What is the role of UX in AI?
Figure 1: ChatGPT Starting Screen

What is the role of UX in AI?

Peter McNally Peter McNally

Peter McNally

Senior Consultant @ Bentley University User Experience Center with expertise in UX and Accessibility

发布日期: 2023年8月5日
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Motivation

I have been interested in AI for a while, more so given all the recent hype.?As a UX professional, I am interested in learning more about how UX best practices can help guide the design of AI systems.?My starting goal was to write an article for our Bentley University UXC (User Experience Center) blog on the topic of the UX of AI.?For example, what is the role of UX in the era of AI? (Assuming there is one!).?I started doing some research and found an article from Jakob Nielsen titled: “The Articulation Barrier: Prompt-Driven AI UX Hurts Usability” He discusses the usability issue of people having articulation challenges writing prompts for AI-based systems such as ChatGPT, as shown in the initial screen (Figure 1).?In the article, he suggests that hybrid UIs. i.e., UIs that combine AI with traditional GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), may be a better approach than AI interfaces that only offer the user a prompt where they must type in a response.?According to Nielsen:

“I don’t know the solution, but that won’t stop me from speculating. My best guess is that successful AI user interfaces will be hybrid and combine elements of intent-based outcome specification and some aspects of the graphical user interface from the previous command-driven paradigm. GUIs have superior usability because they show people what can be done rather than requiring them to articulate what they want.” (Jakob Nielsen)

One hybrid application?Jakob Nielsen mentions is GrammarlyGO?. I always like real-world examples, so I gave it a try.?Following are my experiences and how they shaped my current thoughts on AI systems and UX research.

Note: included are several screenshots of GrammarlyGO (Figure 2-7). All have alt-text. Figure 1 showing the initial ChatGPT screen does not have alt-text as it seems LinkedIn does not provide a way to include alt-text in the main/title image of an article.

Onboarding

I downloaded GrammarlyGO based on Jakob Nielsen's recommendation. After installation, you are presented with a minimal screen with an edit field to write something (a prompt) and some buttons and other options. Note: the number of prompts in the upper right-hand corner of the screen is how many prompts are left in the free version of the product. You start with 100 and every time you enter/use a prompt the number decreases. In Figure 2, I had 93 prompts left when I captured the screenshot. I had to go back and take screenshots out of order, so the number of prompts in all the screenshots may not represent the actual order of my use.

On the banner at top of the screen: GO logo, Beta text, Neutral button, 93 prompts text, and the X (close) button On the main part of the screen: “Ideas for you” heading with 4 ideas below: Identify any gaps, Give me ideas for improvement, Pick out my main point, More. On the bottom of the screen: Edit field for user prompt with label “Tell us to”… and the arrow button.
Figure 2: Initial GrammarlyGO Screen

Selecting the “Neutral” button at the top of the screen (see Figure 2) allowed me to change my settings as shown in the setting screen shown in Figure 3.

On the banner at the top of the screen: a “My voice” link returning to the main screen, 93 prompts text, and the X (close) button On the main part of the screen: Formality heading with 3 buttons: Casual, Neutral (selected), Formal; Tone heading with the text select up to three and 6 buttons: Personable (selected), Confident (selected), Empathetic (selected), Engaging, Witty, Direct. “I write in” heading with a drop-down set to American English. Text: “These voice settings will apply to any text you generate with GammarlyGO.” On the bottom of the screen: close button and “Use this voice” button.
Figure 3: GrammarlyGO Settings

I left the Formality option as the default ”Neutral”. Next, I set my Tone to "Personable", "Confident", and "Empathetic".?I thought these would be three good qualities for any blog article.??

First Impressions

It gave me some suggestions ("ideas for you").?My goal was to write a blog article.?I didn’t see that as an option from their list, so I typed “Write a blog article” in the edit field as shown in Figure 4.

On the banner at top of the screen: GO logo, Beta text, Neutral button, 93 prompts text, and the X (close) button On the main part of the screen: “Ideas for you” heading with 4 ideas below: Identify any gaps, Give me ideas for improvement, Pick out my main point, More. On the bottom of the screen: Edit field for user prompt with user input “Write a blog article”, and the arrow button.
Figure 4: My Initial Prompt

I then pressed the arrow.?Now as a UX researcher, I would have asked the user (me) what do you expect would happen before pressing the arrow.?I would have responded?that I would expect the AI would ask me what my ideas were for my article and maybe help me create a potential outline and then it would help me structure my blog article.??

