Working Notes: #5

Marc Jenkins · 1st April, 2026

Here's a prediction: over the next few years, a lot of websites are going to get worse. More generic. More bugs. More slop. Less user-friendly.

Since my last newsletter, Google pushed a huge update to Stitch – a tool that lets you create a website by prompting. On the surface, it’s really quite impressive. But dig a little deeper and the cracks begin to show. It’s an averaging machine after all.

These tools are becoming ever more popular. The web is filling up with sites that were generated in an afternoon by someone who never really thought about what they were building. AI makes it easy not to think.

But this is an opportunity for charities and organisations to rise above.

"Move fast and break things" is the mantra Facebook famously used. AI appears to be accelerating this trend. But good things take time to create. You need to let them stew. You need to go through the messy creative process. You can't just bang it out in an LLM in an afternoon. That's not how good things get made.

The best websites have someone who really cares at the helm. Someone who genuinely cares about the users they’re trying to help. Someone who cares about the content, the code, the design. These are things that take time and require human effort to get right.

If you’re using AI, be mindful of what these tools incentivise: they make it easy to skip the thinking. And the thinking is the work.

What the web needs isn't more stuff. It's better stuff.

Have a lovely Easter weekend,

– Marc

PS: If you’re new here (or even if you’re not) and want to have a chat over a cuppa, I host Unoffice Hours.

What I've been writing

Don’t post project briefs on LinkedIn
I posted a project brief to LinkedIn, then instantly regretted it. :facepalm:

You don’t need to use AI
There’s a narrative that if you’re not using AI, you’re falling behind. It’s not true.

Personal blogging
Some reflections on the benefits of personal blogging.

What I've been reading

The Shape of Friction
“Friction isn’t the enemy of good work. Friction is where good work gets its shape.”

The Joy of Building Slow
“Slow success is much more sustainable and resilient to shifting trends, and I find, it’s a much more fulfilling kind of success because every inch feels earned.”

Pick quality
“Where are the skeletons buried? What’s the accessibility like? Or security? How many of the other concerns that make you a boring developer have been skipped in the name of speed?”

Launch it 3 times
“…if you’re moving with conviction, and you’ve created something meaningful, and if you’re serving a real community that you have a deep understanding of, then it may be the case that you simply need to try again.”

AI and the human voice
A wonderful piece on using the human voice. “AI can’t do subtle playful flourishes in text, because it has no sense of subtlety.”