What actually makes a UI feel well-designed now?
I’m a product designer, and I’ve been thinking about what we actually mean when we say a UI is “well designed.”
AI can already make something clean, consistent, and visually polished pretty quickly.
But the moment a UI looks AI-generated, we often seem to judge it differently.
That feels a little strange to me. Most designers I know are already using AI somewhere in their process.
So maybe the problem isn’t that AI was involved. Maybe it’s that we can recognize the decisions that weren’t really made by anyone. The familiar layout.
The safe component choices. The same visual patterns that work, but don’t seem to have much reason behind them.
So I’m curious:
What makes a UI feel well-designed to you now? And why do you think “this looks AI-generated” has become a criticism in the first place?
Replies
I think "this looks AI-generated" suggests laziness from the business that created the website. It suggests that the business hasn't really taken any time to consider its customers' needs or really speak to them... to make them feel special. The layout is the same. The photos are the same style. The copy reads like all the other AI-generated copy out there. There's no sense of branding. No sense of why the customer should buy from them instead of their competitors.
To create a good UX, I think the website should function smoothly and allow the website visitor to achieve what they wish to easily. But there should also be some design choices that reflect thought by the company.