The five best design links, every weekday

Category: Usability

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recipetables.com

RecipeTables

Any recipe at a glance. Paste a recipe (or a URL) and get it back as a nested prep table. Ingredients as rows, steps as merged columns.

lucet.design

Lucet

AI interface patterns for what comes next: the missing states designed, the missing features working.

commandline.microsoft.com

Designing product simplicity for the agentic AI era

Shared design components aren’t enough to ensure a seamless product experience. Can designers create consistency by embracing simplicity?

ilyabirman.net

Let me click

How interfaces prevent input errors by resolving invalid states automatically rather than disabling options or displaying errors.

blog.mozilla.org

Let your designs fail for the right reasons

How AI-assisted native prototypes changed what usability testing could show.

smashingmagazine.com

Modal vs. separate page: UX decision tree

How to choose between modals and pages, when to avoid modals, and how to determine the right level of interruption or navigation.

unsung.aresluna.org

Molly guard in reverse

The story of the little plastic safety cover you have to move out of the way before you press some button of significance.

smashingmagazine.com

Combobox vs. Multiselect vs. Listbox

How they are different, what purpose they serve, and how to choose the right one.

terrygodier.com

Phantom obligation

Why RSS readers look like email clients, and what that’s doing to us.

bugsappleloves.com

Bugs Apple loves

Bugs Apple won’t fix. Why else would they keep them around for so long? We did the math.

dbushell.com

Death to scroll fade

Fade what? Everything! Make everything fade into view! It’s too static, you know? Make it pop!

carlbarenbrug.com

Friction by design

What gets lost when everything is effortless?

jarango.com

The Moylan arrow

How traditional structural principles can inform the design of AI-powered products and services.

youtube.com

Gboard Dial Version

A new proposal from Google's Gboard team, the Gboard Dial Version.

uxdesign.cc

Making useful filters

Filters can make or break your UX, and designing them is not as straightforward as you might think.

uxdesign.cc

It’s incredible how many bad user experiences are still out there in 2025

Three bad UX stories from just one week that brought me close to a complete meltdown.

piccalil.li

How to write error messages that actually help users

One of the most consistently neglected parts of today’s user experiences is our handling of errors.

grantslatton.com

Typo minimizing keyboard

A layout optimization problem, supported by ChatGPT o1-pro.

nngroup.com

The EAS framework for simplifying forms

Eliminate first, Automate where possible, and Simplify what remains — to minimize user effort and improve form completion rates.

piccalil.li

In praise of off-screen menus

Challenging the idea of displaying your entire navigation as a cluster of links.