ChatGPT Do My Taxes! User Goals Over Product Experiences In an AI World.

Last month I read a great short piece in the Axios Login newsletter titled “1 big thing: Generative AI is a revolution for computer interfaces.” In it, they discuss how conversational AI has the potential to make many products significantly easier to use.

“Think of the hours saved — and, in theory, productivity gained — if you can simply tell your chatbot to clean up your inbox, change your system settings or connect to a printer.” -Axios Login

Basically, move over Siri and Alexa. ChatGPT is now on the case.

This piece’s comments on the potential of AI to remove interface steps struck a chord with me, since it aligned with something I’ve said in discussion with other UX and Product professionals: “No one wants to use your product”. Or, “use our products,” to throw myself under the bus as well.

It’s not that our products are bad. In fact, our products can be amazing. They help accomplish tasks, bypass obstacles, and improve people’s lives. It’s just that when people use our products what they want is the end goal. They want the task done, they don’t want the experience of the task.

Now, there are exceptions to this. Entertainment products like games, movies, and books are all about getting enjoyment or satisfaction from consuming the experience. Also, there are experiences that some people enjoy that many others would avoid. For example, there are people who genuinely enjoy running, while many more of us would be happy to snap our fingers to get the same results.?

It is this ‘snapping of fingers’ that this next step of AI brings us closer to.

Back in 2013, when I was at PayPal, we were looking at making changes to the app experience. In the UX and design world two points of view started to emerge. One group believed that to be competitive in the mobile payment space we needed to make a beautiful, visually and functionally, app experience, and another group that believed the experience we were up against was not another app but the credit card swipe. I was aligned with the second group.

I am not saying that the folks who wanted to make a beautiful app were wrong. We know people prefer to interact with well-crafted things, and all things being equal people will pick the more elegant product. However, focusing on the aesthetics of the app misses the customer’s end goal, which is not to interact with something beautiful, but to get out of the store with their purchase as easily and quickly as possible. Credit cards weren’t a competitor because they were aesthetically pleasing, it was because they were fast.

Even in the news media world there are people who would happily just know today's news without having to read articles or watch shows. It’s why headline skimming is so common and? news aggregators so popular. Both streamline the experience. Both reduce the time to know.

For UX, UI, and Product professionals, this is the key thing to keep in mind: Most products and services are just friction points between a person and their goals.?

• People do not want to use Turbo Tax; they want their taxes done.
• People do not want to use DoorDash; they want their favorite food without leaving their house.
• People do not want to use Apple Fitness; they just want to be in shape.

The welcome messages, apps, screens, interfaces, selectors, shopping carts, etc are just steps between people and checking things off their list. Generative AI has the potential to remove many of those steps. So, to prepare for the new world of product, keep your focus on what your customers are ultimately trying to accomplish. Ask yourself, if they had a personal Genie, what would they ask it to do? and build your product (with or without AI) to get them to that end point as quickly and easily as possible.?

TL;DR

• People do not want to use products, they want to accomplish goals.
• Generative AI presents opportunities to minimize interactions with products while still achieving user goals.
• To future-proof your products and your jobs, keep your focus on customer goals and how to get them there as quickly as possible.

#UX #uxdesign #productdesign #ai #generativeai #ui