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Why AI Sucks at Front End

nerdy.dev

141–150 of 183 posts

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't have the obvious AI frontend 'look' as it was copying from the starter. Check out the other reply and scroll down a bit…

I mean the app itself, not really the landing page if that's what you're referring to?

Yeah you’re right my bad.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it works but it also looks like every other generic bootstrap based website with not even an original palette choice. Great for a project like this, unusable for any client work

Is this a critique of the marketing page or of the product itself? I didn't intend for this to be about the marketing page -- what you say is true of just about every marketing page. They're prevalent because they are good at distilling information without overwhelming the user. But I agree I can do better and will work on this more, I really appreciate getting this feedback Most people look at pool chemistry/mainten…

The palette looks a lot like the basic colors from Bootstrap is more the thing. Which is what models tend to do a lot of the time, because you know, that's what's been learned.

Also: - why shadows somewhere and not for other cards? - why so many different font sizes with no hyerarchy? - the paddings and margins are inconsistent and don't convey visual rythm. Sometimes there's too much space and sometimes they are too cramped.

ecc...

Is this an ok amateur website you couldn't have made this quick? Yes. Is that a sufficient value proposition to say that Ai has solved frontend? no.

On a side note: Would you pay the actual real price of these models to achieve this same results, if they weren't subsidized by delusional billionaires? Up to you to respond.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#143
Creating a CODING.md or FRONTEND.md with rules and expectations for your LLM helps tremendously. You're right AI is not great at frontend (yet), but it does lift alot of the load. Like the top commenter says, there's not a great harness for iterative frontend building. But it can get you 80% of the way there if you give it some rules, and can do the annoying bits so you can concentrate on the 20% that is about design, effective communication and pixel-perfection.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share what you created! I think people have very different views for what is a good interface, or a tolerable one. I think as a front-end developer and designer I notice a lot of problems most people don't care about.

I started with a boilerplate but AI has been huge at letting me get what I want in terms of frontend building when I was never talented at design or css. I built https://bridge.ritza.co (demo@example.com username and password if you don't want to sign up) as a trello/linear replacement without looking at a single line of code and it's both good enough for me and doesn't have the obvious AI frontend 'look' as it was c…

Highlighted text "no per-seat pricing" is unreadable in dark mode on the home page (dark blue on black). It's surprising for me to see someone use this as an example of decent design because I'm somewhat sure this front page text coloring was never seen/reviewed by a human.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but no, you did not design a website just fine with AI. It’s not even just “good”. It’s average. Painfully average, to the point of it being easily mistaken for a scam. Very bad results—as expected from an AI. Nothing to brag about here.

I can't help but think you and the other commenters reducing this to slop didn't even try the product. I thought it went without saying that I wasn't posting to show a marketing landing page.

[dead]

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but no, you did not design a website just fine with AI. It’s not even just “good”. It’s average. Painfully average, to the point of it being easily mistaken for a scam. Very bad results—as expected from an AI. Nothing to brag about here.

I completely disagree. Making a average website is the goal of most businesses that are selling an actual product. His website looks modern and welcoming and does not distract or take away from the actual content. This exactly what most people should aim for. Some actual constructive criticism is some o the icons in the example log mood look weird on my phone, with really small emojis overlapping the face emoji

No one should aim for average, that’s an incredibly defeatist way of looking at it. Besides, design matters. I know HN is frequented mostly by people with very little interest in such topics, but design absolutely matters.

And yes, while the author’s website is perfectly passable, it is by no means “good”. People pick up on that, they might not know they do, but they do. Design wouldn’t be an industry and a school by itself if it didn’t matter and just the average were good enough.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share what you created! I think people have very different views for what is a good interface, or a tolerable one. I think as a front-end developer and designer I notice a lot of problems most people don't care about.

https://poolometer.com I built this frontend with Sonnet 4.5 last Fall and I’m about to “launch” it I used only prompts, but those prompts included ChatGPT’s research on Memphis design ;) Using codex for front end design is like asking the valedictorian mega nerd to paint your portrait. Gemini and Claude are both artists.

Some more serious critique of things I noticed within 30 seconds:

- Text isn't selectable on the page.

- The tooltip in the "day 1" to "day 14" cards gets cut off by the border (I see this mistake ALL the time with AI-generated frontends btw)

- It's sparse and very long. I think the information could be condensed in half the size, and it would improve the presentation. This is personal preference though.

- The playbooks' "mark complete" are not persisted on reload or navigation.

All in all, it's functional and quite decent. I agree with the other people saying it looks generic, but I disagree on it being necessarily a bad thing for this kind of product.

I know nothing about pools so I can't comment on the accuracy of the playbooks. It's nice that there's so many of them, but given the LLM vibe of the text I'm slightly suspicious.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shows. The landing page looks like every other AI slopped product page out there.

It’s funny how there are a bunch of responses to this post all showing off their great AI designs that are literally the same thing with different (each horrible) color palettes.

It's really weird. I don't even care if they used AI as part of their development process. But most AI™ developed stuff is just so insanely soulless crap I can instantly can tell and instinctively close the tab.

If you're AI developed software was so great, I couldn't tell it's AI.

Like I cannot wrap my head around how anyone vibe slops and think "No, this is good. I will now proudly show this off."

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs are just replacing consultants as the #1 generator of sloppy code.

> LLMs are just replacing consultants as the #1 generator of sloppy code. The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die. The only thing that differentiates consultants from you is the contract type. All broad strokes accusations are just a consequence of in-house employees feeling threatened by their presence and having a vested interest in portraying themselves as infinitely better than an…

No, it’s mainly because consulting firms love running their bait-and-switch scam and use their junior consultants to do the actual work while the seniors move on to butter up the next sucker.

Re: Why AI Sucks at Front End

#150
post #6

If you are really good at something, you'll find AI sucks at everything.

This doesn't make sense. I think you mean "If you are really good at something, you'll find AI might not be as good as the something you are really good at"

I think they mean knowing that AI only looks to be good at something pulls back the curtain in a sense and afterwards all appearances of AI seeming good at something seem fake.
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