AI Dev Tooling Heuristic Framework

user experience design, design strategy
for Google

Conceptualized a heuristic framework for evaluating AI-native tools in enterprise software development, with a focus on how IDEs and CLIs capture, sustain, or lose user attention.

Through design reviews and user interviews across seven prevalent tools (including Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, and Google’s Jules) I examined the UX patterns, psychological dynamics, and pivotal interaction moments that shape engagement with AI models.

The resulting framework defines each heuristic as the relationship between user intent, tool expression, and experiential impact — organized as a hierarchy of engagement principles. From there, I created design concepts that explore how these principles could come to life, rethinking the default patterns of human-AI interface.

[Project under NDA. More upon request.]