Words as Interface

Designers are taught that form should follow function: a well-designed tool’s shape shows what it can do. In this essay, Fantasy’s Peter Smart argues that AI breaks that rule. ChatGPT is a single input box in front of an incredibly powerful model, and no fixed interface could show the full extent of what it can do.

Words become the interface, and a well-crafted prompt is a piece of software in its own right. In the age of AI, Smart writes, form can create function.

• Prompting is design. Writing a prompt creates a tool with a specific focus and capabilities, which makes words a new design material.
• Structure makes better tools. A strong prompt sets context, intent, format, function, steps and variables. The more systematically those words are chosen, the better the tool.
• Interfaces will blend UI and language. Conversations with AI will generate manual controls on demand, such as a set of palettes with a color wheel to refine them by hand.
• Designers need new skills. Conversation design, the principles of natural language processing and a deep understanding of user intent and context.