HCI Nerdz
Honest surfaces. Lower cognitive tax. HCI and UI/UX innovation for interfaces that respect how minds work.
Shell and CLI standards live at our sibling org, openshellorg.
What we fight for
The bug is often discoverability and product representation — not missing backend capability.
- Surfaces tell the truth Severity, success, settings, and theme must match reality. Lying chrome erodes trust.
- Human intuition over backwards convention Temporary migration pain beats permanent, compounding inconvenience.
- First-class UI for real jobs Power-user search syntax is not a substitute for filters people actually use.
- Attention is not inventory Tools should be minimally invasive on attention. Heirloom software over dopamine products.
- Many small tools under one roof Scoped UX architecture: hard job boundaries plus a shared shell — feedforward inside tools, not as a synonym for the structure.
Domains of HCI we work in
The repertoire is wide on purpose. Not every domain ships a flashy demo first — some start as diagrams and conventions.
- Processing maps Sequence-first composers for ordered systems.
- Scoped tools & shells Hard job boundaries under one roof.
- Attention & disclosure Budget the first screen; deepen on demand.
- Settings & truth GUIs that match reality; context-bound controls.
- Product representation Surfaces that admit what the backend already knows.
- Naming & reference Pretty labels for humans; content identity for wires — DevX as HCI.
- Theme & visual contracts Previews and chrome that inherit the host.
- Feedback & severity Honest signals; help that is not failure.
Blog
Essays on HCI, UI, and UX — separate from org news.
- When renaming a page breaks half your docs
Pretty URLs are for people. When we wire systems to those names, a rename becomes unpaid chores across every project that trusted the string.
- When the name is not the wire
NDN, content-addressing, and CONSUMERS.md solve different bounds of the same human want: stop treating pretty names as system identity.
- When platforms overload the entrypoint
Cloud consoles and suite apps keep stuffing new platforms into the entrypoint header. Context rails put ecosystem nav at the edges — streets under skyscrapers — with stable color overlays so you know which world you are in.
Demos
Interactive experiments, grouped by pattern — processing maps, product representation, attention, theme, and more.
Pipeline composerTyped processing map for edge/request paths. Insert-between sockets, nested composites, and replay that surfaces apex/www redirect loops.
Scoped UX deskThree narrow tools (Projects, Environment, Remote) with feedforward previews. Toggle mega-tool mode to feel the junk drawer return.
Pass-through peelMeta-suffixes like .example and .template are badges on a real type. Peel them and resolve open/icon from the stem — the way Explorer should.
Audio lexiconPro-audio filter literacy: term tree, history, visualization, and A/B audition — then EqualizerAPO / OBS export when a term maps.
Instruction flowMenu-style install guides: choose a path, see only the next honest steps, rewind and share the URL. Continuations nest under decisions instead of dumping every platform variant at once.
Context-bound settings deskActivity UI publishes context; a dependent settings pane matches applicability and shows only bound controls. Toggle the across-town catalog to feel the storage room return. News
Org updates as HCI Nerdz takes shape — not essays.
- Navigating by content added to the repertoire
Labels vs wires: content identity, mutable pointers, and reverse consumers — with paired essays, docs, Mermaid diagrams, an icon, and a rename demo.
- Context-bound settings added to the repertoire
Settings as a dependent process: a pane that follows activity state and shows only applicable controls — with essay, docs, mockups, and an interactive desk.
Partners
Related work from sibling organizations.
- OpenShellOrg How CLIs and shells speak and compose
- DevCentr Environments, orchestration, toolchain management
- connectome-fs Graph filesystem — paths as navigation, nodes as truth
- antora-supplemental AsciiDoc / Antora publishing UX (Valentus theme)
- dlang-supplemental D libraries and native tooling