UX and AI Digest 6: AI Website Design, and How AI Impacts How We Think

Stop Picking The Wrong Website Builder

• There's a website that categorises every way you can build with AI right now — and having tried most of them, I want to save you the time I lost
• The core problem with chat-only builders like Lovable, Bolt, and similar: once the site is generated, what do you do when you need to move one element? Prompt again and wait?
• My recommendation: if you want a site you'll actually edit and maintain, use a builder with AI embedded — Wix AI, Framer AI, or Webflow AI — not a pure chat-to-code tool
• Key limitations to know before you commit: Wix and Framer don't let you export your code — you don't own it; Webflow lets you export HTML/CSS/JS but not the CMS; WordPress.org gives you full ownership
• The broader point: AI is great at generating the first version — it's not great at being your ongoing editor — and most tools aren't designed with that reality in mind
• If you just need online presence fast, don't overthink it — pick anything and go; if you need a real product you'll grow, think about lock-in before you start

AI Is Rewriting The Rules Of Language — UX Collective

• Dora's article makes a sharp observation: since late 2022, certain words and patterns have become measurably more common online — "delve," the em dash, a particular kind of hollow corporate fluency
• The deeper risk isn't just that AI-written content sounds the same — it's that it compresses human variability; when everyone uses the same model, the differences in how people express themselves start to disappear
• AI works on averages — it produces the mean of everything it was trained on — which is why asking it to "write a blog post" produces something technically correct and completely bland
• The fix isn't to avoid AI, it's to give it your experiences first — your stories, your perspective, your reasoning — and use it only to help you express what you've already thought
• On cognitive atrophy: grammar is getting worse among people who use AI to write, for the same reason I can't remember phone numbers anymore — if a tool does it for you, the part of your brain that used to do it quietly switches off
• Dora ends with hope — language has survived the printing press, the telegraph, texting — it will absorb this too
• My concern is narrower: the more we delegate thinking to AI, not just typing, the more our ability to think atrophies — and that's the one thing AI genuinely cannot do for us

Transcript

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In today's episode, a reflection I had from an article on how AI is rewriting the rules of how we communicate and how language is impacted. Today I won't have a lot of articles. It looks like it's a bit calmer in the news today when it comes to the intersect of AI and user experience. So it will be mostly one article, with the exception of another topic that I wanted to cover right now. I found a website which categorizes all the ways you can build a website with AI. And I'm a bit for having tried building a website with AI, I find the technology amazing for the outcome that you can produce, of course. But if you don't know it beforehand, before having tried, it's like it can be a waste of time. So let me save you some time in case you want to build a website. Just know the outcome that you will have with the technology you will use and try to project what will happen by comparing technologies, the output you will have, and so on and so forth before diving into a technology first hand. Or a tool for that matter. What I'm referring to is that I don't know, these companies are developing AI models and tools to accelerate things, but they don't again. Sorry for renting mode, they don't care about the user experience, they don't care about users' needs, they take great shortcuts. So for instance, the website I found lists seven ways you can build a website, which is great. So we have, for instance, lovable, we have um what did I found? Lovable, Google AI Studio, and so on and so forth. We can have Cloud, we can use ChatGPT, we can use all the like, right? And then some of them are kind of separate. But by the time I I use these tools, it was not the case. So we have Webflow AI, we have Wix AI, and we have Framer AI. I'm gonna cover the last these last three after. But first, let me talk to you about all the tools like Ready AI, lovable AI, Bolt, what else? We have Cloud that can help you as well, and we have ChatGPT and so on and so forth. These tools are chat-based. So just think about one thing. Once you have created your website by chatting again and again and again, what do you do with the website if you want to edit one block, one div, one container, one if you want to change the theme, if you want to change, should you prompt again? So that's my biggest problem with the new, let's say, development of technology and tools in general, is that it's not user-centric, it's really tech-centric. And I have yet to see a company that does that in a way that respects their users and the the how can I say the the audience. Because for having tried all of these tools like Lovable, Bolt, and so on and so forth, yeah, you can tell me, and you would argue, and and you would be right. I should have hired the developer, or I should have I should have learned development code and so on and so forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. That would probably have saved me some wasted time. But yeah, I have tried these tools and it's great at generating something that's great for that. But developing a website is not only about generating the