Thread

1. dmix · 1790123901 · focus · HN ↗

   You can spot vibecoded websites by how they include the prompt or commit-style comments into the literal interface, instead of communicating it via visual context (or simply excluding it)

   > Sort by any column; values the run could not produce always sort last. Hover a cost for how it was priced, a latency for the endpoint. Names link to each project.

   A designer would never write this, but an LLM just inserts it by making it small grey text next to the interface, just like it does with inane code comments.

   1. dogscatstrees · 1790125077 · focus · HN ↗

      It's helpful metadata, what's wrong with it? Dashboards at work do this.

      1. dmix · 1790125452 · focus · HN ↗

         It's fine in isolation to have help text for complex interfaces needing explanation. Better yet contextual hints.

         But there's about 10 other examples explaining intention of the coding rather than immediately useful information to the user, it's all over this one site in small grey text. And I guarantee you nobody is reading them carefully. Just like how nobody likes reading a 15 line LLM code comment over a simple function.

         Most of it could be better solved with more thoughtful design or deleted. The link explanation is particularly egregious.

      2. CBLT · 1790127569 · focus · HN ↗

         If you don't have any kind of agent instructions saying "don't copy code into prose", you'll inevitably get text that reflects some previous state of the system instead of its current state.
      3. janalsncm · 1790129087 · focus · HN ↗

         One person’s helpful metadata is another person’s noise. It’s much better for a door to visually indicate that it should be pushed open than to put up a sign there.

         However, doing the former requires a level of empathy with humans that LLMs rarely have.

         Human brains have caloric demands. It is possible for humans to process enormous amounts of unrelated facts to make a decision, but it’s tiring. It’s much better to not do that, especially just to get some basic information.

         To anthropomorphize a bit, an LLM might find it charming and interesting to read someone’s life story as a preamble before their taco recipe. Humans by and large find that annoying, not because we can’t understand the biography but because processing that information is not free.

         So it’s probably possible to design using an LLM. You would probably have to be intentional about it.

         1. dmix · 1790131418 · focus · HN ↗

            Well said

            Much has been discussed about AI coding but there's been a lack of discussion on the design/UX side as that's also a step being rushed by via prompting + "looks pretty enough".

            We're entering an era of hyper dense UIs with plenty of excess and quick workarounds.

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