Technology
How your apps look and work, defined by you. Set how your apps look and work once. Software that supports OwnUX fits itself to you.
Open specification, working draft v0.1. Text under CC BY 4.0. Satin is building its first implementation.
OwnUX is off. Each app looks the way its vendor designed it.
Illustrative. One profile, three products that support OwnUX.
The idea
Dark Mode was the first UX choice. OwnUX is everything else.
Preference features such as prefers-color-scheme and prefers-contrast stop at colour, contrast and motion. Layout, density, navigation, wording and guidance are still decided by each vendor, for an imagined average user.
- Set once: one profile, not a settings page per app.
- Honoured wherever supported: products render themselves to fit you.
- The app stays in charge of data, rules and permissions.
- The original interface is always one action away.
How far your choice reaches
What you can choose
1 of 11
- Colour scheme
- Contrast
- Motion
- Text size
- Density
- Layout
- Navigation
- Words
- Guidance
- Language and dates
- Shortcuts
Sprint 14 · All issues
FilterGroupSortMoreOne choice, made once, honoured by every app that supports it.
Five parts, in simple terms. You own your preferences, the app owns its data, a runtime translates and checks.
Hover or tap a part
Component 01
Capability model
The app lists its tasks and the actions you may take, each with a check that it worked and a fallback.
In other words
Like a menu the app hands over. Everything on it is real, and nothing else can be ordered.
Where it lives
Declared by a product through the OwnUX SDK, or by a Satin adapter over an app's official API.
What OwnUX is not. The specification rules out each of these, not just good intentions.
Not a theme engine. OwnUX changes layout, words and flow, never what the app does with your data.
Not an autonomous agent. AI may suggest. It never authorises an action, chooses endpoints or writes code into a page.
Not free-form generated screens. Screens come from deterministic templates and the app’s approved components, validated before they render.
Not an accessibility certification. It makes software easier to fit to you. We never claim it guarantees accessibility.
Not a screen scraper. Satin uses each app’s official API, never undocumented endpoints or tokens lifted from a page.
Not a replacement for the app. OwnUX shows only what it can map and verify. The original is one click away.
How it works. Four steps, through the Satin extension or a product built with the OwnUX SDK.
- 1
Set your Interface DNA
A two-minute setup, or skip it. Change any value, and see what is stored.
- 2
App declares its capabilities
Its tasks, records and permitted actions, via the SDK or a Satin adapter over its official API.
- 3
OwnUX builds your view
From the app’s approved components, by deterministic rules: same inputs, same screen.
- 4
Every change is verified
Read back from the app before “done”. If anything stops matching, the original returns.
In developmentSatin for People, the Chrome extension, brings OwnUX to apps you already use: Jira Cloud first, Linear next.
In developmentSatin for Products, the OwnUX SDK, runs as an alpha in our Reference App. The conformance command ownux test exists as v0.
Where OwnUX comes from. An open specification, with the work it builds on cited openly.
OwnUX is an open specification, started by the Satin team in 2026. It builds on decades of research into adaptive and accessible interfaces, and anyone can read it, implement it or help shape it.
Questions, answered plainly.
No. OwnUX is the technology and the open specification. Satin is the company and the first implementation: Satin for People is a Chrome extension, and Satin for Products is the OwnUX SDK.