Staff designers aren’t about shipping the best work. That’s the point.
I rewrote portfolios for 7 Staff/Principal designers. Here’s what I learnedContinue reading on UX Collective »
Interactivity
The forgotten conversation problem in AI chat
We built a messaging-app architecture for knowledge work. The recall failure that followed is structural, not optional.**Editor’s note: I wrote this article from firsthand experience as a founder and engineer. I used Claude Code as a writing assistant for structural feedback and copy editing. All insights, data, decisions, and stories are my own.**Disclosure: I co-found browser extensions that add memory and recall tooling to major AI chat products. I have a commercial interest in the recall pro
Show HN: Zen Moment – A Developer-Friendly Breathing and Meditation Platform
Backstory: As a developer who spent years in front of screens dealing with stress and focus issues, I found most meditation apps either too childish or too commercial. I wanted to create a minimalist, developer-oriented tool that treats meditation as a productivity and mental health necessity rather than a trendy accessory. After optimizing the neumorphic design, SEO performance, and curating a library of natural soundscapes, I'm excited to share this with the HN community. What ma
Launch HN: Omnara (YC S25) – Run Claude Code and Codex from anywhere
Hey y’all, Kartik, Ishaan, and Christian from Omnara (https://www.omnara.com/) here. We’re building a web and mobile agentic IDE for Claude Code and Codex that lets you run and interact with coding agents from anywhere. Omnara lets you run Claude Code and Codex sessions on your own machine, and exposes those sessions through a web and mobile interface so you can stay involved even when you’re away from your desk. Think of it like Claude Code Desktop or Conductor, except you can co
Instagram Video Downloader: How SSSInstagram Helps Save Videos Easily
What Makes SSSInstagram Different?SSSInstagram is an online service designed specifically for downloading Instagram videos without any technical knowledge. Unlike many apps that require installation or registration, SSSInstagram works directly in your browser and is completely free.The tool supports all major Instagram content types and works equally well on desktop and mobile devices.What Can You Download with SSSInstagram?SSSInstagram allows users to download:- Instagram videos- Reels- Stories
Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI
Hey HN, Chris and Yuhong here from Onyx (https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx). We’re building an open-source chat that works with any LLM (proprietary + open weight) and gives these LLMs the tools they need to be useful (RAG, web search, MCP, deep research, memory, etc.).Demo: https://youtu.be/2g4BxTZ9ztgTwo years ago, Yuhong and I had the same recurring problem. We were on growing teams and it was ridiculously difficult to find the right information across ou
Show HN: AI assistant that reads Intervals.icu data and adjusts workouts
Hi HN,I’m a self-coached endurance athlete and long-time user of Intervals.icu. Over the years I’ve gotten comfortable interpreting my own training data (CTL/ATL trends, HRV, fatigue, etc.), but I kept running into a practical problem:The training plan makes sense when you write it, but real life rarely cooperates.Bad sleep, work travel, missed workouts, or suddenly having only 45 minutes instead of two hours. In those moments the question becomes: does the planned workout still make sense
A fantastic voyage, the illusion of good taste, the art of subtraction
Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.“The invisible walls for designers have been broken down. Maybe we don’t know it yet, but this year is the perfect time to start reframing the influence and vision of product design within and beyond companies.”Product design in 2026: the beginning of a fantastic voyage? →By Kike PeñaNew playbook on modern research: Building Influence through Participation →[Sponsored] Researcher Mahad Bullo rebuilt his research model to produce 4x the
Accessibility Testing Essentials: Get the Real, Valuable Picture by Testing in Context
In this lesson, you'll discover why accessibility testing is essential for validating your design work and how it differs from both usability testing and code-level QA. You'll examine the critical importance of testing with users' own devices and configurations in their natural environments, rather than relying on sterile lab setups.In this video, Frank Spillers, Service Designer and Founder and CEO of Experience Dynamics, shares practical lessons from real testing sessions. You'll learn the cha
The “Bug-Free” Workforce: How AI Efficiency Is Subtly Disrupting The Interactions That Build Strong Teams
Through many discussions with industry colleagues, we’ve started hearing a phrase more often when swapping stories about AI adoption:“Now I don’t have to bug [someone].”Product designers don’t need to bug researchers anymore — retrieval-augment generation (RAG) tools surface insights instantly. Product Managers don’t need to bug designers for mockups — AI generates acceptable options. Engineers don’t need to bug accessibility teams — automated scanners flag issues in real-time.It’s framed as lib
Break Biases and Design Beyond What You Can See
Designers and developers automatically bring visual assumptions to their work, such as prioritizing map displays over search results. Alternative approaches are essential for users who don't interact visually with these services.In this interview, Frank Spillers speaks with a blind user about the accessibility challenges of Google Maps and location-based services. They discuss how visual bias in design affects navigation apps, exploring the differences between driving directions (which work well
The right touch: mapping AI presence to user intent
Knowing what a user wants is only half the problem. The other half is knowing how, and how much, to respond.This is the third piece in a small series on product design in AI-driven systems. The first article explored how our role as designers is evolving, and the second looked at how signals tied to user intent shape AI-powered experiences. This one builds on that foundation, moving from understanding intent to deciding how a system should show up in response to it.If you haven’t read them, no w
Pixels of the Week – April 26, 2026
This edition debunks 9 accessibility myths with data, and discuses the accessibility engineering problem. Plus: a Zelda Three.js browser game, a subway train jazz experiment, and making emojis screen reader accessible.
