Best of UX — September 2025

1
Article
Hacker News·35w
Why our website looks like an operating system
PostHog redesigned their website to function like an operating system, featuring window management, keyboard shortcuts, and multitasking capabilities. The design addresses the common problem of managing multiple tabs on technical websites by allowing users to open and arrange multiple pages simultaneously within a single browser window. The implementation includes OS-inspired UI elements like file explorers, PowerPoint-style presentations, and spreadsheet layouts, built using TypeScript and Tailwind CSS with a JSON-driven content architecture.
856
73
2
Article
Lobsters·36w
You Don't Need Animations
Animations should serve a clear purpose rather than being added for decoration. Key considerations include frequency of use (high-frequency interactions should avoid animations), speed (UI animations should stay under 300ms), and user goals. Examples demonstrate how purposeful animations can explain features, provide feedback, or improve perceived performance, while unnecessary animations can slow down workflows and frustrate users.
287
16
3
Article
Paul Vasile·35w
RAM is for the entire computer not just for your shitty app
A critique of developers who justify excessive RAM usage in applications by claiming "RAM is meant to be used" or "RAM is cheap." The author argues that RAM is a shared system resource, not exclusively for individual applications, and calls for common-sense optimization rather than resource-heavy solutions. The piece criticizes the trend of unoptimized code and poor user experience driven by cost-cutting development practices.
205
39
4
Article
UX Planet·33w
Hero Images are Dead. These Solutions are Replacing Them.
Traditional full-width hero images are becoming ineffective for modern websites. Three better alternatives are emerging: half-page heroes that balance imagery with actionable text, anti-hero designs that prioritize clear CTAs over visuals, and search-first approaches for high-intent users. These solutions improve conversion rates by reducing cognitive load, enhancing mobile performance, and providing clearer user pathways. The key is matching the hero style to user intent and business goals rather than following generic design trends.
194
5
5
Article
UX Planet·32w
Gamification in Education
Traditional education systems already use game mechanics like levels (grades), points (marks), and leaderboards (ranks), but current digital gamification efforts focus on superficial changes rather than addressing core issues. The real problems are uniform pacing, overemphasis on competition, and reliance on extrinsic rewards. Effective gamification should prioritize curiosity over grades, collaboration over competition, adaptive pacing, and storytelling to create intrinsic motivation for learning.
131
2
6
Article
Zubair Ahmed Rafi·35w
The fastest website that does not use your framework
McMaster-Carr's website demonstrates that performance doesn't require modern frameworks. Despite its outdated appearance, the site achieves exceptional speed through techniques like image sprites, hover-based prefetching, selective JavaScript loading, and CDN optimization. The author argues that simplicity and performance matter more than Lighthouse scores, noting how the site's superior user experience contradicts its modest score of 66.
109
21
7
Article
Hacker News·34w
“Your” vs “My” in user interfaces
Explores the choice between using "your" vs "my" pronouns in user interfaces when referring to user-owned content. Recommends using "your" when the system communicates to users (navigation, labels) and "my" when users communicate to the system (form inputs, radio buttons). Often, no pronoun is needed at all - simple labels like "Account" or "Orders" work best when context is clear.
91
3
8
Article
JetBrains·33w
Islands Theme: The New Look Coming to JetBrains IDEs
JetBrains is introducing the Islands theme, a new visual design for their IDEs starting with version 2025.2.3. Available in both dark and light modes, this theme provides a modern look with better separation between editor and tool windows, improved tab visibility, and enhanced navigation. The theme was selected based on user feedback from surveys, A/B tests, and interviews during the 2025.2 EAP. Users can enable it in Appearance settings and are encouraged to provide feedback through surveys, with participants eligible for prizes including Amazon gift cards or JetBrains subscriptions.
90
3
9
Article
UX Planet·33w
7 UX Skills that will be DEAD by 2026: AI will replace them
Seven traditional UX design skills are predicted to become obsolete by 2026 due to AI automation and changing industry demands. Static wireframing in Figma is being replaced by interactive prototypes built with AI-powered tools like Replit and Lovable. Manual handoffs to developers are giving way to design-to-code workflows that generate functional components. Traditional usability testing is being supplemented by AI-driven analysis and hybrid testing systems. The shift moves away from designing for average users toward adaptive, personalized experiences, replacing click-based navigation with gesture-first patterns, and emphasizing data-informed decisions over intuition. Modern UX designers must understand business metrics and ROI to remain strategically relevant.
86
13
10
Article
Lobsters·33w
Don't even consider starting with Microsoft
A software developer compares Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace after switching companies, highlighting numerous UX issues and architectural problems. Key complaints include Outlook's email-based meeting system, the confusing SharePoint/OneDrive relationship, overlapping functionality across apps, and limitations with group management. The author argues Microsoft's products suffer from legacy baggage and poor integration between old and new systems, making them unnecessarily complex compared to Google's cloud-native approach.