code, it's not only that. So that's the problem, and that's a conversation we need to have in the field when it comes to product development as a whole. It's not all about the last step, which is generation and building. There should be thinking that comes before, and we should think about the iterations. How will the iteration experience be? Like if you need to move a box around and you need to prompt an AI and wait for it for like an hour to think, and then um take you away some credits, is it worth it? So I'm just wondering. That's the thing, and so there's that. And now, only now I am seeing the companies which are like website builders, websites builders, um, integrating more and more AI. And I'm happy to see that, to be honest, because that that's that's that's an indication that we need both. We need the chat experience, but not be restricted to the chat experience. If you listen to other episodes, I have a problem when we have experiences that are being restricted to one modality or another or one way of doing. It's kind of restricting, let's say. And I don't want to be restricted when I do something. I want to be able to have, or maybe I'm some kind of persona, but I want to be able to have control over how I perform the tasks. So for instance, if I know a little bit about moving boxes around with drag and drop, I would prefer probably to do that versus asking the website to do XYZ. Because if I'm asking an AI to do XYZ and I have to always refine and refine and refine, well, probably I might as well pay someone to do it who will leverage AI. I don't know. That's my way of thinking. So, what I would recommend you if like just think about if it's for only a landing page and you will never edit it again, or is it for a full-fledged website that you will want to host? Uh, sorry, that you will want to yeah, have it custom, expand on the functionalities, probably edit it at some point. Just use a website builder and use their integrated AI, like Wix AI, I'm not affiliated by the way, Wix AI, Framer AI, Webflow AI, and just know the limitations of all of them because Wix AI, you cannot export your code, so you will not be the owner of the code. I think that for Framer is the same thing, and I only know that Webflow can help you export the code. And even though you can export, if I'm not mistaken, you cannot export the CMS. So the CMS, for those who don't know, is what is the I think it's content management system. One second. CMS um content management system, yeah. So it's a way for you to store things dynamically like articles for blogs or any it's kind of a list of posts that is managed in the website backend, and so that's how blogs work, for instance. It's with the content management system. So with Webflow, you can export the whole code, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, but you cannot export the CMS. So just know this limitation. There might be some workarounds around here, but I don't know. Um that's that's how it works, and so just know what you get in once you how can I say once you start using a technology, and then the other one is WordPress. I have heard that WordPress is a bit complicated to use, but right now it looks like they have um they have embedded some AI. Anyways, and I also heard that WordPress, with WordPress, you are the owner of the website. If it were if it's WordPress.org. I don't know for WordPress.com. Anyways, so just think about the experience that you will have to live through before you start using any tool. Because then you might be locked in. That's my biggest fear when I do something, and that's why I tend to overthink what I will do, because I fear of being locked in. And at the same time, don't let that restrict you. Because if, for instance, you want to start your business and you just lack some online presence, just go with whatever tool that you can have access to so that you have online presence. At least you have online presence. Don't don't overthink it just because XYZ. So that's my only advice to you. And yeah, and and speaking more broadly, when it comes to AI, I hope that companies will start to realize that we do need user interfaces still. I mean, for some of the things, not everything, but for some of the things we do need user interfaces. Because that's my main problem. Like, AI advocates are saying, yes, it will substitute everything, it will substitute even user interfaces, software is dead, and so on. Well, it depends. Because it's like moving goalposts. If AI is better at something, you can take away some steps in your user interface, but you don't need to take away everything. We still have to oversee some of it, we still have to do some manual steps. That's my two cents. And so, for instance, I would hate to just have to chat with an AI every day to do all of my tasks. Like it's just not efficient, it's just not efficient. Whether I'm doing a presentation or a script or a website, it's just not efficient. I need to be able to move things around and edit myself at some point because I have an internal heuristic that tells me for this task, and this heuristic is not always accurate, but I try to have it the most accurate as possible. But I have an internal heuristic telling me for this task, no need to ask AI. You can do it very quickly yourself because the the time you will have to phrase your prompt, to send the prompt, for the AI to think, for the AI to output a first answer, and then you will have to refine the answer because it's not good, and so on and so forth. Right? And so for all of these kinds of tasks, it's still good to have a UI. So even for website development, and I'm