A book by Rikki Teeters
A field guide for designers shipping AI into a real world.
Leading human-centered design in the age of AI. Drawn from 130 conversations across six continents.
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How the book began
I kept getting stuck on the same question in my own practice: how do you design experiences for humans using thinking machines? Not as theory. As something workable on a Tuesday morning, inside real teams, on real products.
So I went looking. I talked with 130 UX professionals across six continents: designers, researchers, AI engineers, product leaders, practitioners actually shipping work with AI today.
The book is what I learned from their lived experience: what they're trying, where it's breaking, what they're protecting, and what they wish they'd understood sooner.
— Conscious UX · IntroductionFrom the author
A Letter to Readers of the First Edition.
The first edition of Conscious UX arrived in August 2025. It was the right book for that moment, written quickly while the field was moving in real time and an industry was figuring out how to talk about what was changing.
The second edition, published in May 2026, is the same book made more accessible. Shorter, by about a third. Priced lower, so it can travel further. Designed to be read straight through in a weekend.
What I kept.
The nine principles. The 130 voices interviewed across six continents. The conversations with Don Norman, Brenda Laurel, Babak Parviz, Helen Edwards, Cheryl Platz, Aahed I. Zarouk, Jamaal Davis, Faria Anzum, Kuldeep Kulshreshtha, and many others. The argument that the human capacity to feel responsible for consequence is what makes our work irreplaceable in the age of AI.
What I cut.
The book has been tightened so the interviews can carry the weight they deserve. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter, the extended research report, and several appendices have been removed to keep the reader inside the conversation. Repetition that had built up during a rapid first writing has been cut. The thesis word conscious now appears with intention rather than insistence.
The chapters that needed more breath got it. The chapters that had grown beyond their content got trimmed. The 130 contributors are still listed in full at the back of the book, in their own voices, so credit goes where it has always belonged.
A small number of stories from the first edition have been removed out of care for the people and families involved.
If you read the first edition, this is the version you can hand to a friend without explaining what to skip. If you are coming to the book for the first time, welcome.
— Rikki Teeters · May 2026About the book
Conscious UX is a field guide for designing AI with full awareness of who it helps, who it harms, and who pays the cost.
The AI revolution is not coming. It is here, and it is learning from every choice we make.
Across nine principles, and 130 conversations with designers, researchers, and product leaders on six continents, Conscious UX asks the questions the industry has been too busy to ask. Who is this for? Who pays the cost? What does the user lose when we build for engagement instead of presence? When AI can simulate empathy, what does it still cost a human to actually care?
For the designers staying awake. For the readers who already knew something was off. For the future that is being decided in rooms most of us are not yet inside.
The founding question
How do we design experiences for humans using thinking machines?
— The question that shaped 130 conversations
Voices
130
Interviews with UX designers, researchers, AI engineers, and product leaders shipping work with AI today.
Continents
6
Port Harcourt, São Paulo, Seattle, Tokyo, and points between.
Principles
9
Chapters whose first letters spell C-O-N-S-C-I-O-U-S, organized into three parts.
Foreword · Brenda Laurel
Conscious UX is the third alternative. A practice of creative symbiosis where human consciousness and AI's marvelous new affordances can coexist and flourish.Brenda Laurel · Santa Fe, August 2025
Chapter 1 · Conscious
Whatever you're doing, should we be doing it?Don Norman · in conversation with Rikki Teeters, May 2025
The structure
Nine principles, three parts, one word.
Each chapter pairs with a conversation. Each first letter, taken in order, becomes the word the book is named for: CONSCIOUS.
OpeningIntroduction
Part 1Remembering
Part 2Becoming
Part 3Being
Voices from the field
A few of the 130 practitioners whose words shaped this book.
Santiago Bustelo · Buenos Aires
We designers must own our design decisions and take responsibility for the final experience, just as architects are accountable for their buildings.
Brenda Laurel · Santa Fe
Maybe it's not just the earth serving us. Maybe we're serving the earth for a change.
Adam Hagerman · Indeed
Our job is to advocate for users. Our job is not to run user testing sessions.
Aahed I. Zarouk · Olives & Heather
Context engineering, not prompt engineering. It's how you train the AI to work for you based on real data.
Carlos & Allison
Nothing about us without us. That's a responsibility, not mere compliance.
Inemesit · Port Harcourt
AI empowers people to create better futures.
Practice Consciousness Through Design
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Available in digital and print. The methodology behind everything else in this studio.