Galileo AI – Copilot for interface design
Everyday we&#x27;re getting closer to a toolkit that allows a novice to go from an idea to a working product with little more than natural language in-between.  It&#x27;s still a ways off, but the trajectory is clear.<p>I have a working theory -- which I&#x27;m sure I didn&#x27;t discover first -- that the broader the gap between the traits required for the process of creating a thing, and the traits which would make someone want to use the thing, the worse the design&#x2F;product outcomes.  It applies readily to a field like architecture, where a meticulous, granular attention to geometry and streamlined efficiency aids in the realization of a building plan but rarely coheres with the emotive, intuitive experience of a place by the people who use it.  And I think it even better applies to the development of consumer software. To be a good dev you need, among other things, a high degree of patience, while the average user is defined by little else than their near nonexistent attention span. The best practitioners, like Nikita Bier, have fully internalized this -- &quot;consider every tap by a user to be a miracle&quot;[0].  But it&#x27;s an easier lesson to rote memorize than to put into practice.  Other incongruences between the process of creating and using abound: organization vs complexity, optionality vs usability, minimalism vs ornamentation, etc.  They all create friction for the best version of an idea coming to fruition.<p>To borrow from the analogy of architecture again, we may be entering the era of vernacular software design -- the meta-discipline of development as such begins to fade away, and what counts is one&#x27;s ability to find, articulate, and solve a problem, or to create a novel experience.  Like their real-world architectural equivalents, the resulting designs will probably be maligned by the field for esoteric reasons, or regarded as unrefined and inferior.  But also like real-world vernacular architecture, they&#x27;ll probably be widely enjoyed by the people who actually use them. I&#x27;m excited for that future, and this service -- if it works as well as is showcased here -- is a big part of getting there.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;nikitabier&#x2F;status&#x2F;1608310890243444738" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;nikitabier&#x2F;status&#x2F;1608310890243444738</a>