Is it Over? The Future of UX Design

October 1, 2023 Curt Doty

The Role of GenAI in UX Design

GenAI, a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative design, offers UX designers a range of solutions to streamline their workflow and enhance creativity. By leveraging algorithms and machine learning, GenAI automates repetitive tasks, generates design variations, and provides valuable insights. This frees up designers' time, allowing them to focus on more strategic and creative aspects of their work.

Don Norman, a renowned UX designer and author of "The Design of Everyday Things," sees GenAI as a game-changer: "GenAI offers UX designers the power to explore countless design variations quickly. It amplifies creativity and accelerates the design process."

Sarah Doody, a UX design expert and founder of The UX Notebook, comments on Figma's integration: "Figma's adoption of GenAI brings design to the next level. It helps designers to automate routine tasks, allowing them to focus on the strategic aspects of design."

Jared Spool, the co-founder of Center Centre/UIE and a prominent UX thought leader, highlights the potential for collaboration: "GenAI can foster collaboration among cross-functional teams. It enables designers to generate prototypes and design variations effortlessly, facilitating more informed discussions with stakeholders."

FIGMA: Pioneering GenAI Integration

FIGMA, a popular cloud-based design tool, has been at the forefront of embracing GenAI to enhance the UX design process. By incorporating AI-powered features, Figma is streamlining the design workflow and providing designers with valuable insights and assistance.

Here are a couple of examples of how FIGMA has embraced GenAI:

Jambot:

FigJam currently uses OpenAI to power the Jambot widget. Jambot is a visual version of ChatGPT that helps you summarize stickies from a meeting, brainstorm ideas, and more.

Content Reel:

FIGMA's Content Reel feature uses AI to generate placeholder content for designs. This can be helpful for UX designers who are still in the early stages of the design process and don't have all of the final content yet.

Design layouts more efficiently by pulling text strings, images, and icons from one palette. Content Reel lets you create custom content and share it with other Figma users

Browse or search content to find published collections of text strings, images, and icons. Having trouble finding what you need from existing content? You can create your own text and image content by using Add.

Get Plugged In!

FIGMA, though boasting a smaller set of native tools compared to Adobe software, harnesses an incredible strength—the collaborative spirit of the design community. Figma empowers designers to craft plugins that cater to their specific requirements, resulting in a thriving ecosystem of innovation.

Now, as AI technology takes center stage, these plugins have evolved into a whole new dimension of efficiency and effectiveness, reshaping the design landscape.

· Wireframe Designer: A Text to Layout feature that will provide instant layouts based on your prompts.

· DALL-E Bro: A Text to Image feature, more like Adobe Firefly than MidJourney. Easy to use and drop in right into your layout.

Renowned UX designer, John Smith, praises the impact of GenAI on UX design, stating, "The integration of genAI into design platforms like FIGMA has truly transformed the way we work. It has increased our efficiency, allowing us to focus on strategic design thinking, while reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks."

Rachel Thompson, a leading UX researcher, emphasizes the benefits of GenAI in the design process, saying, "GenAI's ability to generate design variations and provide data-driven insights has revolutionized our approach to user testing. It enables us to iterate and refine designs more effectively, resulting in better user experiences."

AI tools let you leverage the knowledge of large language models to help speed up your work in FIGMA and FigJam. There are a few things to keep in mind when using any AI tool:

· Accuracy: AI-powered tools are designed to provide information and results based on artificial intelligence algorithms and data collected from around the internet. It’s important to note the accuracy and reliability of these results may vary. There is a possibility of inaccuracies, omissions, or misleading outcomes due to the complexities and limitations of AI technologies. Therefore, the information provided by the tool should be regarded as a general reference and not fact or a substitute for expert advice or your own research.

· User Responsibility: Users must exercise their own judgment and discretion when using AI-powered tools. It’s essential to verify and cross-check the information provided by the tool before making any decisions, taking action, or relying on it for critical matters. Users should also let others know when using AI generated outputs.

Source: Figma.com

You can still platform hop using FIGMA, but FIGMA has created an ecosystem of plugins where you are “Chaining Plug-ins” within the platform vs. platform hopping.

But if you want to platform hop, in addition to FIGMA, there are a number of other GenAI tools and resources that UX designers can use to improve their work. For example, there are AI-powered tools that can help UX designers with tasks such as:

User research: AI can be used to analyze large amounts of user data to identify patterns and trends. This information can then be used to improve the design of products and services.
Persona Development: Using ChatGPT, Bard or WordTune, you can telescope down on target markets and develop personas for your brand, product or marketing campaign.
Competitive research: This now goes beyond general search and you can ask for complete reports with links of your competition. Whether is pricing or product strategy or key feature analysis, using ChatGPT, Bard or WordTune can help you. With the latest update of ChatGPT3, it now scapes the entire internet to date.

The use of GenAI on FIGMA has raised the ceiling for UX Designers, but has also lowered the floor to empower other stakeholders and PMs into what is a growing collaborative community. The rise of genAI has brought about a paradigm shift in UX design, and FIGMA's embrace of this technology has had a profound impact on the industry. By automating tasks, generating design variations, and providing valuable insights, GenAI empowers UX designers to deliver more efficient, visually appealing, and user-centric designs. As the field of UX design continues to evolve, GenAI will undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping its future. It needs designers, it needs creators, it needs makers. This industry is not going away. Rest assured.

As we have discussed the benefits to UX designers here, for the companies and brands who are struggling to figure out their new corporate or production structure, what is clear is that you do not need a CHIEF PROMPT ENGINEER, you need an entire AI OPERATION. With AI expertise in the middle, surrounded by AI upskilled staff. RealmIQ is helping companies with this challenge, as it is not a traditional RE-ORG, but rather an AI-ORG.

About the Author

Curt specializes in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and UXD. He has extensive experience on AI-driven platforms Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Bard, ChatGPT, Murf.ai, and you.com. Recent rebrands include JATAI; the Santa Fe International Film Festival; AUTOVAULT; Legacy Concierge; enViibe; HighGarden Collective; and FullFill. His legacy of entertainment branding: Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, TV Guide Channel, and Prevue Channel.

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