Ditto was proud to sponsor the first annual Throughline Conference, hosted by our friends at Active Voice. The two-day UX conference focused on a simple theme: More hope. Less hype. And the optimism was palpable, both from speakers and attendees.

Throughline featured a heavy-hitting speaker lineup across product design, UX writing, leadership, and career coaching. It offered a space for the design community to show up for each other—and did they ever!

The throughline: Themes that resonated

We spent two days in talks and workshops spanning from creating business value to staying human in the age of AI. Across the (virtual) stage and the conference Slack channel, a few common themes emerged.

Process is the new craft

In the inaugural talk, Erika Hall, design consultancy co-founder, argued that the "business model is the grid." Design must account for the underlying structures and business values it serves, or it fails. Principal experience designer Pavel Samsonov expanded on this in his talk: designers must design the systems they work in, treating colleagues as the users.

Overall, we noticed a major shift from focusing on the final UI or copy, to focusing on the human infrastructure that supports it. This means treating your internal workflows and stakeholder relationships as products that need to be designed.

The "work beneath the work"

ÌníOlúwa Abíódún, senior product designer, recognized that the AI narrative wants us to move faster and stay ahead. But as AI handles more production, a designer’s value moves to the strategic “work beneath the work”: asking the right questions, listening, facilitating alignment, and managing the social layer of a project.

Design leader Farai Madzima reframed difficult communication as a transaction: “The price is staying silent, or the price is saying the thing. You were always going to pay one of them.” Farai highlighted the fact that these hard conversations are what you need to move work forward.

Repair over innovation

Ron Bronson, public sector deign leader, shared the “pit orchestra problem”: when the unseen musicians in the pit orchestra miss a cue, you notice. The show falters. He likens it to design, where one unseen issue can throw off an entire process, an entire system.

Instead of always building new features, there’s a shift toward design as repair. Ron introduced a helpful repair framework: accept constraints you can’t change, identify what you can steer, and gradually build momentum through maintenance.

Navigating stress, burnout, and uncertainty

The UX community is openly discussing burnout and the struggle to find meaning when the industry feels broken. The focus is on setting boundaries and separating your self-worth from the job.

Candi Williams, content design leader, spoke to the expectation of doing more with less, quicker. She gave us permission to push back and shared expert strategies to support your well-being, including rewiring your brain with small habits and rediscovering fulfillment beyond work.

Design leader Lisa Woodley spoke to the importance of staying human through the chaos, and offered a way to find your way back to the craft when you’re “done” with the industry. Our favorite quick insight: you can’t fix everything at once. Focus on which specific problem you’re solving today.

Our key takeaways from Throughline 2026

• Move from production to process design: Your most important product isn't the copy; it’s the workflow that allows good copy to happen.
• Leverage the "work beneath the work": As AI automates drafting, your value shifts to high-leverage soft skills—aligning mismatched goals and asking the strategic questions AI can't.
• Position yourself as an outcome owner: Stop selling writing and start selling results. Whether you’re job searching or trying to grow influence with your current team, focus on storytelling around how you unblocked teams or achieved business goals.

There were truly too many insights to cover everything here. A huge thank you to the hosts, volunteers, speakers, and attendees for making the first Throughline a success.

We’re already looking forward to next year!