Andy Matuschak+

Thanks, Orta!!

Thanks, Orta!!

Mesmerized by Dennis Hlynsky's overlapped timelapses of starlings, crows, fish…h

Mesmerized by Dennis Hlynsky's overlapped timelapses of starlings, crows, fish…https://vimeo.com/dennishlynsky/videos/sort:plays/format:thumbnail

My handwriting is 35wpm, which seems awfully slow (I type at 130wpm), but of cou

My handwriting is 35wpm, which seems awfully slow (I type at 130wpm), but of course, wpm is not at all my bottleneck when writing-to-think! 35wpm is still 2100 words per hour, and I probably average more like 300-500 words per hour when drafting…

I guess when I type I'm like one of those doofuses who drives a sports car in a

I guess when I type I'm like one of those doofuses who drives a sports car in a city, like: green light, pedal to the floor, accelerate over 300 ft then brake hard for the next light, wait… such a jerky experience!

Weird advantage of writing by hnad: because it's so slow, I experience stuckness

Weird advantage of writing by hnad: because it's so slow, I experience stuckness less. Before I reach the end of a sentence, l've had lots of time to think about the next one. When typing I often hit a period, then stop dead, which makes the sometimes aversive not-knowing feeling way more overt.

One caveat for the linked video: buff.ly/UZRs9Sv

One caveat for the linked video: buff.ly/UZRs9Sv

I think this is a big gap in software design culture. There's lots of commentary

I think this is a big gap in software design culture. There's lots of commentary on visual design and micro-interaction, but remarkably little explicating conceptual and structural design. This section from Magic Ink is lodged in my mind. buff.ly/Bl9JwTv

Very excited about Interface Studies by @mskayyali.com—videos explicating and di

Very excited about Interface Studies by @mskayyali.com—videos explicating and discussing ideas and problems in user interface design. buff.ly/laz8yko (via @kevinlynagh.com—thanks!!)

Ahhh man this is so cool

Ahhh man this is so cool

Thanks, Matt!

Thanks, Matt!

Unfortunately in my domain (mobile interface with heavy gestures and animation)

Unfortunately in my domain (mobile interface with heavy gestures and animation) that's not yet tractable, even with lots of homegrown scaffolds and probes. But things will probably look very different in a year. I'm curious if others have found happy middle ground between these poles?

The ideal, maybe, is something like what @simonlast outlines in buff.ly/QFn54GV:

The ideal, maybe, is something like what @simonlast outlines in buff.ly/QFn54GV: teams of agents making technical plans, reviewing each others' work, autonomously and adversarially testing, etc. You still get robust "technical oversight"—just by other agents.

It sucks and I hate it. I'm moving faster, but the work is unpleasant and unrewa

It sucks and I hate it. I'm moving faster, but the work is unpleasant and unrewarding. It seems awfully hard to exert *partial* technical control—much easier to exert ~full or ~none.

This leads to 10-30min cycles, which lead to parallelism (to avoid busy-waiting)

This leads to 10-30min cycles, which lead to parallelism (to avoid busy-waiting), which leads to context-switching and fragmentation, which leads to working memory churn and poor comprehension, which leads to situations where neither the agents nor I understand what's going on.

Like many, I've been trying to make some middle ground work: trying to delegate

Like many, I've been trying to make some middle ground work: trying to delegate more than the first camp, while giving the work more focus and technical oversight than the second. My role is planning, technical guidance, and code review.

Of friends who use coding agents heavily, the happiest seem to fall into two cam

Of friends who use coding agents heavily, the happiest seem to fall into two camps: a) Controlled: 1-2min cycles, no context switching, still in control of the code, using the agent "to type faster" b) Delegated: Vibed in the background, while something else (eg design) is their primary focus

Delightful interactive tour through dozens of tiny muscle-memory-and-flow-promot

Delightful interactive tour through dozens of tiny muscle-memory-and-flow-promoting interface details: aresluna.org/show-your-ha...

Interestingly, Sparkle already sort of has a "title bar mode", but it needs some

Interestingly, Sparkle already sort of has a "title bar mode", but it needs some careful design attention. It's an interesting challenge, really, to think about how that affordance should be presented in the myriad macOS titlebar/toolbar configurations…

I’ve fantasized for years about submitting a PR to add something like this (and

I’ve fantasized for years about submitting a PR to add something like this (and eventually change the default!), but keep getting wrapped up in other projects.

People often ask me how it feels to see it used everywhere, and I always say: an

People often ask me how it feels to see it used everywhere, and I always say: annoying and embarrassing! Those update modals interrupt me exactly when I'm trying to use the app.

I created Sparkle a lifetime ago, when I was seventeen. Then I moved onto other

I created Sparkle a lifetime ago, when I was seventeen. Then I moved onto other things, and kind maintainers dutifully kept that original intrusive modal UI going for two decades. (!!)

