The New UX Layer
What MCPs, agentic tools, and AI-native workflows are quietly building underneath your software — and why the next decade of design lives in the gap between you and the rest of your stack.
Get it in your inboxNewsletter · Published on Medium
Well Crafted AI. A newsletter on building thoughtful, user-centered AI experiences.
Short, sharp reads on agent UX, AI-Ready Design Systems, MCP, trust, and the new shape of human-in-the-loop work. Eight articles in. One in progress. More on deck.
Currently writing
The piece on my desk right now.
One article actively in the draft chair. Get on the early list and it lands in your inbox the day it ships.
Previously published · most recent first
The archive.
Seven pieces in the publication so far. Each one a 2–4 minute read on a specific question about building with AI. All live on Medium.
MCP: The Missing Piece in AI Agents
Model Context Protocol as the USB of AI integrations — a clean, standard way for agents to act on the world.
Read on Medium
Design Tips for 2025
Five ways to thrive and make an impact as AI reshapes the design landscape — develop AI skills, solve meaningful problems, stand out with judgment, collaborate kindly, stay grounded in first principles.
Read on Medium
A Typo-Forgiving UX Is One of My Favorite Things About AI
Communicating with AI doesn't require perfect spelling, and I love it. A short post on fuzzy matching, intent recognition, and the human-centered design of "I know what you meant."
Read on Medium
The AI/UX Blueprint
A practical, five-step framework for designing AI products — from defining the "why" to launching, monitoring, and continuously improving. The shape of the work behind every AI experience that earns trust.
Read on Medium
The Three-Point Playbook
What the Boston Celtics' strategic shift to three-point shooting can teach product teams about high-impact focus. A short case for finding your "three-point shot" and concentrating on it.
Read on Medium
The UX of Invisible AI
What autonomous agents show us about the future of interaction. The most engaged-with piece in the publication — on designing for cooperation, not just usability, when the best interaction is the one that never happens.
Read on Medium
Designing Trust
How do you design AI systems that people actually trust? A short post on clarity over complexity, transparency, fail-safes for human intervention, and humanizing AI decisions.
Read on MediumOn deck
What's brewing.
Posts I'm thinking about next. Each one a self-contained piece on a single, specific question about building with AI — usually with a diagram and always with a point of view.
The New Users Are Agents
Most of what uses your software today is still a person. That is about to change. A near-future look at agents using software on your behalf, agents talking to other agents, and what it means for design.
Designing Inside the Protocol
An MCP server is a UX surface. Tool names, descriptions, error copy — the parts that decide whether the model picks you or skips you.
The Cockpit, Not the Canvas
How Cursor, Kiro, Cowork, and Amazon Q changed what an "editor" is supposed to do — and what good cockpit UX looks like when an agent's at the wheel.
The Words Are the Wiring
System prompts, skill descriptions, error copy. The unsexy load-bearing infrastructure of every agent product — and how to write it.
From Forms to Intent
The form was a great UX primitive for a deterministic world. AI products need a different shape — and most of us are still drawing rectangles.
Visible & Reversible
Two words that quietly carry the entire trust budget of an agent product. What they mean in practice — and what breaks when you skip them.
The AI/UX Blueprint, Revisited
The five-step framework, re-grounded for this year — agentic workflows, MCP everywhere, models that hold long context. What still works, what needs rewriting.
About
Notes from someone who's been doing this for a while.
Well Crafted AI is written by Jay Bellew — UX Design Lead → Product at AWS, working on AI Tools & Agents for AWS Sellers. Seventeen years building enterprise software across design systems, accessibility, and product UX at VMware, CloudHealth, and EBSCO before that.
The thread across the work: good UX patterns don't expire when the underlying tech changes — they get a better engine. Each post is a 2–4 minute read, built around a single sharp idea, with a hard close and a link back to the project work that inspired it.
No filler. No "in today's rapidly evolving AI landscape." Just the craft.
Portfolio at jaybellew.comMoving to Substack · Early list
Well Crafted AI is moving to Substack.
Seven articles in on Medium, one in progress, more on deck — and the publication is moving to Substack so it can land in your inbox instead of a feed. Drop your email below to be on the early list and get the first Substack post the day it ships.
Get on the early list
Read the archive on Medium
// new home: Substack · archive stays on Medium · no spam, unsubscribe anytime