iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 29/09/2026

First new blog post in awhile. It's a short one, but a response to a lot of conversations I've been having with devs and designers who are unsettled and unhappy as AI changes the industry. tonyalicea.dev/blog/fall-in...

tonyalicea.dev

Falling In Love With the Problem, Not the Solution, Is More Important Than Ever | Tony Alicea

Typing code and dragging pixels were always solutions. What problem were you trying to solve?

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 22/09/2026

Why do some of the new Alexa voices have vocal fry? Why?

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 16/09/2026

AI for developers with imposter syndrome is like drugs for people with addictive personalities.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 15/09/2026

Gameplay: - Build blocks manually or "AI-generate" them - AI tetriminos might mutate after dropping - Spend valuable time reviewing AI tetriminos to know how they'll mutate Try it out (beta): tonyalicea.dev/sloptris/

tonyalicea.dev

Sloptris - if Tetris was like AI-assisted coding

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 15/09/2026

Introducing Sloptris! A Tetris clone that satires what AI-generated coding is like. I've felt a lot like AI-assisted dev shares elements of game experiences. This is a fun little idea I had to express the experience within a game. 👇

White text on black background: What if Tetris was like AI-assisted coding?

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 09/09/2026

I've been so pleased to see the reaction to the UX.md concept in the design and product community. I'm happy to share an interactive report of my own small experiments with how UX-context impacts product features that AI generates. 👇

White serif text on a black background reads: “How does UX.md impact AI output?”

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 01/09/2026

There's a lot of possibility for using AI to build great software. But the simple act of using AI to build software is no guarantee of greatness.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 01/09/2026

We are confusing the ability to build faster with the ability to build better.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 24/08/2026

The most popular AI loop seems to be: 1. Human: "I'm bad at writing." 2. <Asks AI to write for them> 3. <AI output is more difficult to read than what the human would have written.> 4. Human posts the AI slop. 5. Human gets worse at writing due to lack of practice. 6. Go to 1.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 19/08/2026

Stop telling me about how many PRs you shipped. Faster implementation doesn’t mean faster thinking. If anything, it questions how much thought went into what you’re doing.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 12/08/2026

"How fast we can build" and "how fast we can think" are not the same thing. It is a skill and cultural regression for product teams to conflate the two.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 07/08/2026

Memorized vocabulary is often conflated with intelligence. This is reinforced in a lot of people's education experience too. It's never been true.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 06/08/2026

With every new iteration of tooling and advancement in software development, the hope of organizations seems to be that we can skip that pesky, time-consuming part called thinking. That's never true.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 29/07/2026

Free NN/G webinar starting up on YouTube in an hour. Designing filters is a deeper problem then you may realize, and you'll get a framework to help you make great, usable decisions. I'll be moderating the chat, highly recommended! www.youtube.com/live/BfVWcom...

youtube.com

Designing Filters: A 4-Step Framework | NN/G LIVE

YouTube video by NNgroup

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 27/07/2026

What is the role of product/UX design and user research in an agentic workflow? In my first ever write-up for @nngroupux.bsky.social I'm excited to discuss UX-Context Design. Is it the future of UX design and user research? 👇

Bold white letters on a dark background: "UX-Context Design: The future of UX design and user research?"

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 16/07/2026

A reminder that my free agent skills are now available, all designed to help you avoid skill atrophy and maintain accountability for you and your team as you engage in AI-assisted development. Don't imitate, understand! github.com/AnthonyPAlic...

github.com

GitHub - AnthonyPAlicea/skills: Skills for Devs Who Want to Understand

Skills for Devs Who Want to Understand. Contribute to AnthonyPAlicea/skills development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 16/07/2026

If you want to experiment with AI-assisted dev, do fun side projects! This is my snazzed up version of QBasic Gorillas, a game I played a ton with friends back in the day. Anyone else remember it? gameswithtony.com/gorillas/

gameswithtony.com

GORILLAS: Repeeled

A browser tribute to QBasic GORILLA.BAS — wide destructible city, dynamic camera, hotseat or vs. AI.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 13/07/2026

This idea that you can now constantly change software based on 'feedback' with no up-front research assumes that users will stick around while you keep changing software under their feet. If people have to constantly re-learn your software, what's keeping them from moving on?

