How One "Generate Draft" Button Changed the Design of My Writing Tool
Here is the line that changed my project: Next · Generate draft That's a label on a button in a terminal UI. It appeared right after you approved an editorial brief in Meldr, the writing workflow tool I'm building. I deleted it, and I want to explain why, because it ended up changing more than the interface. Where Meldr came from Meldr was born out of selfishness: I wanted to streamline article…
The one button that sparked a revolution in my writing tool's design was "Generate draft." This label appeared on a button in Meldr, the writing workflow tool I was creating. The button, following an approved editorial brief, transformed into a command to generate all the prose, turning an outline into a finished article with a single keystroke.
The button's presence made me question the potential for AI to produce fully automated articles, devoid of the unique insights and real-world experiences that make technical posts valuable. To ensure Meldr would not inadvertently promote AI-generated, unoriginal content, I removed the "Generate draft" button entirely, replacing it with a prompt for the user to open the "working.md" file and begin writing.
By doing so, I aimed to maintain the human touch and ownership in the writing process, allowing the tool to focus on the research, structure, and verification aspects, rather than generating the entire article. This decision emphasized the importance of defaults in shaping user experience and the need for users to actively engage in the writing process, rather than relying on the tool to create content for them.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
