Agentic Design

Patterns
🤝

Agent Collaboration UX(ACX)

User experience patterns for multi-agent coordination, handoffs, and collaborative workflows with transparent orchestration

Complexity: highUI/UX & Human-AI Interaction

🎯 30-Second Overview

Pattern: Multi-agent coordination interfaces with seamless handoffs, transparent orchestration, and specialized agent collaboration

Why: Enables complex enterprise workflows, reduces coordination overhead, and provides scalable automation with human oversight integration

Key Insight: Complexity-based handoff triggers with context preservation - coordination becomes transparent and manageable at enterprise scale

⚡ Quick Implementation

1Design Agent Network:Define specialized agent roles, capabilities, and coordination hierarchy
2Implement Handoff Logic:Build context-preserving handoff mechanisms with complexity thresholds
3Create Coordination Dashboard:Develop real-time status visualization and orchestration controls
4Build Transparency Layer:Add visual indicators for agent activities, handoffs, and decision points
5Test & Optimize:Validate coordination flows and optimize handoff timing with user feedback
Example: agent_mapping → handoff_implementation → dashboard_creation → transparency_design → flow_optimization

📋 Do's & Don'ts

✅Implement complexity-based handoff triggers to avoid rigid rule-based systems
✅Preserve full conversation context during agent handoffs
✅Use visual consistency across coordination dashboards and status indicators
✅Provide real-time transparency of agent activities and decision-making
✅Design for both centralized and decentralized coordination patterns
✅Include human-in-the-loop intervention points for high-stakes decisions
✅Implement agent specialization indicators showing expertise areas
❌Force customers to repeat information during agent handoffs
❌Hide agent coordination complexity without providing transparency options
❌Use single-agent solutions for inherently multi-step collaborative workflows
❌Implement handoffs without clear reasoning or user feedback
❌Ignore state management across distributed multi-agent architectures

🚦 When to Use

Use When

  • • Complex workflows requiring specialized agent expertise
  • • Enterprise automation spanning multiple systems and teams
  • • Tasks needing distributed processing and coordination
  • • High-stakes scenarios requiring human oversight integration
  • • Scalable systems with varying complexity levels
  • • Cross-functional processes requiring domain-specific knowledge

Avoid When

  • • Simple single-step tasks manageable by one agent
  • • Real-time applications requiring immediate responses
  • • Limited resources unable to support multi-agent infrastructure
  • • Use cases where coordination overhead exceeds benefits
  • • Highly regulated environments with strict single-point accountability

📊 Key Metrics

Handoff Success Rate
% of successful context-preserving agent transitions
Task Completion Efficiency
Time to complete multi-agent workflows vs single-agent baseline
Coordination Transparency Score
User understanding of agent activities and decision-making
Agent Utilization Balance
Workload distribution across specialized agents
Error Recovery Time
Time to resolve coordination failures and restore workflow
User Intervention Frequency
% of workflows requiring human oversight or correction
Scalability Index
Performance degradation as agent network size increases

💡 Top Use Cases

Customer Support: Triage agent → specialized technical/billing/escalation agents → human handoff
Enterprise Automation: Task orchestrator → specialized workflow agents → quality assurance agents
Content Creation: Research agent → writing agent → editing agent → review agent → publication
Healthcare Coordination: Intake agent → diagnostic agent → treatment planning → specialist consultation
Financial Services: Risk assessment → compliance checking → approval workflow → execution agents
Software Development: Requirements agent → design agent → implementation → testing → deployment
Supply Chain: Demand forecasting → procurement → inventory → logistics → customer service agents

Pattern Relationships

Discover how Agent Collaboration UX relates to other patterns

Prerequisites, next steps, and learning progression

Prerequisites

(2)
👤
Human-in-the-Loop
mediumui ux patterns

Foundation for human oversight integration in agent coordination

💡 Essential for high-stakes decision points in multi-agent workflows

⚡
Agent Status & Activity Patterns
mediumui ux patterns

Basic agent monitoring and status visualization

💡 Required for individual agent monitoring before coordination

Next Steps

(2)
🎛️
Monitoring and Control Patterns
highui ux patterns

Advanced monitoring and intervention capabilities

💡 Enhanced operational oversight for production multi-agent systems

🎯
Adaptive Interface Patterns
highui ux patterns

Dynamic UI adaptation based on coordination patterns

💡 Personalize coordination interfaces based on user role and preferences

Alternatives

(2)
💬
Conversational Interface Patterns
highui ux patterns

Single-interface conversation-based coordination

💡 Better for simpler workflows where conversation suffices for coordination

👁️
Human On the Loop
highui ux patterns

Human supervisory oversight without agent-to-agent handoffs

💡 Simpler architecture when human supervision is primary coordination mechanism

Industry Applications

Enterprise Software

Multi-agent coordination for complex business processes and workflow automation

🎛️Monitoring and Control Patterns
🔍Trust and Transparency Patterns

Customer Service

Specialized agent coordination for multi-tier support and escalation workflows

💬Conversational Interface Patterns
👤Human-in-the-Loop

Healthcare

Coordinated care teams with specialized medical AI agents and human oversight

🔒Privacy and Security UX
👤Human-in-the-Loop

References & Further Reading

Deepen your understanding with these curated resources

Academic Research

ContextCam: Bridging Context Awareness with Creative Human-AI Image Co-Creation (CHI 2024)

CloChat: Understanding How People Customize, Interact, and Experience Personas in LLMs (CHI 2024)

User Experience Design Professionals' Perceptions of Generative AI (CHI 2024)

Dashboard Design Patterns (ArXiv 2024)

Industry Frameworks & Platforms

Microsoft Semantic Kernel Agent Orchestration

Microsoft AutoGen Handoff Patterns

OpenAI Swarm Multi-Agent Framework (GitHub)

Salesforce Agentforce Agent Handoff Design

Azure AI Agent Design Patterns

Enterprise Implementations

AWS Multi-Agent Orchestration with Amazon Bedrock

IBM AI Agent Orchestration Guide

Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Agent Service

Microsoft Copilot Studio Multi-Agent Orchestration

Research & Technical Guides

A Technical Guide to Multi-Agent Orchestration (Medium 2024)

4 UX Design Principles for Autonomous Multi-Agent AI Systems

Secrets of Agentic UX: Emerging Design Patterns for Human Interaction with AI Agents

Inside the World of Multi-Agent Orchestration (IBM)

UX Design & Dashboard Patterns

Effective Dashboard Design Principles for 2025

Dashboard Design UX Patterns Best Practices

Top 4 Agentic AI Design Patterns for Architecting AI Systems

Dashboard Design: Best Practices With Examples (Toptal)

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