I, Designer

Artificial Intelligence will eventually be commonplace. So, what does this mean for designers? Will design, interfaces and experiences will be left in our hands or not? Let’s explore how UX Design and AI work together and not against each other.

Our job as UX/UI Designers is to create a better experience for people, focusing on how they interact with the product’s function and looks. Mixing it all together we can design a path that not only visually attracts the user, but gives them a sense of belonging.

But how can we increase the user experience with the help of AI? As my teammate Fernando said in one of his blogs,

“AI can help you understand the needs of users. It also helps you know how they behave with every little element of a product — you will learn more with every interaction. As a result, instead of just solving a problem, a product will be able to delight the user and to create new paths for conversion and engagement.”

Users immediately get a sense of fear whenever a doubt pop ups with a product. Fears may arise because the user doesn’t trust the product at first instance or he may not be sure if the product actually understands him. Of course, everyone wants to have a personalized product but what we don’t realize is that the ability to personalize is based on one core design most of the time.

We already know by far that AI has the ability to make our lives easier, but how can we improve it with the help of UX Design?

Users Need Personalization Over Functionality

There are three main reasons why UX and AI can and should work together to understand the user and create a seamless experience.

Rely on the results. Relying on results can be defined as trustworthiness and consistency. But how can we as designers make users trust AI more? The beauty is that we are already immersed in and use technology everyday, even for the simplest tasks. Trust is there even without us knowing it. We as designers simply need to nudge our users toward the next thing.

For example, I often question if I will get up at the right time in the morning. But, this is not because I fear that the alarm won’t sound, but rather because I know me and I’m a fan of tapping the snooze button. I usually don’t get out of bed until I consciously (or subconsciously?) know that I’m going to be late. But what if my mobile alarm knew that the snooze button was being tapped too many times? What could it do for me next? This is just one of the many examples I can think of where UX design and digital gadgets could go even further.

Users should have the control to change and shape their experiences, not us as Designers to change their way of living. We are always designing human-centered, that’s why we have to connect between empathy, thoughts, acts and emotions to deliver better results.

Understand their language. The key. Here is where everything can start making sense without getting fallback solutions and just randomly let the product act as itself, when what the user wants it is to control it. Communication is a universal process, however, it will depend on the persona and its way of living to make AI understandable. It can be visually or by actions that the information received between the user and the product generate a better experience. Let your product talk as the way you speak, don’t come up with words that will make you sound as if you were in the 1800s.

As product designer Elaine Lee said,

“Ok and ok… may not always equate to yes. Our role to identify these nuances so we can teach the AI that ok… may have hesitation, skepticism, or passive aggressiveness attached to it.”

In her blog she tells us about how also emotional intelligence is part of the communication. We as designers need to influence AI emotionally to make connect with the user; this can be through words, media, actions or even emojis so AI can associate it with the user experience.

Identify behaviors. We seamlessly need to make users feel that the product is just for them, designed for them. It is said that AI is a consistency of innovation, but who it’s behind all that? Us, people.

Let’s use chat boxes as an example. It is said that during the last years, these elements on interfaces are being controlled by the help of AI; where they know similar connections of the users based on the stories created across the product, by identifying patterns and making strategic solutions within its feedback.

We know AI’s ability is to find data that us do not notice at first sight, and that helps it to analyze the behaviors to understand the users’ lives.

This Is Just the Start

With this briefly said, we can tell the world is not going to end being as in a movie or a book, where robots take our lives as the main source for their intelligence. In fact we are the ones who will help them to help us and vice versa. Letting them do particular work, to let us do what we do best as Designers, as people.

I will be giving a talk about this topic at the Nearsoft Con in Hermosillo, Sonora, México. I’ll keep you updated to post the streaming!

Don’t forget to share your thoughts! You can reach me at dunzueta@nearsoft.com.

All drawings were created by the author (me).

Originally published at ux.nearsoft.com on September 6, 2019.