Interactivity - Crafting Better Web Experiences

How reading patterns have changed

And it’s impact on UX and UI designContinue reading on UX Collective »

Smashing Animations Part 8: Theming Animations Using CSS Relative Colour

I’ve recently refreshed the animated graphics on my website with a new theme and a group of pioneering characters, putting into practice plenty of the techniques I shared in this series. A few of my animations change appearance when someone interacts with them or at different times of day.The colours in the graphic atop my blog pages change from morning until night every day. Then, there’s the snow mode, which adds chilly colours and a wintery theme, courtesy of an overlay layer and a blending m

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: 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

The WCAG problem

WCAGs may not be the simplest way to start the conversationContinue reading on UX Collective »

The dilemma of agency in design

What it takes to overcome obstacles and drive positive impact inside systems that resist change.Illustration by Sh8peshifters / Source: designingtomorrowbook.comOver the past years, I’ve spoken with many design students about life-centred design, responsible innovation, and bringing non-human perspectives into the design process. These ideas tend to resonate deeply. Many students are drawn to design precisely because they want to create positive social and environmental change.What design progra

How can you ensure paying customers don’t worsen the new user experience?

The eternal challenge of B2B Design, and how reframes can helpContinue reading on UX Collective »

Designers as agent orchestrators: what I learnt shipping with AI in 2025

Designers hold the best qualities to get refine AI outputs that’s needed for building successful productsTraditionally we’ve shied away from building because the chasm to go from designing to shipping requires learning to code, test, and bug fix. All of it required massive time investment to learn syntax, that changes every few years while core principles stay the same. Most of us are designers because we’re visual thinkers in a way.In 2025, AI-assisted building closed this chasm. Translating ho

Your product is a theme park

A practical way to evaluate what to fix next.A ‘Dufan’ Theme Park Illustration (by Jumping Space Studio)Disclaimer: Some visuals in this article are AI-generated. I’m using them only to help explain the ideas more clearly. These visuals are not intended for commercial use, and I’m not monetizing this article. If any visual resembles an existing work, it’s unintentional , please reach out and I will credit or remove it.It’s Saturday afternoon.The park is packed, but something feels… off.The entra

From playwright to stage manager

MINDFUL AI DESIGNThe improv theater guide to AI designThe show that went off scriptThis summer, Google released a fascinating research prototype — a demo of a “neural” operating system that generates itself on the fly.It looks comfortably familiar: an old-school desktop with windows, icons, menus, a mouse pointer.Google Gemini Flash-Lite “Neural OS”But start clicking, and dream logic takes over.Every click triggers the AI model to rebuild the interface in milliseconds. The OS continuously reinve

Exciting New Tools for Designers, January 2026

New year … and so many new tools to be happy about. This month’s list is teeming with fun options as well as things to help speed up or enhance your workflows and creativity. Here’s what’s new for designers. Dessix.io We’re kicking off 2026 with a new tool for designers that helps you plan and […]

Escaping AI sludge, Figma Make prompts, UX for board games

Weekly curated resources for designers — thinkers and makers.“AI is now omnipresent in our workflows, but it’s come at a cost: a sea of sameness. Lately, products have begun to look and feel homogeneous & indistinguishable, leading to diluted brands and increasingly sterile interactions. Big tech paves the way for others to follow; It’s time to stop settling for “good enough” and blindly following established conventions. Let’s continue to solve user problems and challenge the attitudes of a

UX And Product Designer’s Career Paths

As the new year begins, I often find myself in a strange place — reflecting back at the previous year or looking forward to the year ahead. And as I speak with colleagues and friends at the time, it typically doesn’t take long for a conversation about career trajectory to emerge.So I thought I’d share a few thoughts on how to shape your career path as we are looking ahead to 2026. Hopefully you’ll find it useful.Run A Retrospective For Last YearTo be honest, for many years, I was mostly reacting

TelUI 1.1: New TelUI version Complete with tools to develop good software

# TelUITelUI is a Electron-based UI framework that packages a handful of reusable front-end primitives—color utilities, typography helpers, and basic structural styles—so you can prototype simple desktop UI ideas with minimal setup.## Features - Bundled Electron runner (`npm start`) that serves `index.html` for instant desktop previews. - Tokenized styling layers: `color.css`, `font.css`, `header.css`, and `align.css` keep presentation rules isolated and easy to remix. - Micro-interaction helper

TelUI 1.2: TelUI with fun alignments

Show HN: Tikpal- Your AI Voice Partner – Focus, Flow, Forge

We’re building Tikpal, an AI voice productivity tool based on a simple principle: Human creativity should remain the core engine. AI should be an accelerator, not the protagonist.The goal is to reduce screen dependency and cognitive fragmentation, and let people work in a more natural “voice-first” flow. Instead of clicking through interfaces and context-switching between apps, you talk to Tikpal, and it helps you think, structure ideas, and execute tasks.Three layers we are focusing on:FOCUS —

A Green Book for AI Apps

A Green Book for AI appsWhere to build, where to borrow, and how to leave.NotebookLM’s visual interpretation of the 1946 edition of The Green BookI use software as a creative instrument: in workflows, publications, client systems, and in all the quiet machinery that keeps institutions pulsing through connected ideas. I’ve now lived through two platform shifts up-close: the dawn of the consumer internet and the explosion of Web 2.0's networked creativity. The lesson that stuck is simple: the

Who’s Spotting You When You Automate

Who’s spotting you when you automateDesigning for humans in high-pressure environments.A good spotter reduces your fear of a catastrophe. They’ve positioned themselves close enough to you, don’t interfere with your lift, and you know they’re watching to step in if needed. This certainty allows you to feel safe. But when you don’t trust your spotter? You pull back because the risk feels too high. It’s no secret that teams wrestle with trust, governance & cross-boundary automation across the i

2.5 billion prompts later, there is still no system

AI prompts feel productive, but real AI success depends on systems thinking and design.Continue reading on UX Collective »

Show HN: Free Z-Image – A Fast, High-Quality AI Image Generator for Creators

I built Z-Image, a free, fast, and creator-focused AI image generator designed for artists, game developers, designers, and anyone who needs high-quality visuals without the usual friction or cost.Try it here (free): https://aiocmaker.com/z-imageWhy I built itMost AI image tools fall into two categories:Great quality but expensive, slow, or require subscriptions.Free tools but low quality, restrictive, or overloaded.As a builder working in the game/anime space, I needed a gen