not a website designer, I'm not a professional. Once my website is developed and I want to edit my website, I want to be able to do it. And probably for professional designers using Photoshop and so on, they prefer to have AI embedded in the software and not having to do everything through a chat. Like if you're a company right now embedding AI in your product or if you're an AI company, just please think about your users. Please conduct user research and don't restrict the possibilities to them because you're only shooting yourself in the foot, to be honest. If your users, how can I say, think about their workflow, their job to be done. If you have a real rationale for you to suggest AI instead of a more manual task and that the output is the same and that the refinement is not needed, and so on, yes, please do so. But if it's not the case, provide a manual option to your users or provide at least a user interface that is other than a chat. Sorry, I just wanted to say that. Renting mode over. Now let me share about this news from today from an article from Dora. I don't know how to pronounce the last name. I will put the link in the um in the show notes. Dora has written on the UX collective on Medium saying that AI is rewriting the rules that language is following. So Dora makes the observation first and foremost that we have seen since the end of 2022 appear some new type, some new sorry, some words that are more common in articles online, like the word delve that is becoming how more and more common. Uh, the use of the um M-or some people call it the Chat GPT dash, but it has always been here in English language at the very least. The fact that there are some people trying to identify, well, we are all trying to do that to some extent, right? To identify what is AI written and what is not AI written, what is uh human and what is not. There is the idea from Dora that if we if it continues to go on this way, well the differences between people, what makes them unique, are gonna disappear more and more when it comes to how to communicate online because because AI is using is is working with an average of all the sources that you give it, and so it will eliminate the let's say the variability between people. So that's that's also another risk. And also another thing that I like that I would like to discuss, it's the idea that grammar is getting worse. Um, well, there is some kind of cognitive atrophy from people using AI too much. And um so there's that the idea that yeah, the disparities between people are not disparities, sorry, the variability of how people express themselves as disappearing, but at the same time, at the final, at the very end, Dora is giving a message of hope, saying that language is very resilient, and that and that um it has absorbed the printing press, telegraph, text messages, and so on and so forth. So language will adapt. Okay, I have a lot of thoughts on this article. It's amazing, it's it's a really thoughtful thoughtful piece, and I uh so thank you, Dora, for that, and I want to discuss that. So, first and foremost, what does it reveal about human beings? We value speed, we value efficiency. So if we provide to people a tool that accelerates the way they communicate, whether it will sound robotic or human, well the choice is being made by a lot of people to go for the robotic route as long as something is written. So that's the first observation. We value sometimes efficiency over sounding natural. So that's one thing. Well, it also reveals something else, which is two things. The first thing is AI, it depends on how you use it. If you just ask AI, write a blog post, just try that. Ask ChatGPT or Cloud to write a blog post about user experience. It will probably ask you some refining questions, but that's it. Then it will write it. And you know what? It will be bland. It will be like shallow, you will learn nothing in this blog post, except if you're outside from the world of user experience, you will learn nothing. Because it will use the whole. I'm sorry, I want to I want to step back a little bit. You might learn something, yes, but that's a way of saying, maybe you you you get me. You would not learn as much as if it was a human writing with his or her own personal story, because this is something that AI cannot and will never be able to reproduce, which is your personal stories. It can fake a personal story, if you ask it, but it cannot it cannot live for you, it cannot experience the world for you. And so really think about AI as the end of the process. Like when you sit down and when you type to write something about you and your experience and your and your life, this is what AI is doing. It's just the typing. Like it's automating the typing. And maybe the end process of the thinking, like associating words, but that's it. It's not it's not doing the whole process through which you lived something, you experienced it, you judged it, you evaluated, you focused on something rather than something else, you chose to share something instead of something else, and so on and so forth. AI is not doing all of that, it's doing the end of the process. So just think about why, let's say the AI outputs are being bland because it lacks all the experiences. And so, one way for it not to be bland is to if you just want to keep being efficient and using AI without sounding bland and robotic, is to train it on your data and your way of talking and your experiences and whatever you want to give it. I'm not a fan of sharing all my data personally, but if you want to do it, like the the proper way to do it would be to give it as much context as