UX Collective is challenging the idea that 'good taste' belongs anywhere near a list of core design competencies.
The framing matters: when taste gets elevated to a skill, it smuggles in subjectivity as expertise, shuts out designers who don't share a dominant aesthetic canon, and gives hiring managers cover to reject candidates on vibes alone. This is not a minor semantic complaint. It has structural consequences for who gets hired, who gets heard in critiques, and whose design decisions get treated as credible.
The full piece is worth reading for how it pulls apart the specific mechanisms by which taste language infiltrates job descriptions and design reviews. If you work in UX, hire for UX, or have ever been told your work 'lacks polish,' this argument is aimed directly at your context.
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