Artificial intelligence in UX: what does the future bring us?
Algorithms and artificial intelligence increasingly have more weight in our lives. The music we dance to , the videos we discuss with our friends, the content we consume on social networks, the series and movies we enjoy after work, are largely determined by artificial intelligence. We also see examples in chatbots and the increasingly rapid advances in self-driving cars.
Recently, Github has raised dust in the world of software development with the launch of Copilot , an artificial intelligence that offers autocomplete suggestions while you program, just like Gmail or Google Docs does while you write.
But its presence goes beyond digital. Today, there are factories managed almost exclusively by robots controlled by algorithms capable of learning to produce in an increasingly efficient and safe way. Algorithms have also become part of other sectors, such as health or education , sometimes with not very good results.
The impact of artificial intelligence on UX design
The increasing presence of artificial intelligence in any of its variants in different sectors and professions could make us think that at some point an algorithm will be able to replace a UI UX design services.
However, most of the tasks in which artificial intelligence can replace a human are those that are more repetitive or quantifiable.
Although the design process includes repetitive tasks, designing user experiences for services and products is not a repeatable process that can be translated into an algorithm, which requires defined inputs to process data and return a result. It is not a quantifiable process either. Design decisions are not based on parameters that can be reduced to a scale or number, but are the product of more complex processes.
In addition, there are essential skills in UX design that are not, for now, possible to implement in an algorithm or artificial intelligence. For example, empathy , a key trait in a designer, which allows them to create services and products with the user's needs in mind.
The impact of artificial intelligence on the future of user experience design focuses primarily on two areas. On the one hand, there are more and more tools that automate tasks and help in the interface design process thanks to the use of algorithms and machine learning . And, on the other hand, the use of artificial intelligence as an inherent part of the product has consequences when designing its user experience.
Automation of design tasks with artificial intelligence
Today, there are already tools powered by artificial intelligence that are capable of saving a considerable amount of time in the design process. In the future, we will see these types of applications have more widespread adoption, outside of certain niches and large corporations. The appearance of plugins for some of these tools for the main digital product design tools, such as Figma or Adobe XD, is the first step.
- Uizard allows you to create designs on its platform with editable components from a paper sketch. By simply scanning the sketch, the tool uses machine learning to identify each element and replicate the sketch on a screen ready to be modified. Airbnb's design team uses a similar tool but customized with elements of their design system.
- Fronty allows you to convert an image to HTML. Starting from a PNG or JPG image, this tool recognizes the elements of a website in the image (text, buttons, headers) and generates clean HTML code ready to be edited and polished.
- Khroma is a tool to automatically create color palettes from the colors you like. It is ideal for starting personal projects without spending a lot of time choosing colors that work well together.
- Visual Eyes is a research tool that uses a neural network trained with data from several large-scale studies to predict user behavior. Through plugins integrated with design tools, such as Figma, this tool analyzes the interface design and simulates a series of eye tracking tests in seconds .
These are just four examples of the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to facilitate some tasks in the design process. There are also many other tools that allow you to speed up image editing to incorporate into designs, such as Let's Enhance or Removebg . Others help you choose fonts, like Fontjoy . Artificial intelligence also allows generative designs and A/B testing to be done quickly and effectively. At Netflix, for example, they use artificial intelligence to select images, extract the key character from each image, and place text in the image, such as the name of the series or movie, and tags, such as those announcing new episodes, without covering up important elements. .
Design for artificial intelligence
In addition to helping the designer, the use of artificial intelligence in digital products also has consequences in the way of designing this type of interface.
The clearest example is chatbots and virtual assistants , which require specific considerations, such as onboarding or error management, to create effective user experiences.
The analysis of large volumes of data, the feedback flows that allow artificial intelligence to learn with each interaction with the user or the customization possibilities that artificial intelligence allows in product design are other considerations that a designer must make. consider.
At Netflix they use an algorithm that decides which images to show as series or movie covers based on each user's profile . Each Netflix interface is different for each person based on their tastes, preferences, and viewing history. For example, to a person who usually watches movies by a certain actress, Netflix will show images of that actress in the movies or series in which she appears, even if she is not the main protagonist. And those people who tend to respond better to romantic comedies will be shown scenes with couples as covers.
The use of artificial intelligence to power customization engines is one of the big trends for the future of digital product design, especially in e-commerce .