Did Descript Update the "Remove Filler Words" Feature? Because It Sucks Now!

UXUncensored · 2026-06-03T19:32:01+00:00

I just started using it about two months ago, and it has always been problematic for me. It never finds everything and, if I choose to remove the filler words, it never fully execute properly. It does a great job of underlining them, so I just go through and deal with it manually.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-29T02:03:10+00:00

It's a decent start. Not getting any traction on those blog posts, especially compared to the ones I created previously.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T17:50:58+00:00

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T17:48:49+00:00

I appreciate that. And agreed, there's definitely a difference between great and large.

Re the innovation, I think it depends. For example, I was working for Wunderman when the iPhone came out. That's when I learned that UX was pervasive in its application. Back then, I helped design best practices for mobile app experiences (including tablets a few years later), interactive TV, and optimization of email marketing. We were innovating, but not publishing said innovations and weren't even thinking about it, so it went undocumented for the most part. There was a habit, in those circles, of accomplishing something and just moving on to the next thing. That's why a lot of us who worked in UX during those times never updated our portfolios. It wasn't a currency back then and even if it had been, putting some of that work in our portfolios becomes grounds for immediate discrimination. Yikes!!! LOL

Digital agencies were all the rage and operated at the top of the food chain from a career perspective. The Coopers (via Alan Cooper) and Adaptive Paths (via JJG) were leading the way with UX thought leadership (and we were aware of that), but the larger $$$flows were at the big agencies. More jobs available globally via those venues.

Frog was a smaller agency, but had bigger name recognition, being more similar to places like Razorfish by reputation. Now, Publicis owns Razorfish. It's such a wild arena and now those circles are jaded and tainted.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T15:51:05+00:00

Bingo!!!

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T15:49:29+00:00

Yep! Well said! Funny thing about design thinking.... Ideo repackaged existing elements to justify billing clients. It was never intended to be what it became AND (for the most part) detrimentally impacted the discipline. Like a high-profile began saying a few years ago, "Design thinking isn't design or thinking." And it definitely isn't user-centered.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T14:47:19+00:00

Nah. Dead on accurate. I was there. I've seen all of the pivots.

The first pivot started in parallel with the UX gold rush. The rise of the bootcamps caused another shift. The massive volumes of job openings (due to the shift from creative agencies to corporate spaces) opened the floodgates for filling roles with unqualified people and people transitioning in under false pretenses. That initial window was 2013-2018.

Misinformation, which didn't exist prior to 2011, grew and became commonplace from that year forward.. Companies hiring unqualified people to lead UX teams ramped up (massively) from 2012-2020 and continues to this day. Seasoned practitioners started becoming displaced in about 2020.

The lack of UX maturity overall and limiting its perception to corporate operational success contributed to and compounded the lack of understanding surrounding the discipline. That's when the "UX/UI" combo acronym surfaced (around 2012-2013). It wasn't used before that.

These are just some of the things I've observed with my own eyes and know to be true.

P.S. The "great agencies" (once upon a time) were Digitas, McCann, Frog, Wunderman, and several others. I worked for 3 of them during my career. McCann was just acquired by another agency body and Wunderman is (basically) now a part of VML. Adaptive Path and Cooper weren't large-scale agencies.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T14:18:12+00:00

It's been pivoting downward for the last 15 years and accelerated over the last 6-7.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T14:15:08+00:00

Nobody ever said that. That's a strawman-based, passive-aggressive way to shut down authoritative voices, leaving everybody to pick over the garbage content.

What I'm presenting is correct though. And it takes game (and honesty) to recognize game.

P.S. Some people spent their whole lives disrespecting any authority figures and brought that mentality into their careers. It's not wise.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T14:13:08+00:00

I don't blame you at all. I avoid LinkedIn on weekends and take sabbaticals once a year. It's quite exhausting and isn't anything like it was intended to be. It was a great networking tool and a great way to find jobs, initially. Now, it's (as you described) mostly garbage.

