The tells, in detail
Every generated interface carries the same dozen fingerprints. Once you can name them you cannot unsee them, including in your own work.
The uniform radius, where a 360px card and a 32px button share the same eight pixels. The purple-to-indigo gradient, or its 2026 successor, the same gradient at lower saturation. Grey text at exactly #6b7280 regardless of what it sits on. One shadow, applied everywhere, that corresponds to no light source. Three font weights used as if they were three sizes.
Structurally: everything centred, nothing aligned to anything else; padding identical on all four sides; a spacing set with fourteen distinct values in it because each component was decided separately; hover states missing entirely, since hover is behaviour and you asked for a card.
None of this is a flaw to be indignant about. A model produces the average of what it has seen, and the average is competent and anonymous by construction. The useful response is not to complain that it defaults, it is to know which defaults to overwrite and in what order, which is roughly the syllabus for the next seven lessons.
You should now be able to
- Name ten visual signatures of generated design
- Explain the mechanism that produces each one
- Spot the tells in an interface you did not make
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