Technology
UX Autopsy
Two designers pick apart real apps, websites, and interfaces, arguing over what works and what's broken.
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Episodes
The archive
26 episodes, newest first.
- YouTube's Subscriptions Tab | Pixel AuditYouTube's mobile redesign dropped the dedicated Subscriptions tab, and our spicy take is that the tab was never the real casualty. This week's UX and UI design critique sorts three fresh redesign fights by who loses: a power user's muscle memory or a business priority. We dig into the new four-item bottom bar, the hidden Subs menu you reach by swiping down on Home, Google Messages' pinned-chats cards that drop the last-message preview, and the Health app redesign that Apple pulled and then brought back in the iOS 27.3 beta. We also ask whether a server-side rollout with no opt-out is itself a product design decision. You'll walk away with a simple who-loses sort you can run on your own redesign before you ship it. It's the Tuesday episode for week 46 of 2026, for anyone doing product design who wants sharper eyes.
- Election Night Results Maps | Pixel AuditToday is election day for the 2026 midterms, and Grant and Maya audit the live results pages: France 24's interactive state-by-state map, Al Jazeera's maps-and-charts page, and a bare-bones state-by-state table with no map. The spicy take: a big red-and-blue map with a zero-zero scoreboard is a UX failure when the honest answer is 'we don't know yet.' In this UX and UI design critique for product design, they dig into what each page puts first, how uncalled races look, the 'early leads can shift' microcopy, and a quick red flag or green flag round. Listeners walk away knowing how to design an explicit 'not yet' state into any live-data interface. This is the Tuesday episode for week 45 of 2026, and a follow-up to the Vote.gov and HealthCare.gov audit.
- Subscription Cancel Flows | Pixel AuditSubscription cancel flows are the roach motels of product design, and the NYC click-to-cancel rule is the first real spec for getting out of them. This UX and UI design critique treats the rule as a product design brief and asks which save-flow patterns survive it. Grant and Maya disagree about whether any retention screen is ever good UX. Design elements discussed: the retention offer screen, the 'are you sure?' confirmation modal, the phone-only exit, and confirmshaming microcopy. The hosts score the cancel patterns against the city standard, covering how the rule defines an obstacle and what a compliant save offer looks like. You will walk away knowing how to audit your own cancel flow against the rule and which patterns to cut. This is the {day_of_week} episode for week {week_number} of {year}. Great for product design practitioners.
- Redesign Backlash Docket | Pixel AuditThis is the Redesign Backlash Docket, a UX and UI design critique for product design practitioners: three redesigns on trial, and our spicy take is that most 'change aversion' claims are just teams dodging a regression. We put YouTube's desktop comments sidebar, Discord's mobile gift button in the message bar, and Plex's rolled-back TV navigation in the dock. Along the way we dig into the sidebar's large recommendation thumbnails under the player, the always-visible comments and spoilers, the gift button next to the text input, and Plex's press-left-for-sidebar muscle memory versus the top-bar menu. You'll walk away with a stealable checklist for telling change aversion from a measurable usability regression before you ship, and for deciding when to roll back. This is the {day_of_week} episode for week {week_number} of {year}.
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- Vote.gov & HealthCare.gov | Pixel AuditThis is the Tuesday episode for week 42 of 2026 of UX Autopsy. We audit Vote.gov and the HealthCare.gov open enrollment flow, and one of us argues a failed registration form is the worst bounce in product design. Along the way we look at the state handoff after Vote.gov, the accessibility gaps in civic interfaces, the two deadlines that muddy open enrollment, and whether plan comparison holds up when subsidies shrink. Expect a UX and UI design critique with product design takeaways, plus a red flag or green flag round. You'll walk away knowing how to design for a stressed user on a deadline.
- Figma's Agent Credit Meter | Pixel AuditFigma's design agent leaves beta on October 6 and starts drawing from the same AI credit pool as Figma Make. In this Tuesday episode for week 41 of 2026, Grant and Maya run a UX and UI design critique of the agent as a product, and Maya argues the meter is a quiet paywall. They go through the left-rail and on-canvas entry points, the @-mention flow for tokens and components, the chats visible to collaborators, and the credit disclosure UI. They also ask whether usage-based pricing makes designers hesitate before iterating. The hosts leave that question open. You'll walk away with a paywall-style checklist for judging any metered AI feature in product design, plus one disclosure pattern you can steal for your own work.