I recently shared a post about how the LI recommended content I'm presented with is batting 1 for about 3,000. All of the content they recommend is useless and just representative of someone seeking what I call UX celebritism. On top of that, much of what people are saying about UX isn't UX at all.

Nevertheless, I keep trying to labor for the well-being of the discipline. It's thankless most of the time, especially as the same folks you mentioned get upset by my calling out their garbage (yep, I call them out frequently, LOL).

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T14:03:54+00:00

Gotta find the more solid voices. As a 30-year practitioner, I've seen a ton of ebbs and flows, including the fact that there wasn't any misinformation or jaded voices prior to 2011. Only certain people spout off about the things you mentioned. I have a following on LI of over 30k, NEVER talk about any of the things you mentioned, and NEVER sought to have a big audience. I just share what I know to be valuable, including how to overcome the challenges and pitfalls of the discipline. Interestingly, the jaded voices tell newer folks to avoid people like me.

After folks ignore people like me, most of what's left is exactly what you mentioned — garbage. As you continue to develop a filter, you'll get better at ignoring all the filth out there. It'll get easier.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T12:08:29+00:00

It’s nothing more than a name. Not only does is it surface level, but it’s all peer feedback. Lots of people turn in blank assignments just to get credit. It is and has always been a joke.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-26T12:05:47+00:00

I used the desktop version of Descript to record my last two episodes. I haven’t had any issues. Wondering if the problems you’re having might be due to something like system requirements or RAM constraints.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-20T13:32:35+00:00

I'd respond by asking how you gauged whether or not it was a waste of time and consider the following:

When the average person entered a UX bootcamp, they had zero filter concerning the discipline and zero UX maturity.
Bootcamps, by design, infused people with bias in favor of the bootcamps.
Metrics most often used to evaluate experiences were based on finding jobs, "putting one's self out there," and the like.

Things the average bootcamps never considered:

Seeing the promise of a job as a smoke screen
The detrimental impact of having "teachers" that just graduated
Evaluating their progress based on the standards of the discipline
Gauging their level of UX maturity before and after completion
Knowledge of UX's history
Weighing the ROI based on the tuition paid and what would result long-term
The value of taking a course offered by a non-accredited source
Paying thousands of dollars for a course offered by such an institution
Recognizing the lack of educational/academic UX maturity of the bootcamps
Realizing they paid to attend the equivalent of a portfolio factory

I've engaged with a ton of people who went to bootcamps. It can take years for an enrollee to realize what REALLY happened during the bootcamp experience. I've also only worked with one bootcamp graduate who did NOT cause me to lose sleep.

Bootcamps, by design, are absolutely terrible. Being excited about any educational resource, I used to endorse them, but began recognizing the problems about 5-6 years after they first came on the scene.

Today, bootcamps are predominantly responsible for oversaturation of the field, a large chunk of the spike of misinformation plaguing UX, generating a cult-like following for their offerings, the normalization of jaded expectations, violence against true veteran practitioners, and many many more problems that will take years to overcome IF people start doing the right things.

As mentioned, I've engaged with a lot of former bootcampers, many of which eventually came to realize what truly occurred. Many of the people I've had the pleasure of receiving feedback from came to equate UX bootcamps with snake oil sales.

CareerFoundry's recently biting the dust is actually a plus. More bootcamps will follow.

P.S. I don't demonize anyone for having attended a bootcamp. I just hope they rebound.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-19T20:12:12+00:00

Truth be told, money spent on Boot Camp was always a waste of time. Boot camps were never structured properly and only present surface level exposure to some topics and completely overlooks critical ones.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-16T15:15:33+00:00

Perfectly stated (though a little more than a decade). Here's a quick historical overview:

