UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
September//26 & October//3//2025
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the past two weeks!
1.
Best Led Companies. Not the typical highlight of this newsletter, but this is another thoughtful article from the Glassdoor team published on their blog, which lists the best led companies of 2025. The article leverages the data Glassdoor collects from its platform to create this ranking (NVIDIA, In-And-Out Burger, Mathworks are the three leads), but at a time where layoffs are being handed out like confetti, and where the sense of responsible growth and maturing has seemingly eroded many organizations in the market, it’s interesting to realize what made the companies on this list rise to prominence. And as the statement below indicates, a strong leadership, one that marries transparency with a scrupulous approach to team motivation, are a few qualities that professionals look for when assessing what is on the market. And please check this newsletter’s issue from September 12th and 19th, to get a sense for the shadow that layoffs cast. Highlight of the article includes:
“Ultimately, Glassdoor’s Best-Led Companies list proves that a company’s success is deeply connected to its senior leadership team. These top-ranked organizations demonstrate that strong, empathetic, and empowering management is not just a bonus — it’s the foundation for an exceptional employee experience. By providing a transparent look at company leadership through authentic employee reviews, this list serves as a valuable resource for job seekers navigating the modern workforce.”
2.
Actual State of Email Deliverability. Another fantastic article from Andrian Valeanu for Unspam.email which has been highlighted in this newsletter quite a few times before. This article looks at the details surrounding email sendouts, particularly as the rules surrounding it are becoming far more exacting in order to preserve users’ privacy, and also improve their user experience. While it may seem that email deliverability is a fairly easy and straightforward process, there’s a lot more involved in that journey, which this article thoroughly illustrates. A few thinks that are capitalized in this article and that are worth mentioning in this introduction: creating a solid reputation for the sender, the role of data quality and consent, scans that mimic human behavior for phishing scams, and the list goes on. It’s an impeccable article, and one well worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“All messages must now be properly authenticated through SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Bulk senders, defined loosely as those sending more than 5,000 messages per day but often evaluated case by case, must support one-click unsubscribe. Google also introduced the Feedback-ID header, which allows senders to trace complaints back to specific campaigns without violating user privacy. Yahoo relaunched its feedback loop program, requiring DKIM authentication as the basis for participation. In April 2025, Google went further, clarifying that accounts failing to meet these standards may lose the ability to display their brand name in the “From” field. Instead, users would see only the raw email address, a change intended to help consumers identify suspicious or untrustworthy senders. The message was clear: authentication and compliance are not just technical details. They are visible signals of trust.”
3.
Adobe Acrobat Studio’s Design Journey. Hailing from the Adobe.Design blog, this article documents an interview which was performed with the Design teams involved in the crafting Adobe Acrobrat Studio’s redesign. While I have mixed feelings regarding Adobe’s stance on AI, particularly as it cannibalizes the work of artists and content creators for the generation of its stock of imagery and video, I appreciate the process they have illustrated in this interview. The article documents how the individuals engaged in the redesign effort learnt from their users, from their tasks, and they went beyond the North American market in capturing feedback and understanding how an internationally used solution such as Acrobat is leveraged in different contexts, professions, and countries. Well worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“We learned that people don’t really think in goal-oriented ways. They come in with tasks and their goals form from those tasks. As an example, people might open the app with the task of extracting information or insights from a document, but their goal is writing a summary report to share or developing a unique point of view on a topic. Helping people drive to something bigger wasn’t always easy from a design standpoint but much of the design work in PDF Spaces helps people better understand those larger goals. It’s the start of evolving Acrobat from a task-based transactional tool to a more outcome-based application with more end-to-end workflows.”
