Writing on AI product design, GenUI, taste in the age of generative tools, and the craft of leading creative teams.https://joshuawells.com/en-ushello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)hello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)© 2026 Joshua Wellshttps://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rhinestone-was-the-point/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rhinestone-was-the-point/I grew up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, a couple of hours up the ridge from her Smokies. I admired her over-the-top look before I understood why: it was beautiful, it was precise, and it was completely her. A few words for Dolly, from one of her own.Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:00:00 GMTbrandingDolly PartonAppalachiaauthenticitycrafthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/what-is-generative-ui/https://joshuawells.com/writing/what-is-generative-ui/The interface stops being decided months in advance and starts being assembled at the moment of need. A working definition of generative UI (GenUI), the four things it isn't, and why the more the model decides, the more design matters.Thu, 27 Aug 2026 16:00:00 GMTAIGenUIgenerative UIdesignproductsystemshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/i-know-what-this-looks-like/https://joshuawells.com/writing/i-know-what-this-looks-like/Every few days the feed hands me another version of the same post: how could any real creative touch AI? I read every reply, because they're talking about me. It took three failed drafts to notice the post isn't one argument. It's four. And one of them is a little bit right.Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:00:00 GMTdesignAIethicscraftauthorshiphello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-machine-signs-its-work/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-machine-signs-its-work/I can tell when AI made a thing the way you can tell when your partner loaded the dishwasher: nothing's broken, nothing's dirty, and nothing is where it goes. So I started keeping a list of what it keeps doing... and somewhere in the middle, the list turned out to be about something else.Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:00:00 GMTAIdesigntasteAI tellscrafthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-curb-cut-in-my-terminal/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-curb-cut-in-my-terminal/There's a Claude Code plugin whose entire name is i-have-adhd. Ten rules in a text file. I installed it because the name is literally me... then I read the rules again and couldn't find a single one that only helps my kind of brain. There's a word for that, and it was poured in concrete in Berkeley in 1971.Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTaccessibilitydesignAIADHDtoolshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-drift/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-drift/Nobody votes to make the logo worse. The work drifts: hundreds of reasonable approvals, each judged against last week instead of the brief. AI drifts for exactly the same reason, fast enough to watch, which finally settles what was causing it all along.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignbrandsystemsprocesshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-edit-is-a-data-structure/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-edit-is-a-data-structure/A colleague sent me a three-minute phone video of himself reading a script, and by that afternoon we had a reviewable draft with motion graphics timed to his voice. Not because we edited fast. Because we didn't make a video at all. We made a list.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIGenUIdesignvideoworkflowhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-whimsy-budget/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-whimsy-budget/There's a bouncing period at the bottom of my emails now. It took twenty minutes. I've known how to make it for twenty years. The difference between those two sentences is the difference between a shortcut and a streamline, and it's the most misunderstood thing about working with AI.Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIcraftdesignmotionprocesshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-playbook-isnt-written-yet/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-playbook-isnt-written-yet/I got asked to gut-check a search-ads retainer, and halfway through my reply I realized the honest answer was: nobody knows anymore. The click economy that held up two industries is being rationed by AI answers, and the people writing the next playbook won't be career keyword people.Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIAI searchdesignmarketingSEOwebhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/an-audience-of-two/https://joshuawells.com/writing/an-audience-of-two/This year I shipped a budget app for two users. One of them married me. When building gets cheap, software stops needing a market, and design finally gets to commit.Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignGenUIpersonal softwareproducthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/drop-the-figma/https://joshuawells.com/writing/drop-the-figma/My feed is full of gorgeous interfaces nobody will ever use. AI made pretty cheap, the feed made pretty the point, and design became a genre of content. A field guide to the polished turd.Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesigncraftsocial mediatastehello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/frankenjob/https://joshuawells.com/writing/frankenjob/The trade press says design is about to be full of Frankenjobs: roles stitched together from parts of other roles. Twenty years of freelancing says the monster works fine. Watch the doctor.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesigncareersrolesfreelancehello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rent-came-due/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rent-came-due/For a decade my portfolio lived on a website builder, and the rent made sense. Then building got cheap, the math flipped, and I kept the name.Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignwebownershipplatformshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/google-thinks-i-sell-lumber/https://joshuawells.com/writing/google-thinks-i-sell-lumber/A spam email greeted me as a lumber company, and Google agreed. The machines have been reading us all along. Now they answer, and what they believe about you is a design problem.Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignAI searchidentitywebhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/talk-to-a-human/https://joshuawells.com/writing/talk-to-a-human/My cousins run a property management company, and their best pitch has nothing to do with the buildings: when you message them, a person answers. On chatbots, venting, and the exact line customers won't let a machine cross.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIchatbotscustomer servicedesignproducthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/i-stopped-delivering-files/https://joshuawells.com/writing/i-stopped-delivering-files/An agency asked for deck graphics, the same request every pitch sends. This time I didn't send files. I sent the machine that makes them, and it changed what the client buys.Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesigntoolsclientssystemshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/design-management-missing-skill/https://joshuawells.com/writing/design-management-missing-skill/When software is generated rather than drawn screen by screen, quality moves upstream into the system that produces it. That is design management work.Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesigndesign managementGenUIstrategyhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/no-one-mentioned-a-button/https://joshuawells.com/writing/no-one-mentioned-a-button/Twenty years designing things people look at, then a meeting where no one mentioned a button. The work didn't disappear. It moved.Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignbehaviorproducthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/genui-is-not-a-chat-window/https://joshuawells.com/writing/genui-is-not-a-chat-window/A chatbot is not inherently good product design. In most cases, it is the absence of product design. What generative UI actually is, and why composition beats generation.Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIGenUIgenerative UIdesignproductinterfaceshello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/building-got-cheap-deciding-didnt/https://joshuawells.com/writing/building-got-cheap-deciding-didnt/Building a tool used to cost more than doing the task by hand a dozen times over. AI flipped that. Now the scarce skill is deciding what is worth building at all.Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignjudgmenttoolsautomationhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/which-kind-of-wrong/https://joshuawells.com/writing/which-kind-of-wrong/AI hands you work that looks finished and asks you to know whether it is. The skill is diagnosis: four kinds of wrong, and a different move for each.Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesigntastejudgmenthello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rising-floor/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-rising-floor/Polish is cheap. Confusion ships at full fidelity. What design leadership becomes when execution stops proving anything.Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignjudgmentleadershipapprenticeshiphello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-eye-is-the-spec/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-eye-is-the-spec/Center a play button by math and it reads as off. Design runs on small corrections like that, made entirely by eye, and the eye is the one thing AI design doesn't have.Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTdesignAIcrafttastehello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-brand-kit-was-the-easy-part/https://joshuawells.com/writing/the-brand-kit-was-the-easy-part/A brand kit used to be a finished thing you could hold. Now it's the floor of a much taller system with two audiences, people and machines. The real work is the system.Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTAIdesignbrandsystemsdesign managementhello@joshuawells.com (Joshua Wells)