Published 10 September 2026 · Source dated 18 November 2025
Adobe's 2026 design trend read says the flood of AI-generated, hi-tech visuals is triggering a swing back towards organic, human-centred, even messy design. It's a trend call, not hard adoption data — treat it as a nudge, not a rulebook.
Coach
On your next AI-assisted mockup, swap one generated element for something real — a genuine user quote, a real photo, a hand-drawn annotation — and see if it changes how people react to it.
Surf this topic: UCD methods (opens in a new tab)
Source: adobe.com (opens in a new tab) ·
Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics have been the backbone of UX critique since 1994. They're worth relearning properly, not just skimming the list.
nngroup.com (opens in a new tab)
Your move
Pick one screen from your own portfolio and run it against all ten heuristics — write down which one it breaks hardest, and fix that first.
AI tools can generate screens fast, but they don't validate usability — that's still on you. Classic heuristic evaluation is more relevant, not less, now that production speed has gone up.
nngroup.com (opens in a new tab)
Your move
before you ship your next AI-assisted screen, run a quick 10-point heuristic check against it and write down what fails.
More first drafts are arriving via AI agents, but the fundamentals of a good design critique haven't moved. IxDF's literature on critique still holds regardless of who — or what — made the first version.
interaction-design.org (opens in a new tab)
Your move
next time you review an AI-assisted design, ask 'what user problem does this solve?' before commenting on how it looks.
