surprising and delighting” people with great craft and aesthetic sense? (the craftsman’s argument)

• Is it about “digital fasting” and “overcoming digital addiction”? (the addiction overcomer’s argument)

• Or is it using technology wisely to mitigate technology’s negative impact on well-being? (the wellness guru’s argument)

Perhaps a mix of all of them. But even so, are we sure we are dreaming big enough?

Here’s the thing: you are the consumtariat—a disempowered proletariat whose consumption is the very labor that sustains the attention economy.

No matter if you defend content that is more “genuine”, less “addictive”, more "or less “crafted”. We live under attentionalism. Our time and our attention support the economy.

And to cast attention is to support, to worship, to manifest. That is why the algorithm works. It is shaping society, the world and reality in its image - using us as an instrument. Is this the reality we want?

But here’s the way out: to fight fire with fire. To design experience is to channel attention. This is UX—just not the type you are used to seeing on screens or journeys.

The “user experience design” I talk about designs “user” as much as “experience”. It empowers them to manifest a broader spectrum of realities. Ambient UX. Behavioural Design. Ontological creativity.

This is not just about creating things in themselves; it’s about shaping human experiences and realities at a higher level.

The tools are here: sensors, omnipresent connectivity, adaptive interfaces. We have all the tools we need to dream bigger. To generate that "wow” factor. To find that “spark” once again. The mindset is what’s overdue.

So I ask:

• Can UX still shape culture as it once seemed to, in the heyday of techno-optimism one or two decades ago—or is it now just a tool for serving metrics and industrial incumbents?

• Has our ability to "dream" new realities been captured by the tech world’s new normal?

• Are we even creative enough in our attempts at envisioning "human flourishing"? What does that mean, and how might we measure it?

Design isn’t neutral—it creates narratives that we live out.

It’s time we start designing better ones. Starting with our own, as UX designers.

Daniel Fraga