On the banner at the top of the screen: GO logo, Beta text, Neutral button, 93 prompts text, and the X (close) button On the main part of the screen: “Write a blog article” heading Text: “As someone who has always been passionate about writing, starting a blog was a natural choice for me. It has been a wonderful journey so far, and I have learned a lot of things along the way. One of the things that I have found to be the most important when it comes to blogging is having a clear purpose. Whether you are writing about a particular topic or just sharing your thoughts or experiences, having a clear focus can help you stay motivated and engaged. Another key to successful blogging is consistency. Whether you are posting once a week or once a month, it is important to stick to a regular schedule so your readers know when to expect new content. Of course, it is also important to make sure that your blog is visually appealing and easy to navigate. This means choosing a clean and simple design, using high-quality images, and organizing your content in a logical and intuitive way. Finally, don’t forget to engage with your readers! Responding to comments, asking for feedback, and starting…” On the bottom of the screen: Edit field for user prompt with label “Tell us to”… and the arrow button.
Figure 5: Response to My Initial Prompt

However, as can be seen in Figure 5, it returned a few paragraphs telling me it likes to write blogs and some best practices around writing a blog such as having a clear purpose and being consistent.?These are great points, but not exactly what I was expecting at this stage in my process.?After its initial response, it left me with an open-ended prompt asking me “Tell us to…”??

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Initial Disappointment

My next thought was this is not going well, and maybe the AI team didn’t do enough user research before designing GrammarlyGO…?My next question was, do I keep playing or just go back to writing my article the old-fashioned way??Even though I was already getting a bit tired, I thought it would be interesting if the AI could recover and help me write my article.?As shown in Figure 6, I typed in the prompt “help me with my outline”?

Hope

On the main part of the screen: “help me with my outline” heading Text: “Sure, I’d be happy to help! What is your outline about? What are the main points or sections you need to include?” Insert button, Rephase button. Trash icon, Flag icon. 4 buttons: “Shorten It”, “Make it assertive”, “Sound confident”, More. On the bottom of the screen: Edit field for user prompt with label “Tell us to”… and the arrow button.
Figure 6: Hopeful Response

Ok it recovered a bit as it seems to grasp what I am after as it gave me a reasonable response, meeting my initial expectations:

“Sure, I’d be happy to help!?What is your outline about??What are the main points or sections you need to include?”

I was pleasantly surprised.?Maybe this AI has some intelligence after all!?Although I am not sure why it included buttons for options to “Shorten it”, “Make it assertive”, or “Sound confident” as I have not provided the AI any content yet.??

Didn't Meet Expectations

Next, I took the AI up on its offer and typed in “Current UX Design Guidelines for AI'' as shown in Figure 7. However, instead of guiding me in writing my outline, it gave some current UX Design Guidelines for AI.?That was very thoughtful (maybe this was its empathetic tone kicking in).

On the banner at the top of the screen: GO logo, Beta text, Neutral button, 93 prompts text, and the X (close) button. On the main part of the screen: “Current UX Design Guidelines for AI” heading Text: “As of now, there are some important guidelines to keep in mind when designing user experiences for AI-powered systems. Firstly, it is important to ensure that the system is transparent and understandable to users. This means that users should be able to understand how the system works, what data is being collected, and how that data is being used. Another key consideration is the need to build trust with users. This can be achieved through clear communication, providing users with control over their data, and being transparent about any limitations or biases in the system. Additionally, designers should focus on creating experiences that are inclusive and accessible to all users. Finally, it is important to continually test and refine AI-powered systems to ensure they are meeting the needs of users. This might involve user testing, data analysis, or other forms of feedback. By following these guidelines, designers can create meaningful and effective user experiences for AI-powered systems.” Insert button, Rephase button. Trash icon, Flag icon. “Make it persuasive” button, “Make it assertive” button, “Sound Confident” button. On the bottom of the screen: Edit field for user prompt with label “Tell us to”… and the arrow button.
Figure 7: Response for "Current UX Guidelines for AI"

This was good, but not exactly what I am looking for right now.?I was not at the research/writing stage yet.?I was looking for GrammarlyGO to help me set up the blog article rather than give me content ideas.?I know they are related, but our expectations were not aligned.?Maybe it could have given me a rough outline with these content ideas in a bulleted list to start off my outline.?The content it gave me was useful and I could use it to develop an outline.?So while GrammarlyGO was helpful, it just didn’t meet my expectations at where I was in my writing process. Maybe my expectations are just too high given the current state of AI right now.

