AI is quietly making me a sloppier UI designer - and I think I know why
I care less about UI quality with AI now.
I use AI every day in product design - and I notice that "details slip". Used to bother me. Now it slides past.
Focus shifts. Figma used to be an extension of my hand, like a sword to a samurai. I want to move a block 4px right - I move it 4px. In a prompt-flow it doesn't work that way. You ask it to nudge a button - it moves a different block 40px left. Mismatch between intent and result.
Control is gone. In Figma you hold Option, hover - you see the paddings. In the iOS simulator you have to switch modes, jump between inspector and clean view. You can't just drag a button back and forth. Every move costs more, so you let half the imprecisions slide.
And separately - C-level expectations. They treat AI like a magic wand: "this is a week of work in one day". They give you a day. Design quality is the first thing that burns.
I catch myself saying: "well, it generated, let's move on". A year ago I wouldn't have let that pass.
There used to be a separation: designers draw, devs code. Not by accident. When you build what you drew yourself - the brain goes where it's easier. And in design you slip into compromises you'd never have agreed to with an external developer.
Just reflecting for now. I'll try to pull a "before/after" from recent projects and post an update.
Anyone else noticing the same? Or am I just lazy now and blaming the tools?