Show HN: Synesthetic Computation
"When perception shifts, and the feeling of control takes over")I wrote up a deep dive into a security issue in OpenClaw that escalates from a seemingly small UX/trust boundary problem into full remote code execution via a single malicious link.The article walks through the full exploit chain from a systems perspective rather than just a CVE summary. The key theme is what I call “synesthetic computation”: when subjective context, UI state, agent memory, and system permissions get
Show HN: Aperture Core – a human attention control plane for agent systems
I just released the first public version of Aperture Core, an SDK for deciding which agent events deserve human attention now, which should wait, and which should stay in the background.The core loop is simple: - publish an event - get back a frame if it should enter the human attention surface - render that frame in your UI/workflow - submit the human response back into the engineAs agents get more capable and one human starts supervising more of them, the bottleneck shifts toward human at
Show HN: RotaFlow – A privacy-first shift calendar built with SwiftUI
I built RotaFlow to solve the UX disaster of current shift work apps. Most incumbents are web-wrappers laden with ads.The Stack:* Language: Swift 6 / SwiftUI. * Persistence: Core Data synced via CloudKit (NSPersistentCloudKitContainer). * Architecture: MVVM with a custom "LoopEngine" for O(1) shift calculation.The Interesting Part: I implemented a "Future Cliff" paywall. The app is fully functional for the next 30 days. Accessing dates beyond t+30d triggers a blurred UI
The rulebook for designing AI experiences
Three of the world’s largest tech companies have published guidelines for responsible Human-AI Interaction. Here’s what they got right, and where the gaps are.Ask ten people in the industry what responsible AI design means and you will get ten different answers. Ethics frameworks, trustworthy AI principles, responsible innovation checklists: the vocabulary keeps growing. But underneath all of that sits a more practical question. When someone is actually sitting in front of an AI-powered product,
The Nervous Voice in Your Head? It’s Costing You Promotions
You're in the review meeting and the team lead just asked a question about the project you've been refining for weeks. You know the answer. But when you open your mouth, nothing comes out. Meanwhile, your mind is saying: Wait, double-check, make sure, don't risk it. Then, someone else jumps in and answers for you. By the time you have your response, everyone’s moved on and you’re kicking yourself at another missed opportunity.You might have more experience than your colleagues, work longer hours
Design for Everyone: Understand Vision, Hearing, Cognition, and Motor Skills
In this video, Frank Spillers, Service Designer and Founder and CEO of Experience Dynamics, walks you through how color contrast, captions, cognitive differences, and motor limitations can change the way people use websites and apps, and explains why creating disability personas and testing across a range of needs helps you build more inclusive experiences.Note that the video refers to Asperger syndrome. While this used to be an officially recognized condition, it has now been folded into Autism
Triple Your Impact: Better Accessibility Means Better Usability and SEO
In this video, Frank Spillers, Service Designer and Founder and CEO of Experience Dynamics, explains how making content screen-reader friendly through clearer structure and meaningful text, like headings, alt text, captions, and transcripts, can reduce “junk” for users while also strengthening SEO signals.[[video:688]]Modern Screen Reader NavigationWhile the core principle of reducing unnecessary verbosity remains essential, it's important to note that modern screen readers offer sophisticated n