The past period marks the first real start of my journey into AI. Normally I work based on my intuition, experience and integrity, but now I’m going to allow an artificial partner to support my thinking and my design. But does it really?
Excited skepticism
I’m excited as it feels like a pivot, but I’m also skeptical. Is AI not mostly a technology, a tool, a trick, a set of new possibilities that everyone runs after? Where is the direction we’re going, what will it bring to me, what if it is not the ‘golden egg’ and we have invested too much time for not much outcomes?
But.. it is my intention to embrace it nonetheless. Partially because I have to, and partially because I want to. AI is such a generational gap thing that my parents have with the internet. They barely grasp it as it came to late into their lives, and now they can use it only to a basic level. There is still a chance not to be left-behind. Still, being left behind and look at the rumble from a distance does not sound so bad as well!
‘Artificial’ Integrity
Where AI brings in the artificial intelligence, I will need to bring in the human intelligence. And beyond intelligence, there is something crucial called integrity (basically, my middle name) – I look at things from all angles and I believe this virtue is strongly needed here.
Mental models (a simplified, internal representation of how things work in the real world, used to interpret and predict events.”), or sometimes I call this a red thread, is definitely one of those un-graspable things that are in people’s (collective) mind. These are the holy grail for the designer to understand and design for. How does your intended solution relate to existing models, and how can you nudge users to adapt their models to something better you have envisioned or innovated. And as a mental model is not a data model, but rather a collection of individual and collective experiences and hopes, it cannot be easily grasped by AI.
In that sense, AI is fairly one dimensional and not 3D well-rounded as human beings, it cannot develop a conscience or brain just by itself. AI is not about humans. AI is about AI, about NVIDIA chips. about data-centers, and about shareholder value. And mostly about “who is there first.” (article). The integrity simply must come from the people using it.
Being (and staying) an orchestrator of experiences
I always was an orchestrator. An orchestrator of experiences, of cross-functional teams, of detailed designs according to a Design system. I do like the prospect of staying an orchestrator, but with a strong ally (at least, that is my hope). I wonder what the difference will be, if any. In my current role, I’m orchestrating based on my own intuition, experience and capabilities. It is a lot of mental work to keep all moving parts under control, and there is simply a lot more to think about.
I know that AI-enthusiasts says things like “And the best part is that my time and attention are more focused on problem-solving between the business and user, not spending hours with a mouse to create the perfect, high-fidelity prototype.” (article). That is a great promise, but frankly.. it is not new.
For example we build design systems to skip the ‘mundane’ foundational design elements, thus we have more time creating UX solutions around the user’s needs. In reality, due to either a lot of UI design specificities that need to be considered, or due to a business reality that demands UI assets and cares less about UX, often makes the time and attention you can spend on great UX limited. There is a promise in the same aforementioned article, that based on an awesome Design System, you can overcome that hurdle. Yet again, in most places we are not at that maturity level yet, and mostly it is due to organizational complexity.
However, I do like the benefit of less time on design production, and more on the user research, problem-solving and breakthroughs. In that sense, I like to stay an orchestrator and let the AI tool produce the details for me.
I have some excited skepticism, but with human integrity and a strong orchestration role I have the feeling we should be able to ride the wave!
Stay tuned for more updates on my journey!
Resources
- Musk thinks UX and coding are the same, this absurdity leads to chaos (article) https://uxdesign.cc/musk-thinks-ux-and-coding-are-the-same-this-absurdity-leads-to-chaos-27a2e38df95c
- So Long, Figma. Thanks for Everything (article) https://jondaiello.medium.com/so-long-figma-thanks-for-everything-f606e5f75b7c
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