Designing for intent in the age of LLMs

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One of the biggest shifts in UX right now is this: users are showing up without a clear goal.

They’re typing vague prompts. Asking open-ended questions. Exploring.

This breaks the way most interfaces are built where intent is crisp and predefined.

In the LLM era, users don’t click buttons to do a thing they start a conversation and figure it out as they go.

Designing for this means rethinking:

  • What does “success” look like when outcomes are fuzzy?

  • How do you show users what’s possible without overwhelming them?

  • How do you guide without scripting the whole journey?

It's less like designing a form and more like designing a really smart, really patient coworker.