This video is featured in the AI and UX playlist and 1 more.
Summary
Sentient Scenes is a little toy with big lessons—an intelligent interface that changes style, mood, and behavior on demand. The project explores what it means to treat AI as a design material, weaving open-ended intelligence into interfaces beyond chat. We’ll share lessons in both technique and perspective for how the designer’s role evolves—from crafting visuals to sketching prompts—and what it takes to craft systems where machine intelligence mediates the user experience.
Key Insights
-
•
AI can be treated as a design material with unique strengths and weaknesses rather than just a productivity tool.
-
•
Radically adaptive experiences adapt style, mood, behavior, and layout dynamically in response to user context and intent.
-
•
Open-ended AI interfaces must operate within constraints to maintain cohesion and avoid 'robot fever dreams'.
-
•
Large language models excel more at parsing user intent than merely providing factual answers.
-
•
The prompt itself becomes a hybrid artifact acting as design spec, requirement doc, and programming language.
-
•
Designers’ roles evolve into defining the interaction sandbox and parameters for AI-user collaboration rather than specifying every UI detail.
-
•
Personality and presence in AI interfaces can be achieved without pretending to be human, using animation and interaction cues.
-
•
Bespoke UI assembles and rearranges interface elements in real time to fit user needs, reducing complexity in workflows.
-
•
AI can enhance accessibility by tailoring font, color, and interaction styles to users’ abilities on demand.
-
•
Sentient Scenes took less than a day to build due to using plain language prompts, highlighting opportunities for rapid, imaginative prototyping.
Notable Quotes
"AI is not just a tool for productivity or efficiency; it's a design material with unusual strengths and weaknesses."
"Sentient Scenes doesn’t just talk about the scene, it becomes the scene, adapting continuously to user input."
"We wanted to create personality in interfaces without pretending they are human."
"Radically adaptive experiences are conceived and compiled in real time, responding to context and intent."
"The big design activity here is sketching prompts, guiding how the AI should behave rather than drawing UI."
"The prompt becomes part design spec, part requirement doc, and part programming language."
"Large language models are far better at figuring out what you mean than simply giving an answer."
"With bespoke UI, you don’t present every single path to the user; you let the right tool appear immediately for the job."
"AI can transform accessibility by changing experiences to meet user needs in the moment."
"This isn’t about Skynet; it’s about simple signals of awareness that adapt to immediate context."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"If you get the interview, say, I don’t have experience in that field, but here’s how I solved similar complex problems."
Dave Hoffer Joanne WeaverUX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
May 21, 2025
"My father made headlines as a blind man graduating with a computer science degree because it was considered unusual and abnormal."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
September 9, 2022
"End your day by writing the to-do list for tomorrow; it’s easy to get distracted when you’re not in a full-time gig."
Greg PetroffExit Interview #1: Greg Petroff: From Silicon Valley Executive to Sonoma County Possibilitarian
September 24, 2025
"Most B2B research is done remotely and online, so we needed a tool that was easy to use without in-person facilitation."
Sean DolanA Practical Look at Creating More Usable Enterprise Customer Journeys
October 31, 2019
"People coming from agencies sometimes need help dropping bad habits like working at 2am or stressful environments."
Allison SandersOperating with Purpose
January 8, 2024
"Leadership is about being a transparent umbrella, shielding teams from chaos while keeping them informed."
Ted NewardTheme 4: Enterprise Organizational Journey
June 4, 2019
"Discovery workshops are seen as time-consuming and costly, causing resistance from internal stakeholders."
Michele WongHelping Them Help Us
January 8, 2024
"If you make an app that users only use once a year, don’t expect them to learn dozens of custom shortcuts."
Sam ProulxEverything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
June 11, 2021
"You have to prepare research to withstand scrutiny by anyone so your team can go forward confidently."
Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina SchreiberExpert Panel: Leading in and with Research
March 10, 2022
