Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Agent Standards Best Viewed in Every Assistant
Summary
A generation ago, Jeffrey Zeldman helped end the browser wars by making one case relentlessly: build to standards, not to vendors. That fight is back—now over how AI agents render interfaces across Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Teams, and Slack. In this session, Zeldman joins Patrick Neeman to trace the line from "best viewed in Netscape" to "best experienced in one assistant," and to have a call to arms for agentic UI actually needs. Expect hard-won lessons from the first standards war, and a clear-eyed look at MCP and A2UI.
Key Insights
-
•
Generative AI platforms lack unified standards, causing costly, fragmented UX development.
-
•
The web standards movement succeeded through community collaboration and public pressure.
-
•
Separation of content and design enabled accessibility and future-proofing on the web.
-
•
Current AI interfaces offer little control over the design details compared to traditional web design.
-
•
Proprietary AI companies may resist compatibility to preserve exclusive user bases.
-
•
AI tools risk devaluing human creativity and make credit and provenance recognition difficult.
-
•
Young designers and engineers face uncertainty in career paths due to AI’s disruptive impact.
-
•
Open source and community-driven efforts are critical in establishing AI interface standards.
-
•
Historical patterns in tech show crises and revolutions tend to ‘rhyme’ over decades.
-
•
Activism in tech today requires new models due to the vastly different power dynamics.
Notable Quotes
"We don’t have to deal with spacer.gif anymore."
"The separation of content from design led to accessibility and interoperability."
"Right now, designers have to think about how this appears on Slack versus Teams versus other platforms."
"It feels like there’s a real brain interacting with you, which is scary."
"We’re building our house in somebody else’s sandbox."
"If you execute perfectly on a leader’s bad strategy, and then the company goes out of business, you get punished for executing."
"History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme."
"There’s going to be fewer players in AI, and that power differential is huge."
"We need to control how the assistant evaluates design and accessibility."
"Individually, we have very little power, but together we have a great deal of power."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"What does it mean to bring a systems lens to a complex problem within the enterprise?"
Uday GajendarTheme One Intro
June 6, 2023
"A design system is never a done thing, it’s a continuous evolution of best practices."
Dan DonaldDesign Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change
June 1, 2023
"If rapid research findings create more questions but you don’t have time to address them, it’s probably not the right method."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program
May 18, 2023
"Eye tracking helps to generate instant new hypotheses by revealing what a user noticed or missed."
Jeff Ephraim Bander Ariane Rahn Philipp ReiterEye Tracking Gamechanger: Why Smartphone Eye Tracking will Revolutionize Your UX Research
March 11, 2022
"The little sounds that VoiceOver makes are like bird song; you only notice them when they're gone."
Sam ProulxUnderstanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
June 6, 2023
"Each stage of growth brings different challenges for UX to overcome."
Jemma AhmedTheme 2 Intro
January 8, 2024
"Storytelling is highly effective in helping stakeholders understand the complete performance of products, including the darker sides."
Raven VealDark Metrics: Illuminating the Negative Impact of Digital Health Design
March 12, 2021
"Research isn’t just about building a great product; it’s about having a great company and stronger internal bonds."
Nicole Wright Ned DwyerDemocratizing Research at HoneyBook
March 9, 2022
"What we do can potentially be bigger than optimizing conversion rates; it can help build a more peaceful world."
Jim KalbachPeace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
June 14, 2018
