Bill Gates wrote a great essay arguing AI is going to upend how we use software. To get there, it’s useful to think about how we’ll interact with LLMs.

Chat seems to be the current main format. This research from NNGroup does a wonderful job of breaking down different mental models for info-gathering when we’re using AI chatbots:

In funneling conversations, the user’s information need is usually specific and well-defined, but poorly articulated. In other words, the user will likely recognize a correct response, but will not be able (or sometimes will not be bothered) to say what that correct response should look like. However, the bot can facilitate query articulation by asking the user helping questions.

The 6 Types of Conversations with Generative AI (Nielsen Norman Group / Raluca Budiu, Feifei Liu, Emma Cionca, and Amy Zhang)

From a completely different angle, this article from UX Collective compares the radically different interface styles between Western and Asian apps. This is both interesting for pure curiosity sake, and also useful at understanding how different people complete tasks with software.

People in a collectivistic culture feel more comfortable multitasking than do people in an individualistic culture. Similarly, in an online environment, users with polychronic time orientation might be better able to pay attention to multiple online presentations (e.g., animated graphics, video and textual information) simultaneously. They do not feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed by multiple presentations.

Conversely, users from individualist cultures exhibit a monochronic-time orientation, concentrating on one task at a time and being more sensitive to interruption by other tasks.

Why are Western apps more minimalistic than Asian apps? (UX Collective / Bas Wallet)

What generative AI can potentially over is a more multi-modal interface, context dependent. What seems universal is messaging.

💩 Cool shit

Unmute - This would have to be one of the coolest and most unique web interfaces I’ve seen in a while. The logo doubles as a series of dials to adjust the UI in real-time.

Font Fish - Spatially explore fonts.

Needs More Boom - Type in a movie scene and get a generated script that adds some Michael Bay-esque explosions.

Cartier Journey - If Flappy Bird were done by Cartier.

David Attenborough Narrates Your Life - Check the Tweet for one of this truly great tech demo.

Sustainable Horizons - An interactive story powered by AI prompts and visually filled with tiny bubbles. I’m not sure why this exists, but it’s cool.

Go To Any Thing (GOAT) - A “universal navigation system that can search for and navigate to any object however it is specified - as an image, language, or a category”.  This is wild!

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