The website genuinely looks like it’s stuck in the early 2000s. The typography is horrible and there isn’t a cohesive colour scheme. I noticed this a few years ago and switched to eBay for this exact reason but recently ordered something off amazon and it just reminded me how bad it is. You’d think a billion dollar company could make a half decent ui. They don’t even accept Apple Pay and the ux is pretty bad too Imo. Thoughts?

Basically I got semi-threatened yesterday by a manager saying that the workflow using Figma is too slow. He mentioned that we need a design engineer (basically saying that’s not me), and that we should cut out Figma and just code directly.

I replied that we don’t need to cut out Figma from the design process to be more efficient necessarily. I’ve recently done extensive work setting up the design system in Figma and also Storybook in a way so the Figma to Claude mcp works really well, because everything is consistently named and defined everywhere.

His answer was: ”I guess we have to work that way as long as we don’t have a design engineer.”

I guess I’m looking for insight partially on what a design engineer is, and what their process looks like. So if anyone reading this works in that role, I’d appreciate if you could tell me more about it.

Or if anyone has had a similar experience, and how they handled being forced to work solely in code, or transition to more coding.

I’ve already published quite a few PRs, mostly setting up Storybook, and I know basic HTML and CSS. I’m against working solely in an AI coding tool because I believe it removes fundamental parts of the design process, and also because iterating and exploring in Figma imo is still faster.

Funny thing about brutalism is that its all over in the world of architecture. But in software? I can't even remember the last time I saw a corner man.

And it seems like the perfect place for squares and rectangles because pixels are square, which means naturally no aliasing.

Was it because of Windows XP?

My users have told me that these pages appear gray in color and have low saturation, which can easily cause eye fatigue. I'm a bit lacking in confidence now, and I hope everyone can help me check if it's as he said. Thank you.

Is it just me or is the barrier to call a website ”AI slop” getting a bit too low? When looking e.g. at the Impeccable skill’s website that says what is slop and what is not I think some basic things like borders and shadows on cards are being labeled there as AI slop? Yes I know you can tell whether a website looks like it is generated by AI but then again before AI that same page would have looked modern and clean in many peoples’ eyes. What do you think?

Hey everyone,

I came across a comparison of landing pages (Google Stitch vs Claude vs Human), and the Claude version really stood out to me — it looks super clean, minimal, and polished.

I’m curious about a few things:

• What design principles are being used here (typography, spacing, layout)?
• Is this mostly built with plain HTML/CSS, or are frameworks like Tailwind/React involved?
• How do they achieve that soft, elegant aesthetic and strong visual hierarchy?
• Any good resources to learn this style?

Would love if someone could break it down 🙏

Thanks!

I have an obsession with this UI style, I found these images on pinterest and from some games i've played so im wondering what's this style called.

I've been playing around with a concept which is basically that UIs aren't rendered in 2D, but rendered in a 3D engine like Three.js. I think that GPU power is at a level where phones and laptops have enough compute to run apps that are 3D, simply because most devices have the graphics compute to run pretty stunning 3D games but still struggle to run relatively complex web apps. Not to mention it looks beautiful and opens up new possibilities for novel UX that could only be done in 3D space.

Counter arguments I've heard are basically that, it's too GPU intensive and we can get 80% of the graphics using 2D effects.

Thoughts on whether you'd like to see this in actual apps, rather than just in sizzle reels?

I’m building a custom desktop music widget using rofi, bash, and ImageMagick. I took heavy inspiration from the iOS Spotify widget pod, and I'm trying to dynamically change the background color of the widget based on the current playing album art.

(In the attached images: The top images are the official widgets, and the bottom images are my rofi widgets).

Currently, to replicate that two-tone gradient background you see in the Olivia Rodrigo ("vampire") example, I'm scaling the album art down to exactly 1x2 pixels. This effectively averages the top half and bottom half of the image into two distinct colors. Then, I boost the saturation of those pixels to make them pop. It's the only way I've found to reliably generate those two-tone colors, and it works pretty well for that specific look!

However, I know this 1x2 scaling method won't work for everything, especially when Spotify decides to use a single solid color instead of a gradient. I've tried different methods to pick a single dominant color, but I can never get close enough to Spotify's logic.

For example:

• The Weeknd - "Blinding Lights": The background of the art is mostly a dark, muddy greenish-brown. If I use standard color extraction, I get that mud color because it's technically the most abundant. But Spotify intelligently ignores the background and picks the deep red from his jacket/face.
• Shubh - "One Love": My color extraction attempts pull a really dull brown, while Spotify manages to pull a much nicer, deeper olive/golden tone.

It clearly doesn't just pick the color that takes up the most space (the dominant color).

Does anyone know the actual algorithm or method they use to pick that one perfect color? How does it filter out the muddy/dull dominant colors to find the vibrant accents?

Other than purple gradients what are the AI UI smells?

I see posts on Reddit fairly often with people posting a designs and others calling it out for being AI generated, but to me it usually just looks bad.

Are there specific things that LLMs do/include in UI that tell you right away that it was AI generated? Like the UI equivalent of an em dash?

