While we were adding interviews to our firm's website, off-white strips appeared on either side of one person's portrait in the testimonials list. I asked for them to be removed. When a different person's interview was added, I found myself making the same request again.

That is the part of working with AI that I find frustrating. I can understand having to explain something unfamiliar. It is harder to understand why I have to explain an edit we have just worked through together.

On October 10 I posted that the firm’s website, developed mainly with ChatGPT and sometimes with Claude, had grown to around 500 pages. I had paid particular attention to the video banners. Seeing that work come together helps explain why I expected the next image to meet the same standard. October 10 post

I pointed to one photograph and expected the change to carry over

What I see as the publisher is a list of people whose portraits should sit comfortably alongside one another. When I point to the strip beside one face and ask for it to go, fixing that photograph completes the immediate job. In my head, though, the instruction also means that the next photograph should look right.

A designer could crop one image or change the way every card fits photographs into its frame. With the first approach, a new image with different proportions can bring the margins back. With the second, a face can be cropped too tightly. The fact that the strips appeared twice does not establish that both had the same technical cause.

Here is how I would phrase the brief now: “Change the portrait cards in the testimonials list so that future additions fill the frame without strips at the sides. Try one portrait and one landscape photograph, and check that both faces sit naturally.” That also identifies the relevant layout. The large picture at the top of the interview serves a different purpose.

A diagram can read well on a computer and poorly on a phone

The second example concerns diagrams in blog posts. On my phone, some labels blended into the background. I made a similar observation on another article. Reading the manuscript would never have caught it. The object under review was the page as the reader received it.

A reply saying “checked on mobile” does not tell me what was examined. I want to see the figures and labels in the affected diagram. Open that part of the page at a width of 390 pixels and inspect its light and dark sections. If a shared component was changed, open another article that uses it as well.

After the second request, decide how far the fix should reach

• A one-off edit. Trim a little space above a particular person's head. One image is the scope.
• A change for future additions. If list cards show strips, inspect the common fitting rule and try a photograph with different proportions.
• A recurring check. A new image or background can still change the result. Inspect the actual item on mobile each time it goes live.

When I am tempted to say “again,” asking whether the assistant remembered the last conversation takes me only so far. Fixing this photograph and fixing the layout for every future photograph are different jobs. I would make that same distinction in a brief to a human designer.

See the client testimonials list for the published layout.