Can we talk about LLM design smell?
With the absolute deluge of new iOS apps coming out, there are certain design patterns that I'm seeing over and over again that are clearly the work of AI coding agents. I'm sure you've seen them too. Egregious monospaced fonts, glowing buttons, middle dots (·) all over the place, purple gradients, etc. It's not just iOS apps, it's websites too. For whatever reason, the LLMs (and maybe Claude in particular?) are just absolutely in love with these design patterns.
The question I have is, is that a bad thing? Is it bad for an app to have the LLM design smell? Do typical users notice? Do users care?
I'll share my opinion (shocker I know). I think that these design patterns are bad, and significantly so. Why?
For a minute forget about generative AI and all the baggage that carries. With 2 million apps on the iOS App Store (gotta be nearly 3M by now...), we all want our apps to stand out. What's the first thing a user sees about an app when browsing? Of course it's the screenshots of the app UI. And the more an app looks like the others, the less likely a user is going to stop and take a second look. So that's the first thing, that it just tends to make apps look alike.
But the other that I've been thinking about is more subtle and potentially more important. For better or worse, there is a hefty bias against generative AI out in the general population. Whether that's valid or not isn't really the point, the point is it exists. That said, I don't think your typical user is going to notice these patterns, at least not consciously. But there are some types of users that will notice: the blogger, the instagrammer, the journalist, the tik tok influencer. If you've ever had a popular blogger/influencer do a post/reel/whatever on your app, you know what an insane catalyst that can be. These types of users tend to be more savvy and more design oriented, will pick up on these design patterns, and I think would want to avoid boosting any app that has the smell.
Lastly, is the possibility of Apple featuring your app on the App Store. Maybe this will be seen as less important because it's so hard to get, but I've had Apple feature my apps many times and of course it's always an enormous boost. But I suspect that Apple App Store editors are going to be even more in the anti-smell camp and would be highly unlikely to feature an app with those patterns.
I have a feeling this could be a divisive topic, but I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts!