web designer making sites that turn attention into understanding
Riga, Latvia
Joined May 2013
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AI made exploration much cheaper for me
i'm not sure it made the work more enjoyable.
i enjoyed manually exploring different directions
even when it took a lot of effort
once i had a solid foundation,
new screens came together pretty easily
now i can generate a dozen directions and get something functional quickly
but it's often almost unusable.
most of my work comes afterward:
- rearranging things,
- discarding bad ideas,
- removing generated slop...
feeling like this limping little guy
protecting you from the slop
156 features on the list.
need to pick ~3 to start with
so far, it feels like torture!
discarding 99% of what i produce to find what actually matters
strong vision, unclear ICP...
too many directions that make sense
calling it a "website delivery platform" for now
xitter.cf/antrdnv/status/2108857…
SEO AEO GEO LLMO ACO AX WebMCP WTF?
let's sort this out.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
help people find your pages through search.
AEO = Answer Engine Optimization
help your content answer a specific question clearly.
GEO = Generative Engine Optimization
help your content get used or cited in AI-generated answers.
LLMO = Large Language Model Optimization
help your business get described and recommended accurately by large language models.
these overlap. think of the emphasis as answering the question, being a source and how your business is represented.
ACO = Agentic Commerce Optimization
help AI shopping agents understand and compare your products.
AX = Agent Experience
help an agent use your website to complete a task.
WebMCP = Web Model Context Protocol
a proposed web standard that gives AI agents in the browser access to actions your website provides, such as searching products or submitting a form.
the useful distinction is between finding the website, using its information and doing something through it.
last week i started building another product, and this one feels different
moving slower
and exploring more
a very different kind of craft
maybe it’ll even be released
Anton Radionov retweeted
despite my love for bold abstract icons
i want to see more brands with personality
enough of the polished, slick logos
that feel strong and professional...
make it awkward, honest and authentic
don't be afraid to be different!
we are wasting the potential of websites by treating them as secondary marketing assets.
we need a landing page for a campaign,
a form to collect sign-ups,
a place to explain the product
i think we could give the website a much bigger role
by giving it more sources of information to learn from:
+ what visitors search for and interact with,
+ the questions they ask,
+ changes in the product and business,
+ how the website is mentioned elsewhere on the internet
these inputs could build a growing understanding of how the website is used,
what it explains well,
and what it needs to improve.
it could use that knowledge to update explanations and test a clearer structure, then learn from how visitors respond to those changes
more relevant inputs would give it more context to work with, more ways to adapt as the business and its audience change
a website could keep gathering information, making changes and evaluating the result...
that is a much bigger role than we usually expect.
conversation was at the center of this product in 2018
the interface might look familiar now
but the company behind it was years ahead
designed MVP with HTML and CSS
what a time that was
it's ok to say no!
positive intention will do better than pleasing...
xitter.cf/danmall/status/2105295…
QuiverAI worked well for exploring the character
i got a few SVG options
and one was close to what i wanted
bold, strong, dynamic enough
the details still needed a manual pass tho
xitter.cf/antrdnv/status/2104843…
an eyebrow, an em dash, a purple gradient — none of them are slop on their own
poor content is worse than visual slop
ask AI why each element is there
keep what adds value
and helps scan the page
cut the rest
xitter.cf/chxrles/status/2104339…
please don't do this.
it's called "eyebrow" text and it's the latest vibecode-slop tell.
it serves no useful purpose. again, it's this "gesturing" LLMs do and you need to be aware of it. it puts this eyebrow text there because it's a landing page typography trope that bamboozles your brain into thinking "yes this looks like a good and proper landing page!"
and you think "the more detail = cleverer model!"
but it's dumb. all this design clutter has no actual thought - it's still stochastic parrot without a trained & experienced designer's guidance. the clever but hard thing is reduction. reducing and eliminating. good design is simple. great design is invisible.
this eyebrow test is just more unnecessary visual clutter the Opus 5.5 is obsessed with.
do not accept the default. take care with your work.
every element is unnecessary until proven essential.
despite my love for bold abstract icons
i want to see more brands with personality
enough of the polished, slick logos
that feel strong and professional...
make it awkward, honest and authentic
don't be afraid to be different!
following last week’s Negative Exposure, this one goes digital
Pixel Decode breaks an image into pixels, slices and signal noise, then slowly resolves it back into focus
few styles, plus hover, click and entrance interactions
now in the Framer Marketplace: framer.com/marketplace/compo…
i really like this update, it opens up a lot
but selecting skills inside the prompt feels like prompt engineering
we know where that led us
fine for us as designers
clients won’t remember the right prompt structure just to update their site
there’s a better way
xitter.cf/framer/status/21027659…
With a page mention, a skill in Framer can point the agent to a page containing components and tell it to use that page by default when designing something new. Learn more about skills: framer.com/blog/skills/
released a new Framer component around the way a Polaroid develops
it starts as a film negative and slowly finds its way back to the original image
color and b&w styles, grain, bloom, plus hover, click and entrance interactions
now in the Framer Marketplace
xitter.cf/antrdnv/status/2096909…
