Simon Willison’s Weblog

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Posts tagged ai, ux

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Confession: we've been hiding parts of v0's responses from users since September. Since the launch of DeepSeek's web experience and its positive reception, we realize now that was a mistake. From now on, we're also showing v0's full output in every response. This is a much better UX because it feels faster and it teaches end users how to prompt more effectively.

Jared Palmer, VP of AI at Vercel

# 7th February 2025, 6:39 am / ux, ai, prompt-engineering, generative-ai, llms, vercel, deepseek

Mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience. Matt Webb attempts to map out the different user experience approaches to building on top of generative AI. I like the way he categorizes these potential experiences:

  • Tools. Users control AI to generate something.
  • Copilots. The AI works alongside the user in an app in multiple ways.
  • Agents. The AI has some autonomy over how it approaches a task.
  • Chat. The user talks to the AI as a peer in real-time.

# 20th July 2024, 4:40 am / matt-webb, ux, ai, generative-ai, llms, ai-agents

The 6 Types of Conversations with Generative AI. I’ve hoping to see more user research on how users interact with LLMs for a while. Here’s a study from Nielsen Norman Group, who conducted a 2-week diary study involving 18 participants, then interviewed 14 of them.

They identified six categories of conversation, and made some resulting design recommendations.

A key observation is that “search style” queries (just a few keywords) often indicate users who are new to LLMs, and should be identified as a sign that the user needs more inline education on how to best harness the tool.

Suggested follow-up prompts are valuable for most of the types of conversation identified.

# 23rd November 2023, 5:37 pm / usability, ux, userresearch, ai, generative-ai, llms

Why Chatbots Are Not the Future. Amelia Wattenberger makes a convincing argument for why chatbots are a terrible interface for LLMs. “Good tools make it clear how they should be used. And more importantly, how they should not be used.”

# 15th May 2023, 8:54 pm / design, ux, ai, generative-ai, llms, amelia-wattenberger