Gradual Generation of User Interfaces as a Design Method for Malleable Software

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Min, Bryan, Jiang, Peiling, Huang, Zhicheng, Xia, Haijun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Min, Bryan
Jiang, Peiling
Huang, Zhicheng
Xia, Haijun
author_facet Min, Bryan
Jiang, Peiling
Huang, Zhicheng
Xia, Haijun
contents AI is growing increasingly capable of automatically generating user interfaces (GenUI) from user prompts. However, designing GenUI applications that enable users to discover diverse customizations while preserving GenUI's expressiveness remains challenging. Current design methods -- presenting prompt boxes and leveraging context -- lack affordances for customization discovery, while traditional menu-based approaches become overly complex given GenUI's vast customization space. We propose Gradually Generating User Interfaces -- a design method that structures customizations into intermediate UI layers that AI gradually loads during interface generation. These intermediate stages expose different customization features along specific dimensions, making them discoverable to users. Users can wind back the generation process to access customizations. We demonstrate this approach through three prototype websites, showing how designers can support GenUI's expanded customization capabilities while maintaining visual simplicity and discoverability. Our work offers a practical method for integrating customization features into GenUI applications, contributing an approach to designing malleable software.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_17975
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Gradual Generation of User Interfaces as a Design Method for Malleable Software
Min, Bryan
Jiang, Peiling
Huang, Zhicheng
Xia, Haijun
Human-Computer Interaction
AI is growing increasingly capable of automatically generating user interfaces (GenUI) from user prompts. However, designing GenUI applications that enable users to discover diverse customizations while preserving GenUI's expressiveness remains challenging. Current design methods -- presenting prompt boxes and leveraging context -- lack affordances for customization discovery, while traditional menu-based approaches become overly complex given GenUI's vast customization space. We propose Gradually Generating User Interfaces -- a design method that structures customizations into intermediate UI layers that AI gradually loads during interface generation. These intermediate stages expose different customization features along specific dimensions, making them discoverable to users. Users can wind back the generation process to access customizations. We demonstrate this approach through three prototype websites, showing how designers can support GenUI's expanded customization capabilities while maintaining visual simplicity and discoverability. Our work offers a practical method for integrating customization features into GenUI applications, contributing an approach to designing malleable software.
title Gradual Generation of User Interfaces as a Design Method for Malleable Software
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17975