I think another part of the disconnect is the goal of the product.?Is GrammarlyGO a narrow AI tool to help with my writing or more a general AI tool similar to ChatGPT, i.e., ask it a question, and it will go out and scour the internet and come back with some nicely written content? It seems like it is doing the latter, but that is not what I expected it to do.?If I wanted to find content for myself, I could have gone to ChatGPT directly.?I was curious, so I did. ChatGPT 4 gave me a more thorough response. At this point I stopped as I thought I would need to do some “prompt engineering” in GrammarlyGO,?to come up with the right responses, which was too much work for me at the moment.??

Lessons Learned and Implications for UX

I enjoyed my experience in reviewing a product that has incorporated AI into the UX.?I could have kept going with GrammarlyGO, but I believed the return on time investment was not there.?Maybe I could have learned how to use it better, but I was not in the mood to figure it out, I’ll just open Word and start working on my outline myself, maybe next time.

From a UX standpoint, I would say UX research is more critical than in traditional GUI applications because there is no previous model to follow.?With GUIs and web-based UIs there are 20-40 years of experience/UI patterns to go on.?Mind you not all great, but at least I am not staring at a prompt asking me to type from scratch. Another interesting point is weighing the investment of completing the tasks using the AI tool vs. without.?If the user has to spend time learning how to “prompt engineer” it may not be worth it depending on the task(s).?Therefore, it is critical to really understand the users' goals:?what they want to accomplish, why, and how often they need to do it.

I am interested in continuing my quest of understanding how UX and AI can work together. Once I complete my blog post on UX and AI, I will let you know in the comments so you can check it out on the Bentley University UXC blog.

Thanks and talk to you later!


References

Deb P.

????Product D&D Engineer | UX UI HF | Digital / Tech / Healthcare / Medical Devices.???♀?Passionate about solving complex challenges in chaotic user landscapes. Committed to human-centered dev, design and fostering UX.

1 年

Interestingly, I've been using it in some of my work. I find that it's impersonal ... yes it can do many things, but interjecting something that has a heartbeat, it cannot. It may know a lot, and be smarter than the collective data it has, but a human touch, empathy, and personality it cannot have.

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Wilfred L.

?? Founder, The Winners Circle (Clothing Manufacturing) | Freelance SaaS & MVP Consultant

1 年

There’s this. ????♂? I can’t understand how they allowed it.

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Girinath Gokulavasan [HFE.IDES.HMI.IxD.CE.UE.HCI.UCD.UX.]

Chief UX Mentor | UX Maestro | CORE UX Pedagogist | UX Scientist | UCD Expert | Chief Design Officer | UX Advisory Board | Pioneer of CORE UX Deep-Dive GenAI Model

1 年

Peter McNally Good post. I am perplexed by the sudden shift in attention towards prompt-driven UX within the realm of AI. Both chatGPT and Google Bard stand out as remarkable tools for enhancing the efficiency of UX professionals. It is advisable not to merely request outputs from these tools, but to ingeniously seek assistance in areas such as content generation, documentation, and annotations, which can significantly expedite the completion of labor-intensive tasks. Regrettably, certain figures within the industry are unjustifiably denigrating these tools, perhaps motivated by their apprehensions about potential threats to their own prominence and esteemed positions within the design field.

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Jakob Nielsen

Usability Pioneer | UXtigers.com | ex ????????

1 年

Great article Peter McNally. We need more like this! Agree that GrammerlyGO is lacking in its actual intelligence. What I thought was interesting is the way it combines prompts and GUI into that hybrid UI that I (still) think it the future. I suspect that GrammarlyGO is still using GPT 3.5, whereas the paid version of ChatGPT is on GPT 4, which is known to be vastly superior. This also means that if anybody wants to dabble in AI, cough up those $20 and get access to the good stuff. For most things I also prefer to start with the free versions, but understanding AI is crucial for the future of your career, so not a place to save $20. (See my article UX Needs a Sense of Urgency About AI, https://www.uxtigers.com/post/ux-urgency-ai )

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