possible. Then the technicalities of it, I'm not sure. Like, I'm not an AI engineer, probably at some point there are some stories about tokens and context windows and so on. I am absolutely not sure. But theoretically speaking, that's what I'm thinking, which is it's a model that takes an input and outputs something, and the more this input is varied and and and um specified, the better the output will be. It's as simple as that. So that's probably why we see less variety and less diversity in the outputs that we read online, because well, because people don't use AI as they could. So that's one thing. And so the other thing is, yes, as I said, the idea of the experiences, what we live, and so on, and so that reveals us that AI is merely a tool, it cannot live for you, and so you still need to experience the world and then use AI to communicate and convey something that you want to, but that's it. So there's that, and then there is a super awesome topic about cognitive atrophy. So the idea that grammar may be getting worse because we are using tools to help us write better. Uh the article says that the outputs from AI are significantly overall, on average, better at grammar. And so that's the idea that um, well, humans are using it. How can I say it compensates for our for our mess or complexities and errors and mistakes, and so it's it's like anything in life. If you want to learn, you have to go through the struggle and you will learn and you will own this skill. If you use something that provides the skill for you, the area in your brain that would be dedicated for that skill will atrophy. It's as simple as that. If you don't practice a language, you will forget about that language except if it's your your mother tongue. If you don't uh practice a skill for a long time, you will forget about that skill. Maybe except if you practiced it for like decades, and then you know it's it's different. But the the brain is plastic, and so one thing that we should think about is every time we use a tool, we should think about why am I using this tool? What am I expecting to get out of this tool? And then think about the process. Like for instance, I want to generate a deck for my boss. Okay. Why do I want to generate this deck? Because I want to convey an idea. Okay, why do I want to convey this idea? Because I want to change XYZ about the product or the way we work, and because I have thought about the strategy. Okay, so that's the whole process, and at the very end you generate a deck. Okay, what is really Manual in the process and what is boring and what is not fulfilling and rewarding. Well, it's probably moving boxes around in PowerPoint. Right? But if you think if you delegate the whole thing, which includes thinking about the strategy and the pipeline and the step-by-step and the frameworks and so on, and your proposal, if you delegate all that to AI, well, you have done no thinking. You have done no thinking. So AI cannot substitute your ability to think. It's a tool, and it will always be a tool. Although it will be more and more and more proficient, it can give you ideas, it can brainstorm, it can give you trade-offs and so on, but you need to think. You need to think before, during, and after using it. Because if not, it will atrophy your thinking abilities and your skills at thinking and conceptualizing ideas will atrophy. And so that's what we are seeing with with grammar, as it's said in the article, that that the more we use grammar checking tools, l the more the the less we know about grammar. Yes, because we don't need to. I just know mine. But 10 years ago I remember I was about I was able to tell my mother's phone number, my friend's phone numbers. Now it's not the case anymore. Because I have my my phone um how do we call that? Contact list that does that for me. Is it better? Is it worse? Maybe it's not needed, so it's not it's not per se a big example, but I can already imagine a world in which people don't have to learn how to write. Well, maybe to write to some extent to communicate ideas to an AI, but imagine we go down that path of having all interaction which is unimodal, as I say that I don't like, because it restricts people, and the more you restrict them, the less flexible they become and the less creative they become. So, well, maybe there is a trade-off, maybe there is an optimal range because you cannot innovate without constraints and without restrictions. But still, imagine you restrict people to only one modality. So let's say in the future we can only interact with AI through voice. People will still know how to speak, of course, but you can imagine that if everything is being done this way, it's easy to imagine a world in which people don't write anymore. If there is nothing written anymore, like everything is vocal, everything is voice. We can imagine if you don't need to write to communicate your ideas, well people will not know how to write. And it's easy to demonstrate because if you never learn how to write, you don't know how to write. And so that's it. I mean, that's so that's my point. You need to think about what is technology and and tools and more specifically, probably AI, doing for you. Is it is it empowering you or is it taking away from what you think you need to grow? So that was a really thoughtful piece. I will um put the link in the description. And so that's it for today. Thank you again for tuning in. Thank you for listening for the listeners I get every day. And uh I hope to see you in the next episode, which will be not before Tuesday, because I am taking a break for this weekend. So cheers, take care, bye bye.