Weekend Reads: Five + Five Links
Capability + Human Need = Product Development
Capability + Human Need = Product Development
This equation will always be important. Designing within constraints is balancing both feasibility and user expectations and it comes with XFN compromise. I think we all want to build what is "right" for users, but the math doesn't always math. With the nearly weekly advancements in frontier models - the exercise of balancing both may no longer be as challenging.
5 + 5 links for your weekend.
In the Age of A.I., What Makes People Unique?
The elephant in the room: The rise of A.I. challenges the uniqueness of human abilities.
AI can generate poetry, songs with lyrics and music as well as engage in complex conversations and make rapid decisions.
This raises some eyebrows about human value and the potential disappearance of various professions. A.I. can mimic certain human traits and it also lacks true virtues and emotional depth, which are uniquely human.
As new capabilities evolve, it is crucial to recognize and articulate what makes us human to prevent devaluation of our own qualities.
In the Age of A.I., What Makes People Unique? | The New Yorker
Amazon cloud chief tells employees that most developers could stop coding soon as AI takes over - but in a non-dystopian way.
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman suggested that within the next two years, most developers may not be coding as AI tools evolve. In the same leaked recording, He emphasized the need for developers to focus on understanding customer needs and creatively innovating rather than just writing code.
This shifts the goal of refining and productionizing coding language to talk to computers to putting the onus on developers to spend more time focusing on creative opportunities to build for the end user rather than pure capability.
Some quotes I liked: "Coding is just kind of like the language that we talk to computers. It's not necessarily the skill in and of itself," he said. "The skill in and of itself is like, how do I innovate? How do I go build something that's interesting for my end users to use?"
and
"It just means that each of us has to get more in tune with what our customers need and what the actual end thing is that we're going to try to go build, because that's going to be more and more of what the work is as opposed to sitting down and actually writing code,"
AWS CEO Says Most Developers Could Stop Coding Soon As AI Takes Over - Business Insider
AI can be a force for good
A.I. can mimic human thought and lacks consciousness and emotional depth, making it a useful tool for processing information and not a 1:1 replacement for what we do naturally.
"Some people seem to believe that the mind is like a computer. It’s all just information processing, algorithms all the way down, so of course machines are going to eventually overtake us."
“What we do is not processing. It is not computation. It is not data analysis. It is a distinctively, incorrigibly human activity that is a complex combination of conscious and unconscious, rational and intuitive, logical and emotional reflection.” - Michael Ignatieff
Opinion | A.I.’s Benefits Outweigh the Risks - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
How do we move from designing linear steps in a user flow to building for intent-based interfaces?
The logical progression of things is pushing us away from static, step by step, user experiences into a much more dynamic world of branching interactions.
This article talks about typical interaction paradigms such as reactive and proactive interfaces and outlines some interesting UI patterns for data analysis, virtual assistance, and content creations. It is a very thorough article.
It also emphasizes the evolving nature of AI in enhancing user experiences and the potential for hybrid interfaces to become standard.
Squinting into the future, this means hybrid interfaces will fit neatly in more ubiquitous multi-modal experiences.
You need to read science fiction.
I like this thinking.
We should be engaging with science fiction to inspire us to envision future user needs for these groundbreaking technological advancements. The Sci-Fi genre has, historically, inspired real-world innovations, such as voice user interfaces and brain-computer interfaces, while also highlighting potential pitfalls like invasive advertising.
Works like Project Hail Mary and The Murderbot Diaries illustrate the expectations users may have for technology, emphasizing the importance of imagination in anticipating future developments.
I have drawn similar inspiration from The Three-Body Problem. I wrote about this a while back. [Navigating Chaos]
Helping users navigate these "futuristic" capabilities will require some imagination. I think drawing inspiration from unrelated / nearly related themes can be extremely divergent from our current methods of design.
ROI isn’t the best way to talk about the value of UX; behavior change is.
The value of UX design should focus on behavior change rather than ROI, which is often tied to monetary value. Design's true impact is in altering user behavior, which can be measured through product metrics tooling.
I hadn't heard "Every dollar invested in UX yields a return between $2 and $100" and I think this is a great way to contextualize design value.
By framing design success in terms of measurable behavior changes, designers can better communicate their value to businesses.
If the value of UX design lies in the changing behavior of the user, I think AI will reinforce this.
GenUI capabilities that can generate and test multiple design variations will enhance this line of thinking. We can spend our time on what we do best, focus on user intent and make creative decisions about behavior change.
ROI will always be relevant, because capitalism, but our ability to interpret what that means will be enhanced.
The 3 capabilities designers need to build for the AI era.
There are a lot of articles on the topic of expanding your vocabulary on how to articulate design value. They are usually grounded in strategy, business acumen, understanding human need, and yea, interaction design.
This article is a great read on what skills designers should be working on in the AI era.
The three capabilities:
AI Strategy, which focuses on understanding customer needs and leveraging AI for value;
AI Interaction Design, which adapts to open-ended interactions and user expectations; and
Model Design, which bridges design and engineering through effective prompt writing.
This is spot on.
"Customer empathy makes a comeback"
Scott Belsky has a monthly newsletter that is worth following.
In his May edition, he writes a note on customer obsession. As companies move beyond the hype of frontier models and updated pricing structures, consumer and enterprise workflows will be rated by their ability to understand and empathize with actual customer problems. Design, model training, and trustworthy safety protocols with proprietary data will be the north star for us.
The Law of Displacement Speed & Leveraging Artifacts of Humanity (implications.com)
Building for trust and human centricity is an exciting and daunting responsibility.
This is another interesting article on the evolving role of designers. In the article, Vamsi emphasizes the need for agility and understanding capabilities. He highlights strategies for fostering an innovation mindset and encourages us to immerse ourselves in current AI experiences.
New design paradigms: Its a roller coaster, buckle up.
Decoding the black box: Grasping AI's capabilities and limitations is a non-negotiable skill set.
Scalable AI experiences: Modularity, flexibility, and an emphasis on new capabilities.
Plus more…
Something random
Ever wonder how the Giant Foam Finger came to be a symbol of sports enthusiasm? Know your history.
How the Giant Foam Finger Became a Staple of Sports Events (mentalfloss.com)