Avoiding The Empty Textbox

An LLM presents an outstanding opportunity for flexible UI. We’re generally familiar with the traditional “AI chat” interface, where we send a message containing whatever text, audio, or visual information we need to convey, then we get a text/audio/visual response which we consume.

But we aren’t limited to static responses here. Google have done some fantastic things with inline generated components and fully generated UIs. I see long term potential in the approach of fully generated UIs, especially with some set of guidelines engineered to give a consistent experience.

But we don’t have to go that far. FreedomRPG has used a traditional text input field until now, but after redesigning the UI, we have:

Reaching the end of a response and coming face to face with an empty textbox is a point of mild anxiety for me. The options are limitless, but so is the analysis paralysis. Instead, we present the player with a handful of suggestions to get their imagination going. In my limited testing of like 40 minutes, I find myself picking the suggested actions maybe 2/3 of the time.

Perhaps there’s something in setting clear game rules and having a UI with only GM-suggested options. I could even imagine some amount of competitive play with a system like that. Multiplayer?

Regardless, I would like to take this further with GM-created forms, slider, shop UI, etc.

- omegastick