Scoring Show HN Submissions for AI Design Patterns

Analyzing the Rise of AI-Generated Design on Hacker News

Show HN submissions have tripled recently, with many displaying a generic, sterile look that suggests AI generation. To quantify this subjective observation, a developer created a system to score 500 Show HN landing pages against 15 identified AI design patterns.

AI Design Patterns Identified

The patterns fall into four main categories based on analysis from designer feedback:

Fonts

• Inter used for everything, especially centered hero headlines
• LLM font combos like Space Grotesk, Instrument Serif
• Geist Serif italic for one accent word in otherwise-Inter hero

Colors

• "VibeCode Purple"
• Perma dark mode with medium-grey body text and all-caps section labels
• Barely passing body-text contrast in dark themes
• Gradient everything
• Large colored glows and colored box-shadows

Layout Quirks

• Centered hero set in a generic sans
• Badge right above the hero H1
• Colored borders on cards, on the top or left edge
• Identical feature cards, each with an icon on top
• Numbered "1, 2, 3" step sequences
• Stat banner rows
• Sidebar or nav with emoji icons
• All-caps headings and section labels

CSS Patterns

• shadcn/ui
• Glassmorphism

Scoring Methodology

The scoring system uses deterministic checks rather than subjective AI judgment:

• A headless browser (Playwright) loads each site
• A small in-page script analyzes the DOM and reads computed styles
• Each pattern is a deterministic CSS or DOM check
• Manual QA showed 5-10% false positive rate

Results from 500 Show HN Submissions

Sites were grouped into three tiers based on how many of the 15 patterns they triggered:

• Heavy slop (5+ patterns): 105 sites (21%)
• Mild (2–4 patterns): 230 sites (46%)
• Clean (0–1 patterns): 165 sites (33%)

The increase in Show HN submissions correlates with Claude Code's release, leading HN moderators to restrict submissions for new accounts with /showlim in March 2026.

While not necessarily bad, the prevalence of these patterns suggests many projects are using AI-generated defaults rather than crafted designs. The author notes this parallels the pre-AI era when everything looked like Bootstrap, and suggests people may return to more distinctive designs to stand out.