How Anyone Can Make Their Web Apps Easier to Use

The Problem Every Developer Faces in 2025

AI can help you build apps 10x faster than ever before. But here's the uncomfortable truth: speed means nothing if users can't figure out how to use what you built.

You've seen it happen. Beautiful, functional code generated in minutes. Pixel-perfect components. Clean architecture. Everything works perfectly... except users are confused, frustrated, and abandoning your app.

The bottleneck isn't coding anymore. It's usability.

Why Most Apps Fail the Usability Test

After 25 years of building web apps and running thousands of usability tests, I've watched the same patterns repeat:

• Developers without design support rely on component libraries and templates, assuming they guarantee good UX.
• Teams with designers often focus only on visual appearance, not user behavior.
• AI-generated interfaces create functional but sometimes confusing user experiences.
• Beautiful buttons go unnoticed because users don't understand what they do.

Using a premium UI component library doesn't guarantee your app is usable. You can have the most elegant code and stunning visuals, but if users can't complete their tasks, your app will fail.

In 2025, successful web apps are usable web apps. Users won't blame themselves for confusing interfaces—they'll find alternatives.

Introducing Normal UI: A Framework That Actually Works

Normal UI is a practical, learnable system that helps developers and designers make better usability decisions without requiring deep UX expertise.

The core concept is simple: Think of your user workflows like database normalization.

• Normalized workflows spread tasks across multiple focused screens, reducing cognitive load
• Denormalized workflows keep users on fewer screens for efficiency with familiar tasks

The benefits appear when you know which approach to use when.

Why Normal UI Works

✅ It's concrete, not subjective
Instead of debating whether something "feels right," you have a framework for making usability decisions.

✅ It's AI-teachable
You can guide AI code generation with specific workflow concepts, preventing the "fast code, bad UX" trap.

✅ It improves code quality
Normalized workflows often lead to cleaner architecture, better accessibility, and improved performance.

✅ It's battle-tested
Proven across hundreds of real-world usability tests over two decades.

Perfect for the AI Development Era

Normal UI isn't just another design methodology—it's specifically powerful for AI-assisted development:

Guide AI with precision: Instead of asking for "a user dashboard," specify "a normalized checkout workflow" or "a denormalized filtering interface" and get consistent, usable results.

Prevent AI usability pitfalls: AI excels at generating functional components but doesn't understand when dangerous workflows (like sending mass emails) need to be slowed down across multiple confirmation steps.

Scale your UX impact: Teach AI the Normal UI framework once, then apply it consistently across all your projects.

What You'll Learn

Core Framework

• How to identify when workflows should be normalized vs. denormalized
• The "dangerous workflow" principle and why it matters
• How to draw simple workflow diagrams that guide better decisions
• Concrete rules for common interface patterns

AI Integration

• How to prompt AI tools using Normal UI concepts
• Specific techniques for generating usable AI interfaces
• Templates and examples for AI-assisted development
• Future-proofing your skills for AI-driven workflows

Technical Benefits

• How Normal UI improves code architecture and component structure
• Accessibility improvements through better workflow design
• Performance optimization through strategic lazy loading
• Better communication between developers and designers

Real-World Application

• Practical examples like normalizing dangerous workflows (mass email sending)
• When to denormalize for efficiency (filtering interfaces)
• How workflow diagrams translate directly to app architecture
• Technical benefits including improved accessibility and performance

Who This Book Is For

• Developers who want to build apps that users actually enjoy using, whether you're working solo or on a team.
• Designers whose strengths lie in visual design but want to enhance your usability skills with a concrete framework.
• AI-assisted developers who need to ensure their rapidly-generated code creates genuinely usable experiences.
• Startup teams who need to maximize usability without dedicated UX resources.
• Anyone frustrated by the gap between beautiful code and usable software.

Why "Normal" UI?

The name comes from database normalization—a concept most developers already understand. Just as you can normalize or denormalize data structures, you can normalize or denormalize user interfaces.

This familiar metaphor makes the framework immediately accessible to developers while providing a shared language for discussing usability decisions with designers and stakeholders.

A Quick Read with Immediate Impact

This isn't a 400-page academic tome. Normal UI is designed to be read fast and implemented immediately. The concise format and actionable examples mean you can start improving your web apps right away.

Every concept is backed by real-world testing and proven results, not theoretical frameworks that sound good but don't work in practice.

You can read even more details in my blog post on Normal UI.

AI-Generation Super Power

Normal UI isn't just for human users—it's designed to work seamlessly with AI tools. Whether you're using AI to assist in app creation, generate prototypes, or test usability, this framework ensures your designs are easy for AI to understand and implement.

With Normal UI, you'll learn how to craft clear, structured UIs that make it simple to guide AI in building normalized or denormalized workflows.

Future-proof your web apps with a system that pairs perfectly with modern AI-driven development workflows.

Go Further with the Video Series

Take your understanding to the next level by bundling the book with the Normal UI Video Series. Watch as I break down real-world examples, show you how to implement the techniques, and demonstrate how to work with AI to streamline your app design process.

Video Series Includes

• Walkthrough demonstrations of using Normal UI techniques to improve common web app features
• AI prompting guidance showing how to implement Normal UI principles with AI tools
• Exclusive AI prompt designed to help generate prototypes aligned with Normal UI concepts
• Private forum access where you can ask questions directly

The Bottom Line

You can keep building apps that look great but frustrate users, or you can learn a proven framework that consistently delivers usable software.

Normal UI gives you the tools to harness AI's incredible speed while ensuring the end result actually works for real people.

The choice is yours. The framework is here. The results are proven.

Sample Chapters and Table of Contents

Click here to download the first four chapters free.

Here is the table of contents of the complete book:

• Introduction
• The Designer Dilemma
• Normalization
• Workflows, Screens, and Frames
• How Do You Normalize?
• Metrics
• Low-frequency/High-complexity - You Should Normalize
• High-frequency/High-complexity - You Should Denormalize
• Low-frequency/Low-complexity - You Might Normalize
• High-frequency/Low-complexity - You Should Denormalize
• The Four Quadrants
• Normalization In The Real World
• Keep Workflows Small-ish
• Determine Complexity on a Napkin
• Normalize Dangerous Workflows
• Workflows Form the App Skeleton
• Normalized UIs Have Dev Benefits
• Handle Scope Creep Through Normalization
• Provide Context on Normalized Screens
• Make Clear Calls-to-Action
• Help Users Recover From Errors
• Tell Users They Were Successful, and Help Them Keep Going
• How To Talk About Normal UI
• Recommended Reading
• Conclusion

FAQs