Summary:  Three design patterns exist for inactive UI commands: showing them as normal commands with an error message if clicked, a visibly disabled state, or completely hiding unavailable options. Best practice is to display disabled features in muted colors, accompanied by explanations of why they are currently unavailable.   Short music video about this article  (YouTube, 4 min.) Behold the epic saga of the disabled button: Sometimes, a command or feature is inactive , me

Summary : Latent affordances | Automating best-practice dissemination by having AI learn from top staff | Entry-level user researcher job opening at LEGO | Direct manipulation: the opera | One-shotting a narrated slideshow with Google’s NotebookLM | New video model Veo 3.1 | Avatar company HeyGen scores $100M annual run rate UX Roundup for October 20, 2025: Many of this week’s news items relate to the process of going from idea to video with AI. (GPT Image-1) Latent Affordanc

Summary : Forward Deployed Engineers are the new user researchers | Reve has GUI controls for AI image editing | Apple Liquid Glass UI...

Street interview video about the consistency heuristic | AI auto-generates full videos | Infinite scrolling is a usability quagmire to avoid | Simplicity vs. features

Reserve hamburger menus for small-screen designs | AI agents must remain under user control | One app per thing in your life = app overload | Images stand out on web pages | Overusing modal dialog boxes

AI products have changed from invisible enhancement of classical user interfaces to soon become the main avenue for users to engage with digital features and content. This may mean the end of UI design in the traditional sense, refocusing designers’ work on orchestrating the experience at a deeper level.

Maximum Minimalism removes text and images, leaving only buttons for interaction. This streamlined approach leverages spatial memory.

Parallel and iterative use of AI improves quality outcomes | Dropdowns must die | Early GUI prototypes | UX needs more urgency about AI

Summary : UX has come a long way since its early beginnings at Bell Labs in the 1940s. As we enter Year 2 of the AI revolution, it’s...

Escape from the smartphone being the end all of user interface design. Bigger screens with richer data display hold much potential for UX.

First computer mouse in museum | Beware dark AI design | 293% y/y growth in companies’ AI spend | Most drivers think they’re above average

Auto-sync makes YouTube captions easier to create | SUS questionnaire user satisfaction is too long | Revolutionary first Mac GUI

Turning the tables: Use AI to check your work | Toast notifications are a burnt GUI widget | Do people prefer human or AI design?

Saving fuel by AI-optimized airline routing | Apple violates 40 years of GUI standards | Recommended reading about storytelling and non-UX

Traditional accessibility methods have been tried for 30 years without improving usability for disabled users. Generative UI may be better.

AI requires three transformative shifts: tight UX in AI development, a hybrid interface of GUI plus prompts, and Super-AI integration.

Only after GUI browsers launched in 1993 did the web explode. AI needs a similar GUI revolution in usability.

Coupon-code fields make ecommerce shoppers green with discount envy | Guidelines for toggle switch design | User research at tradeshows

AI products are fraught with basic usability errors, violating decades-old UX findings. Simple fixes will save AI users much pain.

With direct manipulation users control visual objects through physical gestures, incremental reversible actions & real-time feedback.