“Is this UI good?” I built something to answer that.
I build a lot of things.
And every single time, I hit the same wall.
Not during coding.
Not during design.
But right after.
I’d sit there staring at my UI and think:
“Is this actually good… or am I just used to looking at it?”
And the worst part?
You can’t unsee your own design.
You already know why you placed things where you did.
You already understand the flow.
So everything starts to feel right… even when it’s not.
I tried everything.
What I really needed was…
a second pair of eyes.
Thats Why I built Blinky
As I kept building, it became more than that.
Now, I just upload a design…
And Blinky goes through it like a reviewer who doesn’t know me and doesn’t care about hurting my feelings 😅
It points out:
→ what actually works
→ what feels off
→ where users might get confused
→ what patterns feel generic or “AI-generated.”
→ and even why something doesn’t feel right
And yeah, you can export all of this as a clean PDF —
So it’s not just feedback, it’s something you can actually use and share.
I didn’t build this as a “product idea.”
I built it because I was tired of guessing.
Tired of shipping things and wondering if they were actually good.
Currently running on free Gemini API credits (so yeah… limited analysis only😅)
If you like it and want to help me scale this, that’d mean a lot.
So if you try it and it helps you even a little,
that honestly means a lot.
Because at its core, Blinky is just this:
The thing I wish I had
Every time I stared at my own UI
and didn’t know what to fix.
I'm sure it will be very useful to me in the near future, and I'm certain that many more will come to use this tool, which will make their lives so much easier.
Ahh that means a lot, thank you 🙂
I’m actually planning to launch it on Product Hunt soon, mainly to make it more accessible and easier for people to try out without friction.
Hoping it reaches the right folks and actually ends up being useful in real workflows
I go through constant cycles of:
LOVE MY NEW UI! -> Is this actually nice? -> Design new UI -> LOVE MY NEW UI!
My eyes get "bored" of the UI and think any re-design looks good.
It’s like your brain stops evaluating and starts craving novelty, so anything new feels “better,” not necessarily better designed.
I’ve noticed the same thing while working on Blinky. After staring at a UI long enough, you’re no longer seeing usability, you’re just reacting to freshness. And that’s where things get misleading.
This is very relatable. The hardest part of design is exactly that blind spot, you get too close to your own work. Having an unbiased ‘second pair of eyes’ that can systematically point out friction is genuinely useful
Yeah, exactly, that “blind spot” is the real challenge.
After a point, it’s not even about skill, you just lose objectivity because everything feels familiar.That’s actually the gap I’m trying to explore with Blinky, not replacing real users, but giving you that quick “outside perspective” before you even reach that stage.
I could see the potential of Blinky being part of every agency marketing stack. It's a great way to validate your work before showing it to the client. It may not change the fact that they will look at youur hard work, squint their eyes and say "Can you make it a little more.. design-y?" (True story). But at least you have some way of defending your choices!
Haha, that “make it more… design-y” line never misses 😄
But yeah, that’s exactly the space I’m hoping Blinky fits into, not to replace client feedback (because that’s a whole different game), but to give you a stronger starting point before that conversation even happens.
I’m actually planning to launch it on Product Hunt soon as a more polished, proper tool, mainly to make it easier for teams/agency folks to try it in their workflow.
Let’s see how it lands 🤞
Really clean and well-executed product 👏
It looks like something with strong potential for real users.
We help digital products and web platforms grow through targeted creator-led promotion 🚀
Would be great to connect.
This resonates deeply. As a doctor who recently
built a travel app, I had the exact same problem
— I couldn't tell if my UI was confusing or if
I was just too close to it.
I actually used real user feedback from a testing
platform to figure out what was broken. One tester
pointed out that my "Ask AI" button wasn't
discoverable enough — something I never would
have caught myself.
Blinky sounds like it solves this without needing
to wait for real users. Going to try it on my
next build.
Honestly, that “too close to your own product” feeling is so real.
Glad it resonated! Definitely try Blinky and let me know what you think.. I’d love to get your feedback on it.
Just a small heads-up: the analysis is a bit limited right now since it’s running on the free tier of Google Gemini.
