Why AI Still Can’t Design Good Interaction

A side project on padel, Apple Watch, and the value of lateral thinking in design.

Keeping score in padel or tennis is a trivial problem. So trivial that many people have already tried to solve it. And yet, during every match, the same thing always happens: someone stops, someone argues, someone has lost the count. The game breaks. The flow is interrupted. And that’s when it becomes clear that the problem is not the score.

The problem is the interruption.

Before designing Padel Score, I looked around to see how other designers or makers had tried to tackle this issue. What I found was, at best, disappointing.

Some examples: Analog or digital watches used to keep score.

Physical plastic counters that cost around €15, with tiny sliders, barely readable logic, and zero attention to real context.

Or digital products full of taps, states, confirmations, and screens that demand attention precisely when there is none.