We are modernizing the user interface Pray we do not modernize it further

Calm down, Apple Music, “Bridge over troubled water” is just a song.

Support for Windows 10 is about to end. Apple prepares for the situation by putting the macOS UI quality level at its lowest for years. (There’s no chance that all Liquid Glass bugs will be fixed by Tahoe launch even if you are OK with the design concept.) The Linux community tells you to […]

Seventy years ago yesterday, the term “artificial intelligence” was coined in a research grant application. “The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

Twelve years ago today, I was on Tinder (yep) and stumbled on a bug in the app. I’m married now, deleted my account long ago, but for the past 12 years I’ve been waiting to post this screenshot.

I often assist my parents remotely trying to figure out how to do things on their iPhone or iPad. We frequently get stuck at “press the button X” and they can’t find it. They’re not trained to “see” interface elements. The best way to experience this for us, experienced users, is trying to use […]

Is there a word for the cursor swoop people do in collaborative canvas apps (Figma, Miro, Mural, Penpot, Sketch…) that means “Hello, I notice you’re looking at the same canvas as me at the same time”? #ui #figma #penpot #sketchapp

2005: Dictionary is a thick book 2014: Dictionary is just a book 2020: Dictionary is a notepad 2020 (again?): Dictionary is a sticker 2025: Dictionary is a glass panel with its bookmark outside Image by @thebasicappleguy

In Microsoft Office 97–2003, if a menu item had an icon, it meant “it’s possible to have a toolbar button for this, but I’m not going to tell you whether that button is in any of your toolbars right now”. Most items didn’t have an icon, and many of the icons were barely guessable unless you read […]

I’m sure we will hear a lot about Bill Atkinson (RIP) over the next few days, but I want to point out the huge influence of #hypercard on the Web. @timbl himself mentioned it in his original WWW proposal (https://cybercultural.com/p/1990-programming-the-world-wide-web/), early web browsers like […]

I kinda hated writing this but I needed to do it. Maybe now, finally, I can stop writing it in little fragments here and there, and just let it go and do something else. https://blog.glyph.im/2025/06/i-think-im-done-thinking-about-genai-for-now.html

“Dad, can you show me how to draw a dragon?” Years of watching Homestar Runner have prepared me for this moment.

As much as I detest the term "agentic AI" for all that it stands for, it's a term that everyone should understand and be conversant about. If you thought we had problems already with systems being compromised by botnets, wait until everyone and his mom starts handing control over their system to […]

Sad that after three decades of robots.txt mostly resulting in OK outcomes, the operators of LLM scrapers just don’t care and there’s now a need for software like Anubis. https://xeiaso.net/notes/2025/anubis-works/

We’re looking for a Senior Product Designer to work alongside our frontend and mobile devs. Ideally: 1. You’re highly skilled in UX design, having led product strategy & design process 2. Proficient in Figma/Penpot, with interaction & usability design skills 3. Experienced in accessibility & […]

In 2005, I made a Skype call for the first time. I was stunned at how clear the sound was. In 2010–2011, I was the designer on a project to integrate Skype into instant messaging on Ubuntu. It was canned once Microsoft bought Skype. And in 2011–2014, a former colleague worked on the design of […]

People/tools that call image alt text “descriptions” are basically kicking blind people in the shins. Because then people like @bruces quite reasonably say “why should I describe an image, when a computer can do that?” But a computer doesn’t know WHY you included the image: which aspects are […]

I wrote about the thing I am looking for to make sense of the moment so that I can stop posting about it. (First post on my personal site in some time.) https://erinkissane.com/against-entropy This is part of a series of backstage conversations with friends and between people I respect, about […]

4yo: “Mum, when are we getting a new car? This car is already ten weeks…” (pause) “This car is already FIFTY-FOUR MONTHS old.” Her mother: “We don’t need a new car, darling. Maybe if you decided you wanted to learn the harp, then we’d need a bigger car.” (5 seconds pass) 4yo: “Mum, I want […]