Agentic apps are changing the game: they don’t just sit there waiting for clicks - they go off and do work, fetching data, running models, writing code, summarizing reports. That’s exciting, until you hit the hard truth: AI is not instant. And that’s where the design challenge lives, because when the machine takes time, people get restless, minds wander, trust wavers, and a single spinner can turn a magical agent into a black box of frustration. If you’re designing for agents, you’re really designing for time - how long a task takes isn’t trivia, it’s the core variable that decides how the experience feels.
Every once in a while, a new tool changes what it means to build. You might not notice it right away. You realize it later, when you look back and see that something ended and something new began.
For the last two years, I've dedicated myself to designing a note-taking app for developers. I've handled everything: designing the app, creating campaigns, designing visuals, and defining the brand.
My goal has always been to create something valuable and lasting. Reflecting on this journey, I've learned many lessons, sometimes the hard way. Here are insights I would share with my younger self on creating a beloved app, along with tips to help guide your development process. I hope they will help you too.
When In 2017 I joined Merlon Intelligence, I quickly learned that designing for machine learning is different. Your static screens in Figma are more distant from the real world experiences than ever before. If you want to design great machine learning user experiences you need to design more than interfaces. You need to design how machine learning works.
An inclusive tool that helps makers and indie developers to improve user experience with effortless integration of UI avatars. That is the UI MATERIAL now, although it haven't seemed so from the start.