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The AI Aesthetic

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: The AI Aesthetic

#101

Post by dymk »

smoe wrote: post #53
blfr wrote: post #46

I think that most early AI aesthetic will go the way of bootstrap and become associated with ultra utilitarian software where no one thought about intentionally making a design. Fable can easily generate something like a design system for itself from whatever starting point you give it. So if you want different aesthetic, you can bang out the aesthetic first in Claude Design and then serve it to Claude Code to follow…

I would say by default, the AI aesthetic is the opposite of utilitarian. It adds so much unnecessary bits and bobs everywhere, random things that look reasonable at first glance but often are nonsensical noise. The visual equivalent of the endless yapping in chat. For me it was a lot of work with Fable to keep it focused on producing a minimal, medium-high information density system. Sure, it works very well if you a…

I’ve noticed much the same thing. Adding rules for ruthless minimalism and no anticipatory features helps, if context hasn’t degraded too far. Still, I tend to ask it to remove cruft much more often than I ask it to add new UI.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#102

Post by altmanaltman »

chadash wrote: post #89
altmanaltman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally is not though, it takes $0.50 for generating 4 images. That's on par for any image model by frontier labs. Probably just covering their costs right now but will keep rising it over time if the tool gets adopted. But it is not too cheap when you consider the sheer amount of variations one will make if they use this in a professional design capacity. The quality of the tool is not what this comment speaks…

I think that's fair, but if you add a lot of value on top, a higher price is justified. Would I pay $5 for a great looking homepage, even if I only have to generate 12 images at $0.13 ($1.56 total) to get there? Yes. Sometimes models are vastly underpriced. Fable is an example. I can easily spend hundreds of dollars using it to code. On the other hand, if I'm looking for AI to review a contract for any obvious mistak…

I understand but you are thinking design and coding maps neatly one to one when it absolutely doesn't. If you don't care if the cost goes up 100x, of course it is too cheap for you. But that is not how everyone looks at costs even for marginal things esp at scale.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#103

Post by a1o »

spaghettifythis wrote: post #39
a1o wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they write anywhere about it? I noticed it - and I think it uses the system emoji, because I noticed the pancake was different between my systems.

They published 17 pages [0] of docs about it. Here's their intro page: https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/get-started/about-s... [0]: https://github.github.com/gh-stack/

Oh, I was meaning the pancakes

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#105

Post by summermusic »

gitgud wrote: post #84

Good UX abstractions out perform bad ones, which means they endure, are copied, and eventually become the implied standard UX… some examples of this are; the hamburger menu, tiny icons and auto-scroll for streaming text

I really hope streamed text doesn’t outperform other design patterns in places where it doesn’t make sense.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#106

Post by 40four »

jjcm wrote: post #10

> There are other aesthetics my brain associates with AI, like beige/cream colors, orange accents, and serif typefaces Something to consider regarding the narrow space AI-created designs align on: LLMs are trained to write consistent code. This makes sense for something like a billing or a backend function - you want that code to be consistent. The problem though is that LLMs write code to represent designs as well,…

I hate to be crass, I’m consciously trying to avoid well defined HN guidelines here, but the article is about discussing design aesthetics we encounter when we are interacring with AI not design asthetics the AI outputs when we ask it to write code for us. I get the confusion though, the title is a bit of a trick, probably on purpose

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#107

Post by r0b05 »

gitgud wrote: post #84

Good UX abstractions out perform bad ones, which means they endure, are copied, and eventually become the implied standard UX… some examples of this are; the hamburger menu, tiny icons and auto-scroll for streaming text

Why are tiny icons good abstractions?

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#108

Post by cautiouscat »

Sums up the whole situation nicely.

I’ve been sort of viewing these sites in a similar way I view generated advertising posters. You have no brand, you have no identity. You’re just another business in the crowd that hasn’t put any care into showing who you really are.

It makes those that put the care in stand out more. On the flip side it feels like swimming through an ocean of slop trying to get your precious attention. It’s tiring.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#110

Post by 40four »

I’m just going to leave this here because many of us (myself included) are prone to going to comments first before finishing the post:

This post is in regards to the design aesthetics we encounter as users when we are interacting with AI. Not the aesthetics that AI outputs when we ask it to write code for us.

I also assumed it would be about what a “typical” front end output looks like from LLMs, but it’s not :)

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