Part I of this series covered what UX is. Part II covered what AI is. Now in Part III we'll get into the meat of what it means to embed AI into UX workflows.
I know that I took you through the whole "double-diamond" of design thinking in part I. Its worth knowing, if only so I can let you in on a secret - UX is really just five things.
- Exposure - the ask, the problem statement, project history, and the stakeholders who will be signing off.
- Immersion - Sometimes, if you're lucky, there is a servicable creative brief. Audience definitions, KPIs, deadlines, analytics, and stars aligned - a strategy.
- Concepting - in order to create concepts UX needs approved requirements and user research findings.
- Envision - You've come up with a prototype. Now it's time for stakeholder feedback and user validation.
- Design - You know what the product is going to be. Now you need to execute the design and code for production.
In each of the steps UX is playing a different role. Sometimes it's a researcher, another time a strategist, and finally a designer and director.
It's imerative to think about the role being played to know how to embed AI appropriately. AI can really only do three things.
- AI can be an Assistant and do things you don't want to do, but don't trust it enough to not review
- It can be a peer that helps broaden your Strategy through feedback
- It can be a Creative Partner with autonomy to make decisions.
So, UX in the Age of AI comes down to mapping the roles AI can play to the five stages of UX and then accepting that a machine might be a great partner.
- Exposure - AI as an assistant is great at summarizing notes
- Immersion - Use AI to do your strategy. It can compile comptetive research, identify KPIs, align to audiences and write the your first draft.
- Concepting - Give AI the requirements and let it be a peer. AI is well suited to make sure you do what is needed to meet them. Challenge AI's recommendation to make your outcome better.
- Envision - AI can prototype and it can do it faster than humans. It's a coding peer that excells at functional, but rarely makes someting beautiful. Let it take care of the functional you can get feedback faster
- Design - there are parts production design that no one really wants to do. Give an assistant and peer the autonomy to do that for you.
In Part IV I will share some of the tools and platforms I've used in each of the five stages. These are both commercial and open source.
Thank you. You can find Part I here, Part II here. If you want to o see future installments, follow me on LinkedIn
