Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Sentient Scenes and Radically Adaptive Experiences

Gold
Wednesday, June 11, 2025 • Designing with AI 2025

This video is featured in the AI and UX playlist and 2 more.

Share the love for this talk
Sentient Scenes and Radically Adaptive Experiences
Speakers: Josh Clark and Veronika Kindred
Link:

Summary

Sentient Scenes is a little toy with big lessons—an intelligent interface that changes style, mood, and behavior on demand. The project explores what it means to treat AI as a design material, weaving open-ended intelligence into interfaces beyond chat. We’ll share lessons in both technique and perspective for how the designer’s role evolves—from crafting visuals to sketching prompts—and what it takes to craft systems where machine intelligence mediates the user experience.

Key Insights

  • AI can be treated as a design material with unique strengths and weaknesses rather than just a productivity tool.

  • Radically adaptive experiences adapt style, mood, behavior, and layout dynamically in response to user context and intent.

  • Open-ended AI interfaces must operate within constraints to maintain cohesion and avoid 'robot fever dreams'.

  • Large language models excel more at parsing user intent than merely providing factual answers.

  • The prompt itself becomes a hybrid artifact acting as design spec, requirement doc, and programming language.

  • Designers’ roles evolve into defining the interaction sandbox and parameters for AI-user collaboration rather than specifying every UI detail.

  • Personality and presence in AI interfaces can be achieved without pretending to be human, using animation and interaction cues.

  • Bespoke UI assembles and rearranges interface elements in real time to fit user needs, reducing complexity in workflows.

  • AI can enhance accessibility by tailoring font, color, and interaction styles to users’ abilities on demand.

  • Sentient Scenes took less than a day to build due to using plain language prompts, highlighting opportunities for rapid, imaginative prototyping.

Notable Quotes

"AI is not just a tool for productivity or efficiency; it's a design material with unusual strengths and weaknesses."

"Sentient Scenes doesn’t just talk about the scene, it becomes the scene, adapting continuously to user input."

"We wanted to create personality in interfaces without pretending they are human."

"Radically adaptive experiences are conceived and compiled in real time, responding to context and intent."

"The big design activity here is sketching prompts, guiding how the AI should behave rather than drawing UI."

"The prompt becomes part design spec, part requirement doc, and part programming language."

"Large language models are far better at figuring out what you mean than simply giving an answer."

"With bespoke UI, you don’t present every single path to the user; you let the right tool appear immediately for the job."

"AI can transform accessibility by changing experiences to meet user needs in the moment."

"This isn’t about Skynet; it’s about simple signals of awareness that adapt to immediate context."

Ask the Rosenbot
Uday Gajendar
Theme 1: Introduction
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Kate Kalcevich
Designing inclusively with AI
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Bram Wessel
Enterprise Information Architecture
2020 • Enterprise Community
Frank Duran
Partnership Playbook: Lessons Learned in Effective Partnership
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Steve Turbek
Designing Interactive Graphics with AI Code Help
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Jay Bustamante
Navigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Julie Norvaisas
Back to basics, or start from scratch?
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Prayag Narula
Empowering Designers to do Good Research
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Deanna Washington
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Julie Baher
Culture Change—My Journey
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Dr Chloe Sharp
Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Victor M. Gonzalez
Practicing Learners and Learning Practitioners
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Feyikemi Akinwolemiwa
Play to innovate: How curiosity and experimentation transform UX
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Rebecca Topps
Planning and conducting remote usability studies for accessibility
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Louis Rosenfeld
Discussion: What Operations can teach DesignOps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Kwabena Opoku
Methodological toolkit for unique research impact
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold

More Videos

Jeff Sussna

"You can’t separate the front end from the back end and you can’t separate the inside from the outside."

Jeff Sussna

What DesignOps Can Learn From DevOps

November 6, 2017

Dana Chisnell

"Stop writing reports. If people aren’t reading them, try drawing, prototyping, and inviting others to make and visualize with you."

Dana Chisnell

The Sensemaking Business

March 10, 2026

Sam Proulx

"Separate accessible designs are never equal, so we must design inclusively from the start to unlock all the benefits of accessibility."

Sam Proulx

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate

June 8, 2022

Sheryl Cababa

"It only requires 25% of a committed minority to reverse a majority viewpoint in a population."

Sheryl Cababa Alexis Oh

Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa

June 12, 2024

Farid Sabitov

"By automating deliverables analysis, we saved 12 hours per week within one design team alone."

Farid Sabitov

Automatization for Large Enterprise Teams

January 8, 2024

Joerg Beringer

"This is real serious analysis, not pre-prepared or fake data."

Joerg Beringer Thomas Geis

Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes

September 10, 2025

Teresa Swingler

"Design is at the heart of everything we do at Honeywell Aerospace."

Teresa Swingler

Look, Up in the Sky! UX/UI for Aerospace

October 27, 2022

John Cutler

"If you need to cross a dangerous river, you don’t paddle straight into it; you use the opposing force of the river to move forward."

John Cutler

Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)

December 3, 2024

Louis Rosenfeld

"Collaboration with peers and speaker coaches creates better content and stronger relationships beyond the conference."

Louis Rosenfeld Jemma Ahmed Christian Crumlish Uday Gajendar Chris Geison

Coffee with Lou #3: What Makes for a Successful UX Conference Presentation?

May 2, 2024