Could I possibly nerd-snipe anyone into polishing something like this non-modal

Could I possibly nerd-snipe anyone into polishing something like this non-modal update flow into an official UI for Sparkle? weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2026/04/28/u...

Great answer!

Great answer!

Fun related concept is "auteurial time density"—how many hours/years of *one per

Fun related concept is "auteurial time density"—how many hours/years of *one person's* idiosyncratic creative perspective is represented here? Gaudi, Welles, Klint, Caro, etc

Not fully reliable ofc—doesn't capture the awe in jazz, plein-air painting, etc.

Not fully reliable ofc—doesn't capture the awe in jazz, plein-air painting, etc. But I think the absence of creative time density says something about what's missing in slop. At least in improv arts there's expertise density, which is a different kind of time density.

Thinking about "creative time density": how many person-hrs/yrs went into this s

Thinking about "creative time density": how many person-hrs/yrs went into this specific artifact/place/experience? It's a reliable awe trigger for me. Performers spending 100s of hours prepping a few minutes of material for a show, a scholar spending a decade on a book, a Ghibli film, cathedrals.

Yes, that's a great point. It's funny: by comparison, I really don't mind readin

Yes, that's a great point. It's funny: by comparison, I really don't mind reading amateur/unskilled writing! Reminds me of this point: nooneshappy.com/article/appe...

(excerpts from buff.ly/vaXHjb1, which title I can endorse only as a joke)

(excerpts from buff.ly/vaXHjb1, which title I can endorse only as a joke)

A distressingly high % of the prose I see online is now AI-generated. It feels l

A distressingly high % of the prose I see online is now AI-generated. It feels like I'm playing a coordination game in which a rising fraction of the world is defecting? Then there's also a sense of insult—like, "did you think I wouldn't notice?" And: "wait, do others not notice?" It's not subtle!

Intense vertigo thinking about @nanr.bsky.social's numbers. Based on current ple

Intense vertigo thinking about @nanr.bsky.social's numbers. Based on current pledges/valuations, AI philanthropic giving would saturate an additional 300+ Arc Institutes, i.e. an extra 80K employees. Or 5,000 Institutes for Progress demanding 200K employees! nanransohoff.substack.com/p/the-third-...

FWIW, I was somewhat disappointed with my visit there a few years ago. A lot of

FWIW, I was somewhat disappointed with my visit there a few years ago. A lot of very meticulous platings, but flavor-wise I didn’t find the compositions striking or memorable.

I wondered that, too—seems like retail shops have historically used brighter lig

I wondered that, too—seems like retail shops have historically used brighter lights (halogen prior to LED?). That is, they're actually meant for use during daytime, to reinforce the existing outdoor light in large spaces.

The options do seem dizzying! I wonder: why are there more options for LEDs than

The options do seem dizzying! I wonder: why are there more options for LEDs than there were for CFLs? Why is it more likely to confuse commercial buyers?

CFL -> LED transition? AIUI, LEDs are naturally cool and need an extra phosphor

CFL -> LED transition? AIUI, LEDs are naturally cool and need an extra phosphor to warm them up. But it's not like warmer LEDs are way more expensive.

Trying to form a theory for the widespread rise of daylight-blue and mismatched

Trying to form a theory for the widespread rise of daylight-blue and mismatched color-temp bulbs in commercial lodging. Feels like more than half the time I travel now, even at nice hotels, I flip a switch, yelp at the light, turn it back off again. That was less common 5+ years ago. Why?

HCI folkS: I'll be in Barcelona this Thu-Sun for CHI. Ping me if you'd like to h

HCI folkS: I'll be in Barcelona this Thu-Sun for CHI. Ping me if you'd like to hang!

I think an accidental tyranny of programmers has held back invention in user int

I think an accidental tyranny of programmers has held back invention in user interfaces. I want weird, courageous, idiosyncratic, alien. I share early reports of how coding agents are changing that, and what it might mean for people and institutions inventing interfaces today.

But malleability isn't enough. Novel interfaces take imaginative design, deep do

But malleability isn't enough. Novel interfaces take imaginative design, deep domain insight, and fluent programming. Few have all three skills, but programming can produce working software on its own—so interface invention culture is dominated by programmers.

I extend those architectural ideas to a sketch for a new system: a malleable rea

I extend those architectural ideas to a sketch for a new system: a malleable reading environment, designed for idiosyncratic expert use. In the demo, I show how one system can freely combine ideas from half a dozen isolated augmented reading HCI papers.

I demo this with two intersecting Obsidian WYSIWYG editor plugins for reading: o

I demo this with two intersecting Obsidian WYSIWYG editor plugins for reading: one which transforms spoken text references to book deep links; and another which presents audio transcripts as playable, editable text blocks. Both created without direct code supervision.

