David T Phung
X feed control · the interaction, designed

Tune.

There is a real prototype where you tap For you, tell Grok what you want in plain language, and it drafts a mix you can fine-tune. The insight that makes it work: the sliders are the output of interpretation, not the input. You never face a blank control panel. Below: that flow rebuilt and working, then iterated ten ways, each with a persona, design principles, and a workflow breakdown.

The interaction layer for the steerable feed, Bet 2, natural-language steering

The source, rebuilt · tap through it

From a sentence to a tuned feed

Sliders, earned not assigned

The slider graveyard failed because it handed people a wall of controls to configure from zero. This inverts it. Grok reads your sentence, drafts the mix, and only then hands you the sliders to adjust. The hard part is done before you touch anything.

  1. Tap For you, the steering panel drops down
  2. Say it in plain language, "more funny content, less politics"
  3. Grok analyses your interests and reads the intent
  4. It drafts a percentage mix across your topics
  5. Drag to fine-tune, the other topics rebalance to 100
  6. Save, the feed re-ranks in place

Ten iterations · each one interactive

The same intent, ten design directions

One interaction, pulled in ten directions. Each optimizes for a different person and a different principle, and each is a working mechanic you can touch, not a static screen. Together they map the full design space between pure automation and full manual control.

What carries across all ten

The 1000x principles

  • Interpretation before configuration. Never a blank control panel. Grok drafts, the human edits. The machine does the first 90%.
  • Show the result, not the machinery. Every control has an immediately visible effect, a preview, a re-rank, an explanation.
  • Plain language is the widest input. Toggles carry the legible 20%, language carries the contextual 80% that is taste.
  • Reversible by default. Every steer is one tap to undo. Low stakes is what makes people willing to steer at all.
  • One knob visible, depth on demand. The default is a single move. The full panel is opt-in, never forced.
  • Honest about the override. The system only overrules you for your safety, labeled, explained, and logged.