71
17
11
Article
CSS {IRL}·32w
CSS { In Real Life }
Modern web experiences have become cluttered with JavaScript-heavy pages, intrusive pop-ups, and poor UX design, driving users toward AI chatbots as an alternative to traditional web browsing. The author draws parallels between Adobe Acrobat's messy interface and the current state of websites, arguing that improving web usability could reduce demand for AI-powered browsing solutions despite their accuracy and ethical concerns.
63
2
12
Article
Hacker News·35w
TikTok Won. Now Everything Is 60 Seconds.
TikTok has fundamentally transformed digital culture by industrializing human attention through sophisticated algorithmic optimization. The platform's instant learning from micro-behaviors creates an uncannily perceptive recommendation system that other platforms are now copying. This shift is reshaping everything from news delivery to entertainment, education, and cultural consumption, turning content creation into hyper-specialized niches optimized for algorithmic engagement. While providing immediate satisfaction and personalized content, this model trades away sustained attention, serendipitous discovery, and the ability to engage with complex ideas that don't offer instant rewards.
54
6
13
Video
Game Maker's Toolkit·34w
What's The Point Of Hard Games, Anyway?
Game difficulty serves three main purposes: creating satisfaction through overcoming challenges, supporting narrative themes, and encouraging proper gameplay mechanics usage. However, difficulty must be carefully balanced to avoid frustration. Effective difficulty design includes fair challenge mechanics, opportunities for players to adjust difficulty through exploration or settings, and ways to circumvent roadblocks. Games like Hollow Knight: Silksong demonstrate both successful difficulty implementation and problematic elements that can push players toward rage-quitting.
41
12
14
Article
Medium·33w
Bringing apps to life: How we use Flutter and Rive at Scapia to build engaging experiences
Scapia demonstrates how combining Flutter with Rive animations creates engaging mobile experiences that feel alive rather than just functional. The team uses Rive's state machines to build interactive elements like games, calendar highlights, and onboarding flows, enabling designers to create animations directly while developers integrate them with minimal code. Key insights include performance optimization strategies like visibility-based animation triggering, file size management, network caching, and maintaining version compatibility between Rive editor and Flutter runtime.
41
15
Article
Zubair Ahmed Rafi·36w
How to keep your users focus on the screen
Explores how natural human visual patterns influence digital interface design. Discusses the thumb-width focal range used by major platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook to maintain user focus, and explains F-shaped reading behavior in search interfaces where users read the first line fully, skim the second, then lose attention downward. Emphasizes that effective design guides attention rather than filling space.
39
2
16
Article
Lea Verou·32w
In the economy of user effort, be a bargain, not a scam • Lea Verou
User effort should be treated as a currency that users spend to accomplish their goals. The key to great product design is creating a smooth complexity-to-effort curve where simple tasks remain easy while complex tasks are possible, avoiding usability cliffs where slight increases in complexity cause dramatic jumps in required effort. Products should maximize signal-to-noise ratio by eliminating unnecessary steps and boilerplate, prioritize consumer needs over producer needs, and design tradeoffs that make users feel they're getting a bargain rather than being overcharged for basic functionality.
32
3
17
Article
UX Planet·34w
Your 2026 Roadmap to become a UX (AI) Designer: A lot has changed
A comprehensive guide for aspiring UX designers in 2026, emphasizing the integration of AI tools and coding skills into traditional design workflows. The roadmap covers understanding the reality of UX work beyond visual design, learning 'vibe coding' with tools like lovable.dev and Tailwind, using AI assistants like NotebookLM and ChatGPT for learning and prototyping, specializing in high-demand niches like healthcare and fintech, and strategic job hunting approaches. The guide advocates for building functional prototypes rather than static mockups and developing both technical and soft skills for modern UX roles.
24
18
Article
Lobsters·32w
Checkboxes that kill your product
Firefox ships with numerous settings that can completely break the browser experience for users, including options to disable images, JavaScript, SSL/TLS, and navigation toolbars. These dangerous checkboxes exist due to historical reasons and design-by-committee decisions. The author argues that features used by less than 2% of users should be moved to add-ons rather than exposed in main settings, as they can render the browser unusable and harm the product's reputation when accidentally triggered by regular users.
21
5
19
Article
Cassidy's blog·32w
Using Notebook Navigator and Cupertino in Obsidian
A developer shares their improved mobile note-taking setup using the Notebook Navigator plugin and Cupertino theme in Obsidian. The combination provides a more native mobile experience with better navigation features, tag visibility, and smoother typing on iPad and phone. The author also mentions plans to incorporate ideas from Cupertino into their own custom theme, Cardstock.
18
20
Article
The Register·32w
'Don't even consider' Microsoft? Gosh
A millennial developer with 15 years of Google Workspace experience shares their frustrating encounter with Microsoft's enterprise stack, highlighting the complexity and inconsistencies in Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and various group management systems. The critique reveals how Microsoft's feature-rich but convoluted tools appear baffling to users accustomed to Google's simpler approach, suggesting that Gmail's "just barely good enough" philosophy has won over a generation while Microsoft's legacy complexity may be driving users away.
17
11

See all UX archives