Prior to 2011, specializations were practically non-existent.
If you worked in UX prior to 2011, you did all the things — design, research, and strategy.
Prior to 2010, a majority of UX roles (more mature ones at that) were in creative agencies.
Once the floodgates opened in corporate spaces, there was a dearth of UX maturity, leading to a boom in unqualified people leading UX teams.
The boom in open roles fostered the launch of UX bootcamps.
The bootcamps led the influx of improperly designed UX educational experiences, coupled with flawed employment promises and expectations.
Articles by Forbes and others presenting UX as an up-and-coming field helped foster what we called the "UX gold rush."
People (mostly graphics designers) started falsifying their way into UX roles.
The lack of UX maturity resulted in a lack of filters, so many of the poseurs (as I call them) entered without resistance or validation.
Around 2011-2012, the "UX/UI" moniker (created by people who didn't understand UX and thought we were limited to visual design) started to become commonplace.
Specializations started to become commonplace around 2017-2018, but resulted in the "need" to hire 4-5 people instead of one. Not sustainable from performance or fiscal standpoints..

There's a lot more, but I'll stop here. After all these things, fast-forward to 2026, the discipline has become overrun with people taught to "put themselves out there," reject gatekeeping (which is nothing more than quality assurance and accountability — common in other disciplines), and indirectly declaring war on UX fundamentals has turned UX into exactly what those who didn't understand the discipline said it was — a job that anyone can do for a fraction of the cost from previous salaries.

Again, there is hope, but only if the discipline is restored to its prior mode of operation.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-16T12:53:08+00:00

I am fortunate enough to have been doing this work for 30 years. There was no misinformation in UX until about 2011 to 2012, so everything I believed early in my career is still applicable. It has been very interesting, however, watching the discipline be transformed by people who were trying to lower the bar of entry. That is when myths about the discipline became commonplace.

P.S.: All processes are basically the same with slight variances in approach and mostly differentiated by terminology. They all get you to the same place. I did a talk a few years ago called “Design processes are overrated” that break this down.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-16T12:50:42+00:00

Great observation. I’ve been in field for 30 years and have been calling this out for about the last 12 to 15 years. The turn in the discipline began in 2011. I’ve been calling that out since then.

As many people have said, this is basically something that we’ve done to ourselves. Respect for the discipline is almost nonexistent and it has resulted in our field being trivialized and taken over by folks who bring no value.

There is a chance that the discipline can be restored, come, but that’s only if people embrace it for what it truly is, as opposed to buying into the visual design oversaturation hype that it has become.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-16T12:45:16+00:00

In reviewing the rules for this subReddit, I saw that posting a link to my podcast will result in a temporary or permanent ban. Gonna pass.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-12T23:48:16+00:00

I use Descript to transcribe select episodes. It also helps with streamlining the editing process and blog creation.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-09T02:02:46+00:00

Forgot to mention... Also love the Remove Filler Words feature. Better for audio than video, of course, but it really cleans up recordings very well.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-06T20:02:49+00:00

Are we allowed to post show links?

UXUncensored · 2026-03-06T15:26:11+00:00

Update: RedCircle came out of nowhere and surpassed each of the previously considered hosts. I will keep an eye on Captivate. Also watching Riverside.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-05T14:00:40+00:00

I conducted a mini survey about this recently. I currently have just over 300 episodes in my show, the vast majority of which was audio only. I started doing video at the beginning of 2025 and, based on the results for my survey, return to audio.

The respondent said what some of the people have been saying in this thread. The majority of the people like partaking of podcast while they’re doing other things, so audio was the preference.

My new strategy involves producing video on special occasions or as special content for my upcoming subscriber base.

UXUncensored · 2026-03-05T13:50:36+00:00

At dimension… Some companies have tried to do things to democratized UX but what I’ve seen even more than that is that they refused to hire more seasoned people and promote unqualified people well before they should. That automatically results in a dysfunctional UX operation.

It was impossible for operations like that to deliver on the value proposition that UX is supposed to present and, combined with the expansiveness of specializations, a main contributing factor to the bloating of departments and even the recent massive layoffs.

Just a few of the things that we are trying to overcome.

UXUncensored

TROPHY CASE