When it comes to all the discussions about AI right now, the topic that interests me most is the software application layer and user interface. It’s not that other topics are not interesting, this one remains unsolved and will continue to evolve. Time makes us forget how limited things were on day one. When the first version of iPhone OS (yes, it was originally called that) came out, you couldn’t even cut and paste text.

An interaction pattern we use often today is pull-to-refresh. Many might think it was an Apple design, but the interaction was made popular by Loren Brichter, a software engineer working on Tweetie, back when Twitter clients were allowed. My favorite blog post about this recent topic is Amelia Wattenberger’s, Why Chatbots Are Not the Future. We have not seen the pull-to-refresh moment in AI-powered software, and it’s exciting to see how it shapes up. Time will tell what patterns and interactions will be adopted, and there is one concept I’m bullish on. We call it, Dynamic Interface.

Dynamic Interface is a term I’ve used in previous writing and Jordan Singer at Diagram is using it. I encourage others to use this terminology for wider adoption and share any citations of people who’ve used this term before as a concept. Computation continues to get more powerful, and with the learning cycle being accelerated with AI, I believe there is a world where interfaces will not only present themselves in precise use cases, the application will re-design the interface itself based on feedback.

Factors in Dynamic Interfaces

There are many factors informing the need for Dynamic Interfaces, and it’s not only AI. These elements mentioned below are not new and have been around for ages. What’s different now is the power, performance, and depth of what these factors can be used.

Auto-iteration from feedback

Imagine if a product was constantly testing the best layout for you and made the changes on your behalf to better serve you. The auto-iteration of feedback may mean there is no more manual A/B testing optimized for the growth of assumed cohorts but an experienced personalized one for you. No more manual testing and experimentation but the interface will learn and understand what is usable for you. If there is one thing that AI changes the game, it is the iteration cycle is reduced and can happen in nearly real-time.

Personalization and identify

A lot of personalization and identity today shows up on the data side of things with customer segmentation. Though the goal is to benefit the end user by personalizing their experience in a positive way, the interface doesn't change that much contextually. With interfaces being dynamic it's possible to iterate on the UI for users based on what matters most to them. Imagine a world where lifecycle emails sent to you were literally crafted for just you instead of segments and cohorts similar to your profile.

Contextual placement of views

This concept was featured in my blog post about the hints of Dynamic Island to inform Apple's XR strategy. Context becomes more sophisticated than where a device might be in proximity to a beacon. Apple's iOS has a Focus, which has different modes: Do Not Disturb, Personal, Sleep, Driving, Work, and others you can customize. Interfaces have more access to contextual data to anticipate what you need vs. the end user invoking it.

Stage Manager is another feature that shows hints of contextual presentations. Many people have expressed how lackluster it is, but I personally love it! Yes, it’s limited, but wait until these application views bust outside of the device screen across multiple devices and presentation layers in augmented reality.

Multi-device experiences

This concept is not new. One of my favorite books is Designing Multi-Device Experiences by Michal Levin. The big players have been phones, tablets, computers, TV, and smartwatches. What is beyond that? In the future, there will be too many devices, both visible and invisible, to design software for to design every single form factor.

The new MVC

I believe Model, View Controller (MVC) will be the continued standard for many years to come, joining the Twinkie as a thing that will survive the apocalypse. MVC will evolve to being very decoupled from a piece of software, but the concept persists. Here’s where I think it’ll evolve.

Model: Large Language Models (LLMs), external data sets, and APIs

Fetching data, integrating other models, and relying on APIs continues to be more powerful and trustworthy. What we'll see is less of a reliance on a single data source but a federated experience (basically a fancy word for a lot of databases being integrated together).

Views: Apps interfacing instead of specific screens

In Ruben Verborgh's blog post Paradigm Shifts for the Decentralized Web, he proposes the idea of apps as views—a compelling concept that we're heading towards. As multi-device experience homogenizes based on contextual presentation, we'll see screens and view presentations be less reliant on the form factor itself. An example of this is Apple's Universal Control, a feature where you can use your laptop's trackpad or mouse to control your iPad's screen. Imagine a world where your peripheral changes to a pencil, glove, or digital touch across devices on screens or holographic presentations that can mimic that touch (haptics can make this feel realistic).

Controller: User and computer interactions

Of the big three of MVC, Controller is the one that will evolve the most. The primary reason is that AI-informed interfaces might be the invoker instead of the human being. Though user input is not the only means of invoking a controller, it's common and most recognizable. There is a possibility that based on instructions you give an AI (like Agents) it will make decisions on your behalf. Great design would tell you the human would still be in control. Imagine if an AI controller could provide feedback and input that informs evolving a piece of software optimized for the user.

Our craft of interface design evolving

Though I believe we should be designing this way in the first place, our current behaviors in designing interfaces are biased toward the pixel and vector levels. What commonly happens is designers will optimize for the form factors and breakpoints. This is successful for responsiveness on the device, but what happens when the entire world becomes your view controller?

Instead of looking at the breakpoints of a device, we're looking at scenarios where the UI can evolve. Do I think with Dynamic Interfaces, the software might design the interface continually itself?

Yes. 100%.

I believe this will usher in an age of more customization for the end user and bring a more personalized internet. Arc recently released Boosts 2.0 which allows users to re-live their Winamp days of customization. Imagine that in addition to AI-inspired decision making that could rewrite the interface based on how you want to experience it.

Dynamic interfaces can anticipate user needs and iterate at the speed of feedback. This is the future, and I’m very excited.

Weekly recap

Happy three-day weekend for those in the States! Hope everyone gets time to relax and unwind. It’s nice to be home after a long trip to New York and San Francisco, then it’s back to San Francisco for me.

What I’m excited about upcoming:

• Replit’s Hack Night in San Francisco

• Figma Config is shaping up to be the Coachella of Design

Tweet of the week

Cats bring in places where they shouldn’t be will never cease to be hilarious.

Job board

• Replit is hiring a Research Coordinator

• Replit is hiring a Lead UX Researcher

• Replit is hiring a Marketing Specialist

• Replit is hiring a Senior Product Marketing Manager

• All Turtles is hiring a Head of Design

• Kosmik is hiring their Founding Designer

• many other roles in this Twitter thread

Hype links

• Congrats to The Browser Company on shipping Arc Boosts 2.0 (great work, Julius!)

• Magic Marco strikes again with a website we all aspire to have

• Former GitHub CTO Jason Warner Raises $26 Million for Foundation Model Code Startup

• Pluralsight Search: Zero to One - A good re-read of Ha Phan’s wisdom