Leading question: How will AI support and assist UX Designers in future?

With its ability to analyze large amounts of data, automate repetitive tasks or adapt to user behavior, AI will also transform the field of UI/UX design.

While this post does not cover specific use cases or provide links to AI tools or APIs currently available, it hopefully makes you think about our professional future as UX designers and the potential of AI in our field.

Opportunities!

Drive Efficiency

When it comes to workflows and workloads, AI in future will create a virtual new position within our team, as an assistant for diligent work.

Regarding creativity, ideation and innovation it will open space for our thinking, allowing us to focus on finding the best solutions to given real world (humanoid) user problems.

Design Workflows

AI can support repetitive design tasks by automating them or simplifying them.

  • AI can generate a unique UX design style from sketches or flowcharts and provide a solid foundation for designers to move forward.
  • AI can create interfaces for mobile applications and websites, from small landing pages to massive e-commerce projects and web applications.
  • …you name it

UX Research & User Testing

  • Summarizing user feedback from transcripts: Extract key insights or topics from transcripts and summarize them in short sentences. This allows UX researchers to quickly get an overview of the feedback and analyze it more easily.
  • Usability pre-tests: Automatically evaluate the usability of a user interface and suggest improvements. For example, AI can check the readability of text, color contrasts, or the arrangement of elements and highlight potential problems.

There is even AI which can generate heat maps for designs by predicting or simulating user behavior.

These can help UX designers make quick and informed decisions that improve user experience and conversions. However, the tools are not perfect and cannot take into account all the factors that influence actual user behavior.

Creativity, Ideation & Innovation

AI can support designers by providing inspiration, feedback, or co-creation.

  • AI can provide inspiration by generating novel and diverse ideas based on user input or preferences, such as sketches, images, text, etc.
  • AI can provide feedback by analyzing the user interface design and suggesting improvements or alternatives based on best practices or user data.
  • …you name it

Tailored User Experience

AI algorithms can analyze data from multiple sources such as user behavior, demographics, and preferences to create a highly personalized experience for each individual user.

Where AI can for example support:

  • Data analysis: Analyze large amounts of user data to identify patterns and trends that can inform design decisions. This can help designers create more effective and personalized user experiences.
  • A/B testing: Automate the process of A/B testing by quickly generating and testing multiple variations of a design. This can help designers identify the most effective version and make data-driven decisions.
  • User feedback: Analyze user feedback to extract key insights and topics. This can help designers understand user needs and preferences and make informed design decisions.
  • Prototyping: Rapid prototyping by generating design elements or entire interfaces based on user input or preferences. This can help designers quickly test and iterate on their ideas.

Threats?

Off the top of the heads, there is a fear that jobs will be eliminated and that many skilled professionals will no longer be needed in the future. But these fears can be debunked. Yes, it is an evolutionary big step, comparable to the introduction of robots in manufacturing or computers. In the long run, these were all logical developments that advanced humanity and technology.

For further peace of mind in this regard, see the following section ‘Evolution of the UX Designer’s Role’ for a summary of the new opportunities and the new tasks we designers (humans) will have in the future. It’s up to us to shape our future – assisted and powered by AI.


Evolution of the UX Designer’s Role

Summarizing the opportunities…

  • Drive Efficiency: AI can create a virtual new position within teams to assist with diligent work and open space for human thinking in creativity, ideation and innovation.
  • Workflows: Support repetitive design tasks by automating or simplifying them. It can generate unique UX design styles from sketches or flowcharts and create interfaces for mobile applications and websites.
  • UX Research & User Testing: AI can summarize user feedback from transcripts, evaluate the usability of user interfaces and suggest improvements. It can also generate heat maps for designs by predicting or simulating user behavior.
  • Creativity, Ideation & Innovation: AI can support designers by providing inspiration, feedback or co-creation. It can generate novel ideas based on user input or preferences and suggest improvements or alternatives based on best practices or user data.
  • Tailored UX: AI algorithms can analyze data to create a highly personalized experience for each individual user.

Focus Shift

Designers can focus more on customer needs by allowing AI to monitor digital properties, generate design system components and then maintain updates in real-time. This would ensure that designers can feel confident that their designs will scale accordingly.

New Role and Skills

As a teacher for AI, designers can train their AI tools to solve design problems by creating models based on their preferences. For instance, after years of working in a particular industry or domain, designers can develop a deep and broad perspective on the key issues necessary for solving design problems. They can then use this knowledge to train their AI tools to generate solutions that meet their specific needs.

‘Prompt briefing’ is an important new aspect of getting better output from AI support. It involves providing clear and concise instructions to the AI tool about your desired focus, format, style and intended audience. This can help the AI tool generate more accurate and relevant results.

Responsibility

Designers will have even more responsibility in the context of AI e.g. with regards to data privacy, bias or ethics.

  • Prioritizing and safeguarding consumers’ privacy and data rights and providing explicit assurances to users about how their personal data will be used and protected.
  • Recognizing and mitigating bias in AI systems by designing with inclusion in mind, identifying where and how bias infects the system, anticipating future problems, and making better decisions along the way.
  • Ensuring that AI systems are transparent, explainable, accountable, and fair by following ethical principles and standards, involving diverse stakeholders, and testing for potential harms.

So basically nothing new: data privacy, accessibility and ethics still matter and need to be reflected more than ever, by designers (human beings) mastering AI.

:–:–:–:–:

This paper was created assisted by AI, shaped by a human being 😇

But believe me, it was still quite work to do and I believe that Bing’s AI could learn a lot from me in return. 👨🏻 🏫


One response to “Take advantage of AI’s assistance – UX Strategy Pa(i)per”

  1. […] How will AI affect the evolution of the UX Designer’s skills? What are some possible use cases? How will UX Designers redefine their role in the future? I shared my thoughts on this in a memo to my team: Take advantage of AI’s assistance – UX strategy pa(i)per […]

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