Field Note: Boring UI is a trust primitive

There’s a specific kind of UI that feels like it’s trying to impress you.

That’s fine for a landing page.

It’s a liability for a system that controls real things.

What “boring” means here

• the same action produces the same result
• state is visible and doesn’t lie
• affordances are consistent (clickable things look clickable)
• errors are plain language, not vibes

The most important UI feature in an agent system is: I can predict what will happen.

Everything else is garnish.