In UI design there is that gut feeling that something isn't right when you look at it. It's mostly due to more experience, seeing more designs, etc. I would like to know what you guys use to improve your eye for design from, let's say, your very first project, which was maybe obviously a mess.

But now when you look at a design, you just know there is something wrong with this. Till now I'm not that great in UI yet, I train my eye of design muscle by studying Pinterest design posts on a certain category. I might use mobbin to check out different design elements and competitor designs.

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT METHODS HAVE YOU USED TO TRAIN YOUR EYE OF DESIGN

Hi

Designing in Figma then handing off to code always loses something: spacing, states, logic get rebuilt on the dev side.

So I've been building a tool : an infinite canvas where you design directly on the real React code , not a vector layer that exports later. Basically Figma, but what you touch is the actual output.

Still early. Before I go further I want to know if this actually solves a real pain for you, or if your current Figma to code flow is fine. Would you use something like this? Why / why not ? If anyone wants to try an early version, happy to share.

I have been an “in-house” contractor for a few years now and I feel like I want to explore and cut ties with this company. Should I be investing huge amounts of time into understanding every usage of AI for example? Just anxious and decided to ask the top dogs

I found this in a portfolio website and really liked the effect, im thinking of recreating this for my website but im unable to wrap my head around how to make this. My guess is it's either framer or unicorn studio but im unable to make this in either of them (prolly skill issue)

I’m researching real everyday software frustrations.

Not looking for huge startup ideas

just simple things people repeatedly deal with on desktop/laptop that feel harder than they should.

Could be Windows, Mac, Linux anything

Examples:

- finding files

- converting PDFs

- taking quick notes

- screenshots

- organizing downloads

- repetitive tasks

What’s one thing that still annoys you regularly?

So basically my problem is it looks like every other site made this way, big centred headline, three feature cards with little icons, gradient somewhere, rounded everything, a testimonial section with generic testimonials.

I know it's my prompting. Make it look modern and clean is how you get the exact average of every site on the internet, which is what I asked for and that’s what I got. things ive tried:

- naming a site I like, gets me a bad tracing of it

- "make it more unique", meaningless, produces a different gradient

- asking for a specific colour, now it's the same layout in green

What I want to know from people who've got past this, what in the hell prompt are you all using?

I know most of their websites look same with those light beige, cream colors and nature HD images but it’s way better than a good vibe coder making a website.

whats the secret?

I'm 17 and thinking of pursuing a career in ui designing and I want to mostly self learn and study from online courses. How much do you think a diploma or degree matters to get a hired?

Hey everyone,

I’m curious how you approach designing new screens for your apps.

Sometimes I know exactly what functionality a screen should have, but when I open a blank canvas, I have no idea how to arrange everything into a UI that feels intuitive and polished.

Where do you get your inspiration? Do you browse apps, use sites like Dribbble or Mobbin, study design systems, or use AI tools?

Hey everyone,

Recently in here and every new website I've seen all looks identical, with the rounding of cards, icons, badges, buttons, since all designs now appear to be AI-generated for new websites. It's so fatiguing, but maybe because I / we always are looking at new websites.

However maybe the average person cannot tell, Im not sure.

I myself am in a small team of three dev's who all have actually studied Comp Sci / SE / EE

Does anyone actually have tips on how to make sure their app doesn't look the same as every website even if using AI?

I'm so sick of looking at every new app and website and they all have the same shadcn tailwind feeling.

I have been using shadcn/tailwind before loveable / other no code apps were using it and now I feel fatigue from seeing it

I'm in my final year of engineering, and lately I've been feeling completely lost about what direction to take.

I've been interested in UI/UX design because I enjoy creativity, problem-solving, and making things look and feel good. But with how fast AI has advanced, I'm starting to wonder if it's even worth pursuing anymore. Every week there seems to be a new AI tool that can generate interfaces, wireframes, prototypes, or even complete designs in minutes.

Now I'm questioning everything—my major, the kind of career path I should aim for, and what specialization has a future. Part of me thinks I should stick with UI/UX and learn to use AI as a tool. Another part of me worries I'll spend years building a career that's becoming increasingly automated.

Has anyone else been in this position? If you're already working in tech or design, how has AI changed your field? If you were graduating today, what would you focus on learning to stay relevant over the next 5–10 years?

I'd really appreciate hearing from people who have been through this or are facing the same uncertainty.

I created a skeuomorphic timer app that’s been available for a few months now, but it hasn’t attracted many users. I’m starting to wonder if it’s because of the skeuomorphic style. Has everyone really grown tired of this style? (But I still love skeuomorphic design—I often like to redraw my favorite apps in a skeuomorphic style because I’m such a big fan of it.)

I’ve been experimenting with a different way of designing UI: instead of creating a static design first, I built a workspace where you can design directly on the working prototype.

You can interact with it normally, pause it at any state, and keep editing visually from there.

Curious what UI designers think about this workflow.Would you like to do some design work on the code itself ?

How has your client acquisition been since the beginning 2026 compared to the pre-AI era? More work, less work, or about the same? If possible, mention whether you're freelance or in an agency, your years of experience, and where most of your clients come from.