When was the last time you actually critiqued the interface of your AI tools? Not the images they spit out, not the copy they generate — the thing you're actually staring at and clicking on for hours a day. The prompt box. The settings panel. The regenerate button you hammer like a slot machine lever.
We spend so much energy debating whether AI output is good enough. But there's a more immediate problem hiding in plain sight: the tools themselves are, by any design standard, pretty badly made.
What happened
Two things caught my eye this week that, at first glance, seem unrelated.
First, there's a sharp piece doing the rounds arguing that system tools — the functional, unglamorous interfaces people interact with out of necessity — deserve the same design care as any consumer-facing product. The core argument is simple: when a tool can't be made invisible, when people have to see it and use it directly, you can't dismiss its experience as unimportant. Function shapes form, sure. But when function is front and centre, form matters more, not less.
Second, Hoefler & Co. released Gotham Variable — a proper variable font version of one of the world's most recognisable typefaces. Instead of choosing from a fixed set of weights and widths, designers now get continuous control along a spectrum. One file. Infinite precision. You dial in exactly what you need.
So what connects a UX philosophy piece about system tools to a font release? More than you'd think.
The bigger picture
AI tools have become system tools for designers. They've embedded themselves in our daily workflows — generating concepts, iterating on layouts, writing copy, extending backgrounds. And like most system tools, their interfaces are an afterthought.
Think about it. Most AI generation tools give you a text box and a button. Maybe a dropdown for "style" with labels like "cinematic" or "illustration" that mean different things depending on the phase of the moon. You type, you generate, you get something back. If it's wrong — and it usually is, at least partially — you regenerate. Or you rewrite your prompt. Or you start over.
This is not a well-designed interaction. It's a guess-and-check loop dressed up as a creative tool.
The system tools argument nails exactly why this matters. AI isn't invisible in our process. We're not pressing a button and walking away. We're sitting in front of these interfaces, wrestling with them, trying to coerce them into understanding what we actually want. That means the experience of using them is a design problem — and right now, almost nobody is treating it like one.
Compare this with what Gotham Variable represents. Here's a tool that gives designers continuous control. Not "pick from these 12 options." Not "type what you want and hope for the best." A smooth spectrum where you can land precisely where you need to be. That's what good tool design looks like — it respects the designer's judgement and gives them the means to exercise it.