Scully: My AI-Powered UX/CX Insights Assistant

Everything is moving so fast in the field of UX/CX design, and exponentially fast in the field of AI. How do we stay up-to-date with the latest trends, research, and best practices? That's why I created Scully, an AI-powered tool that automates the process of gathering, analyzing, and summarizing insights from across the web. Plus, I wanted to get hands-on experience with the latest AI tools! Today, I'm excited to share how Scully works and how it's transforming my approach to continuous learning and trend analysis.

To be clear, "Scully" is a collection of tools that I created as a hobby to learn AI and to help with my research. And frankly, it's not really polished either; it's a hodge-podge of scripts that I have locally on my computer and online in the cloud. I wish I could give you a URL to try it out, but I'm light years away from that : )

What is Scully?

Scully is an AI-powered content curation and analysis tool designed specifically for UX/CX professionals and AI enthusiasts (well, in this case just me). It automates the process of:

1. Searching for relevant articles and content
2. Curating the most insightful and impactful pieces
3. Summarizing key points and extracting trends
4. Generating weekly reports with top articles and emerging themes

How Scully Works

Scully's workflow can be broken down into five main steps:

1. Data Collection

Scully crawls a variety of sources including:

• RSS feeds from top UX/CX and AI publications
• Curated YouTube playlists and channels
• Curated list of podcasts
• Google News results for specific keywords
• Predefined lists of influential websites and blogs

2. Content Processing

Once the raw data is collected, Scully:

• Extracts text from web pages and video transcripts
• Cleans HTML and removes irrelevant content
• Detects the primary language of the content
• Categorizes articles based on their main topics

3. AI-Powered Analysis

This is where the magic happens. Scully uses advanced AI models to:

• Generate concise summaries of each article
• Extract key takeaways and quotes
• Assess the relevance of the content to UX/CX and AI design
• Perform sentiment analysis to gauge industry reception
• Identify emerging topics and trends across multiple articles

4. Data Storage and Management

All processed information is stored in a structured database, allowing for:

• Easy retrieval and cross-referencing of information
• Tracking of trends over time
• Generation of custom reports and visualizations

5. Insight Generation and Reporting

Finally, Scully compiles all this information into:

• Weekly or monthly trend reports highlighting key themes and must-read articles
• Personalized article recommendations based on my interests and past reading history
• Alerts for breakthrough developments or highly impactful news

The Tech Stack Behind Scully

Scully is built on a tech stack that includes:

• Data Collection: Custom web scrapers, YouTube API, Google News API
• Content Processing: Natural Language Processing (NLP) libraries
• AI Analysis: GPT-4 for summarization and insight generation, custom-trained models for relevance scoring and trend identification
• Data Storage: A combination of SQL databases and cloud-based document stores
• Workflow Automation: Make.com (formerly Integromat) for orchestrating the entire process
• Frontend: A simple web interface built with React for viewing reports and customizing settings

??? Here are some tools I've used in this project:

• RSS.app
• Google Sheets
• YouTube APIs
• Make.com
• Airtable
• Perplexity APIs
• OpenAI APIs
• Claude Sonnet 3.5
• Google AI Studio with Gemini 1.5 Pro

The Impact of Scully on My Work

Since implementing Scully, I've experienced several benefits:

1. Time Savings: What used to take hours of manual searching and reading now happens automatically.
2. Broader Perspective: Scully helps me discover insights from sources I might not have found on my own.
3. Trend Identification: By analyzing large volumes of content, Scully spots emerging trends earlier than I could manually.
4. Deep Insights: The AI-generated summaries and analyses often reveal connections and insights I might have missed.
5. Continuous Learning: With a constant stream of curated, relevant content, I'm always learning and staying up-to-date with the latest in UX/CX and AI.

Conclusion

This work has transformed how I stay informed about UX/CX and AI design trends. By leveraging the power of AI, it allows me to process and analyze far more information than I could manually, leading to deeper insights and a broader understanding of our rapidly evolving field.

I'm excited to continue developing Scully and exploring how AI can enhance our work as UX/CX professionals. If you're interested in learning more about Scully or have ideas for how it could be improved, I'd love to hear from you!

What AI tools are you using in your UX/CX workflow? How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and research? Let's discuss in the comments!

Fun fact: I uploaded all my project files, spreadsheets, data tables, Make.com blueprint code, and anything else I could find into Claude 3.5 Sonnet and asked it to summarize the project for me. I then asked it to generate an LinkedIn article -- and you're reading that now (with some light edit). It even created the flowchart above : )

#AIinUX #DesignInnovation #UXTrends #AITools #ContinuousLearning

My other articles

?? Top News in AI/UX- wk of July 15 ??

?? Top News in AI/UX - wk of July 22 ??

An analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's open letter: "Open Source AI is the Path Forward"