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 08/07/2026

I used Fable to help me build a daily puzzle game inspired by one of my favorite board games (Vital Lacerda's On Mars). Check out Oppy (in beta): gameswithtony.com/oppy

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 08/07/2026

It's extraordinary to me to watch professional people use AI to generate a three sentence comment in their native language. It takes more effort to prompt the AI to write the comment than it does to write it yourself. And the comment is obviously AI-written. It's sad.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 01/07/2026

There's a lot of devs who are trying to become product engineers and forward-deployed engineers and will be sent to go talk to users...and have no idea that talking to users, getting them to open up, and not biasing them is a learned skill. For example, contextual inquiry.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 01/07/2026

Announcing my new agent skill: /de-div It cleans up div soup and helps you author semantic, accessible HTML, working with you when a semantic choice is unclear and generating a report for you to learn from at the end. 👇

Promotional graphic on a black background. Large white serif title reads "/de-div." Below it, body text: "Agent Skill to clean up div soup and help you learn to author semantic, accessible HTML." A faint dark feather-quill icon sits centered near the bottom.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 30/06/2026

If you're familiar with the board game "On Mars" by Vital Lacerda, I've made a daily puzzle homage to it called Oppy. It's in beta, check it out: gameswithtony.com/oppy

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 25/06/2026

Got this nice comment on my new do-i-understand agent skill: "Thanks for this skill — it's genuinely useful, and we got real value from it while adopting it in one of our repos." Running this skill benefits your knowledge and your app security. github.com/AnthonyPAlic...

github.com

GitHub - AnthonyPAlicea/skills: Skills for Devs Who Want to Understand

Skills for Devs Who Want to Understand. Contribute to AnthonyPAlicea/skills development by creating an account on GitHub.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 23/06/2026

Claude's current favorite words seem to be "gap" and "quietly". I start zoning out whenever I read them now.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 18/06/2026

Remember when "slop" meant bad food?

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

Third, for open source maintainers. You can ask for a do-i-understand report in PRs as a light honor-system check. It's a bit of intentional friction before a merge request. Free and open, link below. I really enjoy using it, so let me know what you think.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

Second, with junior engineers. Require it on their PRs, but build the safe space first. "I don't know" has to be a welcome answer, one that invites pair coding and mentorship instead of something to hide.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

Three ways to use it: First, on yourself. It keeps understanding sharp and helps you be accountable for the code you're merging.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

At the end it writes a short report. Paste it into your PR description for your reviewer, or keep it as a personal record. The goal is simple: *push code only once you can be accountable for it*.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

Run /do-i-understand and it looks at the change you're about to push (or point it at earlier commits). It prioritizes changes, then probes your reasoning, your assumptions, and the ways the change could fail. It's looking for the parts you don't yet fully understand.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 10/06/2026

I just released my first agent skill: /do-i-understand As a technical educator for many years, I want to maintain my own skill and that of those around me. This agent skill makes sure you understand what you're shipping before you merge it. Here's how it works 👇

A dark navy graphic with white text. Large bold text reads "/do-i-understand" and a smaller line below reads "An Agent Skill to understand the code before you merge it."

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 05/06/2026

"Here's the thing..." <short pithy sentence> "Quietly..." "Nobody..."

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 05/06/2026

If your process is now to make feature requests into tickets and have your agent constantly turn tickets into PRs...with no triage of those feature requests or root cause analysis...you are going to end up with terrible, terrible software.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 04/06/2026

Devs: in the age of AI you need to differentiate with good user experience, know how to talk to your users, and build product taste and sense...to do that you should be getting familiar with Nielsen Norman Group (if you aren't already). Seriously: www.nngroup.com

nngroup.com

Nielsen Norman Group: UX Training, Consulting, & Research

A leader in the user experience field, NN/g conducts groundbreaking research, trains and certifies UX practitioners, and provides UX consulting to clients.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 01/06/2026

Zero LLM is an effort to take some time without an LLM. 1) Agree to some time without AI. Do things yourself. 2) Start a session to track your time. 3) When you feel the addictive itch to ask AI for help, go to the site instead. 4) End your session and share with #0llm.

A dark box that says "Spend some time without AI" with the hashtag "#0llm" below it and the site 0llm.tonyalicea.dev.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 31/05/2026

I had this idea. We are using LLMs too much. We need a recalibration sometimes. A bit of time where you agree with yourself to do things manually, keep your skill and your voice. Check out 0llm. If you use it, share it with the hashtag #0llm.

A dark box that reads in the center: recalibrated. #011m.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 30/05/2026

Making content is cheap now. The question is if you have something to say.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 25/05/2026

A problem with AI output is what we’ll call “effort bias”. Because an output (text, image, video, etc.) looks like things that have historically taken a lot of human effort and thinking, we assume a degree of correctness.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 23/05/2026

AI has caused a current trend of output over outcomes. That can only last so long.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 13/05/2026

Words matter. Let's stop calling human evaluation of AI output a "bottleneck." It's human review *tempering* AI output. This isn't holding back a wave of progress, it's stacking sandbags as a storm surge hits.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 08/05/2026

The current problem is that what everyone is calling product "taste" actually needs to be "experience and training in user research" which most devs don't have.

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Tony Alicea @tonyalicea.dev · 05/05/2026

I've been trying to teach semantic HTML to devs for over a decade. The problem is that every coding course, even from supposedly advanced instructors, completely ignores HTML authoring, and focuses on code while showing devs horrible div soup components.

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