It made me wonder: in a world where you can customise almost anything. From supplement packs to cabinets to something as simple as a T-shirt, why do we still accept software as a one-size-fits-all solution?
Algorithms grow smarter by the second, serving us hyper-personalised content across every platform. Yet the way we interact with and consume that content remains fundamentally the same for everyone.
Design systems have definitely played a role here. I say that as someone who has publicly advocated for them. They solve real problems: consistency, scale, speed. But there is a flip side. As diverse and colourful as the real world is, our online counterpart is becoming increasingly monotonous, nearly indistinguishable.
It has never been easier to build consistent software, and we’ve adapted to that consistency faster than we realise. Our mental models are trained for reuse: learn one pattern, apply it everywhere. Scroll to explore. Tap to confirm. Swipe to dismiss. Whether we’re consuming content, ordering food, booking a place to stay, or finding a museum in a city we’ve never visited, the interaction logic barely changes. The interface disappears not because it is remarkable, but because it is familiar.
This simplification has clear benefits. Accessibility improves. Cognitive load drops. Friction is reduced. All good things. But when everything is designed to be effortless, experiences begin to converge. Variation looks like risk. Personality looks like inefficiency. And slowly, the space for distinct digital experiences shrinks.
So the question isn’t whether design systems are valuable. They are. The question is whether consistency should be the default end state or just the foundation we build beyond.
It’s no secret that the things we design are heavily shaped by the tools we design those things in. However, during some on and off practice with creative coding, I’ve started to see software in terms of input - output. What goes into a system, and how it comes back out. And so, I started asking the question: What if data becomes a deciding design partner. Not on what we display on our screens, but on how we display it.
A little abstract maybe, but let me explain by an example: This is the low-tech magazine website. This website is self-hosted and runs on solar power. Beside their conscious decisions on image resolution, sizing, colours and typography, you’ll notice that at different times of the year and day, the website could be displayed differently, dynamically or even go offline.
About the Solar Powered Website
Now, in this example, the input is the solar power (which then turns into energy) and the output is well, a website that adapts resolution and colour.
But if we look beyond solar power as a data source, other possibilities emerge. Content and its design attributes could dynamically adapt to data straight from your environment, personal biodata, or even EEG signals, shaping interfaces that better support neurodivergent users or more. Truly, the possibilities are endless.
And that, my friend, is how the Dynamic User Interface Design framework was born.