Would honestly love to push it further , but that depends a lot on getting access to better credits/resources. Not entirely sure how yet, just hoping it reaches the right people who can help make that happen 🤞
Also, really curious... coming from a medical background, how did you get into building apps and exploring this space?
Cool app, I tested it! It could have a future! Good luck!
Thankyou, would love to hear your thoughts around the app
Great idea actually.
Could you please also implement design validation by link?
Yeah, that’s definitely a good idea
It’s quite doable if it’s something like accepting links from platforms like Figma or Dribbble and then generating feedback, that can be handled with a fairly straightforward scraping/API approach.
But if it’s more like pasting any random website link and doing a full analysis, that gets a bit tricky. That would probably need a few extra layers, like screenshots, vision models, and more context handling to make the feedback meaningful.
Right now Blinky is running on the free tier (with Google Gemini limits), so I’m trying to keep things lightweight. If I can work around those constraints, I’d love to expand it in a more powerful way.
For now, I’ll try implementing something around Figma link support and see how that goes.
Thanks a lot for the suggestion, really appreciate it!
That “you can’t unsee your own design” part is painfully accurate.
What’s interesting is this doesn’t just happen at UI level — it happens at the product perception level too.
Founders get so used to their own naming, structure, and flow that everything feels “right,” even when a new user might feel friction instantly.
Curious — have you noticed cases where the UI was actually fine, but the first impression / clarity was the real issue?
Yeah, and honestly, I’ve felt this exact thing while building too.
A lot of times, the UI is objectively “good enough”, clean layout, decent spacing, nothing obviously broken. But the experience still feels off the moment a new user lands.
Not because of design flaws… but because of missing clarity in the first 10 seconds.
Something I’ve personally noticed:
There are products where:
The UI looks polished
The interactions technically work
But I still pause and think: “Wait… what am I supposed to do here?”
That pause is the friction i faced
From my analysis It usually comes from things like:
No clear starting action
Naming that makes sense internally but not externally
Jumping straight into the “tool” instead of guiding the “intent”
I’ve had this with my own builds too, where in one of my projects a Journaling application everything felt obvious to me because I knew the system inside out. But the moment I stepped back, I realized I was expecting users to “figure it out” instead of orienting them.
Exactly — that “pause” moment is the real signal.
I’ve started thinking of it as a clarity gap, not a UX problem.
The UI can be clean, but if the user doesn’t instantly map:
→ what this is
→ what I do next
→ why it matters
they hesitate.
And hesitation = drop.
Curious if you’ve experimented with forcing a single obvious action on first screen vs giving flexibility?
I think my perspective is shaped by the kind of products I’ve been building.
Most of my apps like Blinky and Murmur (an AI-first journaling app) are pretty focused, they revolve around a single, clear core action rather than multiple features . So naturally, the UI ends up pointing users toward that one obvious path.
Because of that, I haven’t had to deeply deal with the “multiple entry points” problem yet.
But yeah, I think I should explore more multi-featured products — understand how they balance flexibility vs guidance, and how they strategically introduce complexity without creating that pause.
That makes sense — single-purpose products naturally solve a lot of that by design.
Where it gets tricky (and interesting) is when products start expanding beyond that.
One pattern I’ve noticed is:
it’s not just “single vs multiple entry points” — it’s whether the product chooses for the user or makes the user choose.
Early-stage / focused tools:
work because the product decides the path
More flexible / multi-feature products:
often create that pause because the user has to decide the path
So the real challenge isn’t flexibility itself — it’s how late you introduce choice.
The ones that feel smooth usually:
start with one obvious action
then reveal flexibility only after the user is oriented
Instead of showing everything upfront and expecting the user to map it themselves.
Feels like that “when do I introduce complexity?” question is actually more important than how much complexity exists.
Also interestingly, this ties back to naming/positioning too — if the product frame is clear enough upfront, you can get away with more UI flexibility without creating that pause.
Happy to share a couple of real examples where this shift alone changed first-time conversion if that’s useful — didn’t want to overload this thread.