Promptions

Promptions is a dynamic UI middleware framework that automatically generates contextual controls — radio buttons, checkboxes, toggles, text fields — to help users steer generative AI responses with precision. The system inspects the user’s prompt and conversation history and renders inline refinement options that directly modulate how the AI interprets the request; adjustments regenerate the response in real time. User studies with 38 professionals across six tasks consistently showed strong preference for these adaptive controls (e.g., “Learning Objective,” “Response Format”) over static preset options, with measurable reductions in mental workload and higher success rates.

Promptions reduces the prompt-engineering burden by replacing carefully-worded instructions with intuitive UI gestures matched to the user’s specific task. Integration is lightweight: developers add a component that displays options and connects to their AI system without storing session data. Formal evaluation on code explanation, topic comprehension, and skill-learning tasks demonstrated lower cognitive load and improved task completion. Released under the MIT license with sample applications on GitHub and Microsoft Foundry Labs, it provides a practical building block for human-AI interaction research and for production UIs that need to make model steering legible to non-expert users.