AI and My UX Process

AI is a powerful tool with the capacity to vastly improve the efficiency of UX design. However, the UX process is also driven in large part by ethics and psychology, two very human disciplines that cannot be entirely delegated to technology.

As the capabilities and dangers of AI expand every day, I have made it a priority to keep up with the evolving landscape. I have educated myself on both effective and ineffective uses of AI in UX design, experimented with new and improving AI tools, and intend to keep doing so as the technology changes and grows. See my experiences with AI below:

 
 
 

How I use AI in my UX workflow

 
 

1. Competitive Analysis

When researching the market around a new product, AI can assist with finding competitors and identifying what users do and do not like about their products.

Though it is important to fact check AI research like this, the AI findings can be a great jumping off point and time saver when sifting through a lot of information.

 
 
 

2. Ideation

When prompted with the requirements and/or acceptance criteria for a new feature, AI can help designers brainstorm initial solutions. Text-based bots, like Chat GPT, can describe pages and flows, while visual tools like Galileo or Uizard can create basic wireframes based on the input.

These are not final designs or even ideas, but serve as a helpful jumping off point to ideation, and can help designers overcome blank page syndrome.

 
 
 

3. Validation

The designs that AI produces based on requirements can also be used to validate the solutions created by designers.

AI designs by pulling from experiences that already exist. Therefore, its designs will generally follow recognizable patterns. If AI and human designers create similar solutions based on the same feature requirements, then we can infer that the designs are following patterns and flows that will be known to users, and therefore will be simple and usable.

Whenever possible we should validate this usability with user research. But AI can provide useful additional data if budget and timing don’t allow for a full-scale research effort.

AI Designs:

Human Designs:

 
 
 

4. User Research Synthesis and Analysis

AI can improve the efficiency of the user research process in a number of ways:

  • Writing user research scripts based on basic information about the project and the general research questions

  • Summarizing research session transcripts and/or pulling out important quotes related to the team’s questions

  • Identifying common themes and/or pain points among a large volume of user feedback

AI-sorted user research feedback:

 
 
 

5. Documentation and Presentations

AI can take disparate bullet points or paragraphs about the design process and rewrite them as readable documentation. In a similar manner, it can synthesize and reword information for presentations to cross-functional partners and/or stakeholders.

This clearer and faster communication can improve the product design and development life cycle for all parties, and reduces the likelihood of error.

A slide written with the help of AI:

 
 
 
 
 

My AI Training:

Percipio by Skillsoft courses:

  • Foundations of Generative AI

  • Human Skills to Sustain an AI Transformation

  • Reimaging Work With Generative AI

  • Responsible Application and Guardrails for Generative AI

Podcasts:

  • Invisible Machines Podcast: Covering the intersection of UX, business, AI technology and design

AI Tools:

  • Chat GPT

  • UIzard

  • Whimsical AI

  • Galileo

  • Canva AI

  • FigJam AI