As a curious designer, our author Ece Çelik is wondering if and how AI will change the work of UX designers.
Working in the field of UXUI Design for three years, I have been experiencing the miracles AI (Artificial Intelligence) can bring to our lives, particularly our professional lives. If you are a curious designer like me, you might wonder how our roles will change soon. There are many facets to the discussion about how AI will affect our lives in this new era. Here, I want to talk about two contradictory points of view.
The first one discusses the fact that AI will automate many design processes. I stumbled upon this topic last year in the Futurium Museum in Berlin. The question was how much of our work robots can take over. The answer for the UX design profession was not so surprising for me: 11%. When I think about the automation of the design process, I can imagine that this relatively new technology can generate wireframes, layouts, color schemes, and copies. AI plugins are, for example, already present in Figma for collaboration. Long story short, since AI keeps growing and has started to produce high-quality design work, which raises another question: will there be potential unemployment for some design specialists soon? Not only because of that number in the museum but also because I believe design is a comprehensive profession. Therefore, for some specialists, there might be a switch in their focus; however, I think unemployment is not a topic for discussion. The second point of view supports the idea that AI will positively affect many UX fields, namely, UXUI design, UX research, and UX writing.
To begin with, AI will strengthen the collaboration between UXUI designers and technology. Automating repetitive and sometimes tedious tasks with the help of AI-powered tools can benefit designers. Thanks to AI, designers can work more efficiently and focus on other aspects of the design process. In that view, I certainly think designers will be able to get some tedious work off their shoulders, and they can spend the deserved time on more pressing things like communication, collaboration, and better team work, which I certainly believe is an underestimated part of the design process.
Secondly, AI-powered analytic tools can provide UX researchers with valuable insights into user behaviour and preferences, informing design decisions and leading to the best user experiences. For instance, these tools can track user interactions with a product or website, providing us with data that can be used to optimise the user experience.
Finally, AI can help UX writers in two possible ways: providing increased efficiency and improving personalisation. AI can automate repetitive tasks, such as creating variations of headlines, taglines, and microcopy. Thus, writers can focus on more strategic and creative work. The increased efficiency and productivity allow writers to create higher-quality content in less time. Furthermore, AI can support UX writers with personalisation. It can analyse user data and provide insights that help UX writers personalise content for different audiences. By understanding user behavior and preferences, writers can create more relevant and engaging content that drives the desired user actions. This could lead to improved user satisfaction and a better overall user experience.
Overall, while there are opinions on the possible unemployment of UX professionals due to the fast growth of AI-powered tools, I prefer to approach the topic positively. Whether the new technologies bring unemployment or not is not a new question. It has existed since industrialisation, and I think human labour will always be more valuable than machine work. Nevertheless, as designers, AI has so much potential to complement and enhance our profession in multiple ways. Bringing efficiency to the design process, saving designers from the seldom tedious work they are dealing with, optimising the user experiences and user research processes with the help of analytics and helping UX writers to provide more personalised user experiences are just some of the benefits.
PS: Many thanks to AI for supporting me in writing this article.
