Interactivity
AI interfaces and the role of good writing
Why clear, strategic writing is more critical than ever.If you’ve used an AI product recently, you probably know that the technology is incredible. The UX? Not so much.Maybe you’ve gotten comfortable writing prompts or using simple one-click tools. But as AI interfaces start to take different forms, many of them are still kinda hard to figure out. Navigating them can be overwhelming. It doesn’t feel like you’re using these products so much as deciphering them. The engineering is powerful, but th
What Perplexity’s AI browser reveals about UX’s future
A systematic analysis of the first truly AI-native browser and what it teaches us about designing for intention rather than navigationOn day 3 of testing Perplexity’s Comet browser, something remarkable happened: I stopped typing URLs entirely. My brain had completely rewired from “where do I go?” to “what do I want?” — and this cognitive shift happened before the AI could reliably deliver on that promise. This gap between mental transformation and technical reality defines the next decade of UX
User Testing Micro-Interactions for Maximum Delight
Image by: Google Imagen 3 — Author: Niamh — My: Patreon
The Secret Language of Micro-Interactions
The smallest design details often speak the loudest, silently shaping our emotional connection to the digital world.
How I approach micro-interactions. Let’s dive in!
Hey everyone! It’s been a long break since I’ve written about my micro-interactions or tutorials on how to create them. I promise to make…
UX Trend 2026 #5: Micro-Interactions 2.0 & Emotion-Responsive Interfaces
“Good design isn’t just seen — it’s felt.”
A Deep Dive into the Anatomy of a Micro-Interaction
Every effective micro-interaction is composed of four fundamental parts: the trigger, the rules, the feedback, and the loops and modes. The…
Micro-Interactions In The Age of Proactive Systems
The machines are reading our minds now, or at least pretending to, and the whole digital interface landscape has turned into a kaleidoscope…
Next Gen App Clips and Micro Interactions: Building Delightful iOS Experiences
User behavior regarding mobile applications have undergone great metamorphoses within the last few years. During the era of vanishing…
Designing for the 1%: Why Edge Cases Aren’t Optional
Most designers build for the "happy path"—but real users live in the chaos. From screen readers to emoji-only usernames, edge cases expose where your UX actually fails. If you’re ignoring the 1%, you’re not just missing users—you’re building exclusion into your product.
The “£532,000” dot job: Why small design changes cost big
Why did a tiny logo change cost GOV.UK so much?Continue reading on UX Collective »
Show HN: Roundtable MCP Server to Use Claude, Cursor, Codex, Gemini from One UI
Hey HN, Last week, I spent 40 minutes debugging a production issue that should have taken 5. Not because the bug was complex, but because I kept switching between Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and
Gemini - copying context, losing thread, starting over.
The workflow was painful:
1. Claude Code couldn't reproduce a React rendering bug
2. Copy-pasted 200 lines to Cursor - different answer, still wrong
3. Tried Codex - needed to re-explain the database schema
4. Finally Gemini spot
The 12 emotional journeys of color psychology
Journey mapping is one of the most widely used tools in interactive design, helping us create products and campaigns that connect with users on a deeper emotional level. This is key to building long-term loyalty, where users and customers feel an irrational sense of trust and gratitude toward your brand.In this article, I’ll explain what an emotional journey is to give you a strategic perspective on how we use emotional design to shape user experiences. Then we’ll explore the 12 major emotional
The User Research Round-Up: CW41
Every researcher has that one tool they swear they’ll try “next project.”And then next project turns into six months of juggling spreadsheets, chasing no-shows, and trying to make sense of messy transcripts at 2am.That’s exactly why I built this bundle. Paid subscribers get all Substack content and you get handed the tools that cut out half the stress:User Interviews → 5 participants without the ghosting circusAskable → a full month of Industry Stream (recruit
Nostalgia as product strategy
The emotional design behind the latest AI marketing campaigns.illustration by authorIf you haven’t seen them yet, OpenAI’s launched new ad campaign of short 30 seconds videos that embed AI into an idealised, warmly analog, version of the past. They’re quite visually pleasing, to be honest, with a slight VHS grain and muted colours, and depict very relatable everyday scenarios like wanting to impress a girl or getting fitter. They lean hard on 80s soundtracks and cheesy movie vibes.https://medium
Is It Time to Kill the Sidebar?
Are sidebars the cargo shorts of web design—full of pockets no one uses? In an era of scroll-first UX and ruthless minimalism, it might be time to finally pull the plug. Here’s why killing your sidebar could actually save your site.
AI interface: When intelligence outgrows its container
How AI redefines user interfaces, and why the chat box gets it wrongImage source: Kokonaut Labs / Recreated by authorIn 1989, Alan Kay published User Interface: A Personal View, building on Marshall McLuhan’s idea that “the medium is the message.” A medium doesn’t just carry information, it reshapes how we think. To make sense of it, we first internalize the medium.An interface, then, is a cognitive framework.Today, AI interfaces are shifting fast: from chat to voice, from canvases to agent-driv
How to approach privacy in the age of smart glasses
Smart glasses present new opportunities for scammers, perverts, and cheaters.Continue reading on UX Collective »
How I learned to stop worrying and love the difficult operational problems
A journey through the messiest, most rewarding research challenges that taught me everything I know about making the impossible inevitablePicture this: It’s 2 PM on a Tuesday, and I’m staring at a survey dashboard that’s basically mocking me. The response rate was low, as expected, but the data quality was questionable at best. My carefully crafted mobile survey, designed for Uber drivers in India, was failing spectacularly.But here’s the thing — I wasn’t just dealing with low response rates. I
The best way to tackle design uncertainty? Focus on what hasn’t changed
How to best use your time in an uncertain design marketContinue reading on UX Collective »