- OpenAI DevDay: 'o' Agent | Pixel AuditOpenAI's DevDay 2026 keynote is the specific target this week, and the spiciest opinion in the room is that 'agentic AI' shipped before anyone designed the trust layer for it. Grant and Maya audit the rumored always-on 'o' agent's leaked upgrade-screen copy, the newly reported merger of ChatGPT desktop, Codex, and Atlas into one 'superapp,' Greg Brockman's own admission the current desktop UI is 'kind of a mess,' and Nielsen Norman Group's claim that AI is the first new UI paradigm in 60 years. Expect a real disagreement over whether 'start in chat, continue in Codex, inspect in a dashboard' is a genuine interaction pattern or just three products stapled into tabs. Listeners walk away knowing how to stress-test any 'seamless handoff' pitch for the trust cues it's actually missing. This is the Tuesday episode for week 40 of 2026. UX, UI, design critique, product design.
- Netflix Clips | Pixel AuditNetflix's new 'Clips' vertical video feed and redesigned navigation are either the smartest engagement play in streaming or a TikTok cosplay nobody asked for — Grant and Maya can't agree. This audit digs into the 'personalized highlight reel' pitch, the hands-on review calling it 'oddly underpowered yet addictive,' the autoplay-on-open feature Netflix quietly tested and killed, and the oversized content cards subscribers are still complaining about a year later. They also check Netflix's own accessibility page against the motion-sickness complaints trailing the redesign and find a gap nobody's pricing in. Listeners walk away knowing how to pressure-test a motion-heavy engagement feature before shipping it, and how to read a company's accessibility docs for what they conspicuously don't mention. UX, UI, design critique, product design — this week's audit goes non-Apple, non-Google for the first time in months. This is Tuesday's episode for week 39 of 2026.
- iPhone Duo Hands-On | Pixel AuditThe iPhone Duo shipped, and Grant and Maya are cashing in on the predictions they locked before the keynote. Spicy opening take: the crease bet mostly held up, but the Dynamic Island grade is messier than either host wants to admit. They dig into the crease-visibility debate on darker screens, the redesigned Dynamic Island's ambiguous cross-screen behavior, Liquid Glass's paper-like inner display texture, and a left-handed ergonomics blind spot nobody actually bet on. Plus a rapid-fire red-flag/green-flag round on the hinge engineering claims and the opening animation. Walk away knowing how to grade your own product predictions honestly instead of quietly burying the misses. UX, UI, design critique, and product design talk for anyone who argues about interfaces for fun.
- iOS 27 Transparency Slider | Pixel AuditiOS 27's Liquid Glass transparency slider ships wrapped in relief-headline coverage, but Grant and Maya think that's the wrong lens entirely. This week's spicy take: shipping a slider isn't the same as shipping accessibility, and burying 'Reduce Transparency' inside Accessibility settings instead of making it a system default might be a dark pattern dressed up as user choice. They run the shipped settings menu against WCAG contrast-ratio math, Nielsen Norman Group's critique of the 'dishonest' Reduce Transparency toggle, the new High Contrast Liquid Glass mode, and the iOS 26.1 'Tinted' control Apple quietly mainstreamed into Display & Brightness instead. Expect a real disagreement between the hosts on whether Apple's fix counts as progress or cover. Listeners walk away with a concrete way to audit their own 'reduce X' toggles for the same default-vs-buried problem. UX, UI, design critique, product design. This is the {day_of_week} episode for week {week_number} of {year}.
Talent
Talents in this show
Each one has a profile of their own.
About
What the show is
Each week, UX Autopsy puts a specific product's UX and UI under the microscope: layout choices, interaction patterns, color systems, microcopy, accessibility gaps, and the business logic behind every screen. Built for mid-career product designers and UI/UX practitioners who are past the basics and want sharper eyes, not just sharper tools. If you've ever rage-tapped a modal that shouldn't exist, this show is for you.
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Elsewhere in the directory
Every one of them is made with Mato.
