Our interfaces have lost their senses

Article Page Design & Usability

• Many praise the page as beautiful, clever, and emotionally resonant; some say the playful scroll animations “work here” and the visuals are “adorable.”
• Others find it nearly unusable: heavy (~90MB) images, slow loads even on fast connections, broken reader modes, scroll hijacking, erratic resizing on mobile, and difficulty focusing on text.
• Several see irony: a manifesto about humane, embodied interfaces presented via a high-friction, visually noisy, bandwidth-heavy site. Others counter that the style and movement are the message.
• Some argue that such design implicitly says “this is not for you,” undercutting the goal of a manifesto.

AI-Generated Art & “Soul”

• Many suspect most illustrations are AI-generated, citing nonsense text, extra limbs, odd depth-of-field, and artifacted details.
• Some call this “GenAI slop” and see a clash between the article’s plea for more human, embodied computing and the use of AI imagery.
• Others say the images are well-curated, clearly iterated, and a legitimate medium; the main criticism is lack of disclosure, not the tool itself.

Have Interfaces Really “Lost Their Senses”?

• One side: disagrees with the thesis, arguing modern devices are more sensory than ever (multi-touch, haptics, voice, motion, cameras, AR, wearables, tap-to-pay).
• Another side: aligns with the critique, lamenting the loss of tactile, stable, discoverable physical controls and the rise of flat, gray-on-gray, “mystery meat” UIs.
• Some note that older eras (punch cards, mainframes) weren’t actually pleasant—more physical, but tedious and inconvenient—so nostalgia is selective.

Friction, Richness, and Cognitive Load

• Debate over “friction”:
  • Some say good design should minimize friction; adding difficulty is never desirable.
  • Others differentiate “bad friction” (tedium) from “good friction” that builds skill and meaning (like deliberate practice).
• Many argue today’s real problem is inconsistency, not simplicity: custom widgets, hidden gestures, unlabeled icons, vanishing scrollbars, and per-app quirks force constant relearning.
• Several warn that more sensory channels (sound, haptics, gestures, spatial UIs) can easily become harassment and overload—especially with notification spam and “engagement”-driven design.

Hardware, Physicality, and Context

• Commenters emphasize that UI includes hardware: knobs, buttons, dials, MIDI controllers, camera dials, and force-feedback devices can be genuinely joyful and efficient.
• Others stress constraints: computers often must be quiet and discreet (shared offices, public spaces), limiting sound, large gestures, and strong haptics.
• There’s broad appreciation for tactile hardware (old cameras, volume knobs, steering wheels) and frustration that mainstream devices rarely support richer physical controls well.