To get composably extensible complex UIs, you need very complex plugin API surfa

To get composably extensible complex UIs, you need very complex plugin API surfaces. Historically, that's meant most plugins are simple; complex plugins have been behind too high a barrier. But now coding agents can pay the costs of boilerplate and formal ceremony.

Agents can make one-off apps, but they’re usually toys, and they're still silos.

Agents can make one-off apps, but they’re usually toys, and they're still silos. If you want to change Photoshop's UI, you're not going to ask Claude to rewrite it, but with your new feature. I show how we might bring malleability to deep interfaces that experts live in all day.

⭐ New talk! Watch / read / visually skim here: andymatuschak.org/tat Coding age

⭐ New talk! Watch / read / visually skim here: andymatuschak.org/tat Coding agents might help us finally break out of two cages: the app model, which traps computing in one-size-fits-all silos; and programming as a specialization, which has crowded out cultures of imagination and domain insight.

Something key about the "liveness" of knowing the other is there, and only being

Something key about the "liveness" of knowing the other is there, and only being able to interact when they are…

TODO develop new political movement "against inboxes"

TODO develop new political movement "against inboxes"

Underrated "feature" of AIM / IRC: you could only send people messages if they w

Underrated "feature" of AIM / IRC: you could only send people messages if they were online! Sort of built-in backpressure. If you're busy, you won't sign on much, so you won't end up with a "big unread count". Feels so quaint now, like a little village. Say hi to your friends during passeggiata…

Yes, I think it's mostly focused on the craft and polish of the visual elements

Yes, I think it's mostly focused on the craft and polish of the visual elements of interfaces. I don't expect that to change too much—like you, I'd like a great text on the deeper layers of the design stack. About Face focuses on a lot of the right questions, but too abstractly, I think.

Interesting to imagine structuring those crits as Figma artboard sequences, so t

Interesting to imagine structuring those crits as Figma artboard sequences, so the student could try each step themselves before revealing the author's take. (in the style of buff.ly/i7jdsOm)

I've often complained that interface design lacks great textbooks—still mostly t

I've often complained that interface design lacks great textbooks—still mostly taught through apprenticeship and trial/error. Interface Craft is shaping up to be a great resource, particularly for polish and craft. interfacecraft.dev The step-by-step UI crit/redesigns are a really nice format.

Crepes are 4:1:2 milk:eggs:flour so they'd be in the bottom right corner I think

Crepes are 4:1:2 milk:eggs:flour so they'd be in the bottom right corner I think

Oh, gosh, sorry you're dealing with that. DM me your Patreon account email addre

Oh, gosh, sorry you're dealing with that. DM me your Patreon account email address and I can fix it, I think?

Yes, yes, outstanding buff.ly/8gbKvke Skimming through the figures, I saw… "IHO

Yes, yes, outstanding buff.ly/8gbKvke Skimming through the figures, I saw… "IHOP Transgression". Wh—what is IHOP Transgression? Apparently their omelettes (and burritos??) contain pancake batter! As for the dark abyss: wouldn't popovers go there? (1:1:1) Or choux pastry, at 2:2:1 milk:eggs:flour?

When I'm using coding agents and LLMs extensively in some tasks, I feel way more

When I'm using coding agents and LLMs extensively in some tasks, I feel way more resistance to grappling with difficult, uneven problems in others. As if I get recalibrated to expect ease, effortlessness, velocity in everything. Not good! Curious how you deal with this, if you feel it too.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Boston-area mutuals: I'll be giving the MIT HCI seminar this Tuesday at 4PM. I'v

Boston-area mutuals: I'll be giving the MIT HCI seminar this Tuesday at 4PM. I've got some open time on Wednesday morning—DM me if you'd like to chat! 👋

Every night this house is full-on blue and red inside. I like to imagine it’s li

Every night this house is full-on blue and red inside. I like to imagine it’s like a cold-plunge sauna, where the occupants alternate between the rooms as needed to dial in their melatonin

Prototypers: do you still see a role for semi-high-fidelity modalities like Orig

Prototypers: do you still see a role for semi-high-fidelity modalities like Origami? Or just straight from sketchbook/mocks to vibecode?

Curious: why avoid? Is it just that "working in public" creates overhead, since

Curious: why avoid? Is it just that "working in public" creates overhead, since it means doing more work along the way to make stuff legible to viewers without context? Or more that "saving it up" produces a stronger emotional impact?

Ah, I'm thinking not so much about the design of game UIs (though that exists) b

Ah, I'm thinking not so much about the design of game UIs (though that exists) but more about the design of games in general, which requires both imaginative design work and also technical skill to experiment and iterate.

Right! Hm. I guess I'm thinking more about new representations: the non-linear t

Right! Hm. I guess I'm thinking more about new representations: the non-linear timeline editor, constructive geometry in CAD, computational notebooks, bidirectionally editable audio transcripts, color grading…