Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
This video is featured in the AI and UX playlist.
Summary
In an environment of UX staff reductions, a focus on tangible design skills and tool expertise, quarterly profits, and angst over what AI means for the future of everyone’s jobs, what place does “theory” have? As designers and researchers we engage in theory every day by hypothesizing: “If we design it like this, then we will have outcome X.” The bigger the problem you’re trying to solve, the more important it becomes to have a theoretical framework about why you’re doing what you’re doing. The breathless parade of AI releases present the biggest challenges (and potential opportunities) in many years. As designers we should have a posture on how to shape how AI is used and its impacts. Much as the mid-century modernists developed coherent frameworks for understanding the relationship between form, function, and human needs, using novel technologies coming out of World War II, we must now articulate theories that help us make sense of this new landscape where intelligence itself has become a design material. Join UX researcher/strategist Adam Richardson and UX design leader Uday Gajendar for an exploration of how we might develop the theoretical foundations designers need to thoughtfully shape AI interactions.
Key Insights
-
•
Design has always been a form of theory, predicting outcomes and unintended consequences of design decisions.
-
•
Historical design movements, like Arts and Crafts and Bauhaus, were driven by social, cultural, and humanistic ideals, not just aesthetics.
-
•
Victor Papanek framed design as a conscious effort to impose meaningful order against mass consumerism and ecological damage.
-
•
Dick Buchanan viewed design as a liberal art of technology and a form of rhetoric shaping how people live.
-
•
Many foundational UX theories, such as affordances, are being neglected in favor of short-term growth and efficiency.
-
•
The current design profession lacks a shared, hopeful ideal or movement that is sustainable and collective.
-
•
Craft involves intentionality and care, extending beyond physical making to digital micro-interactions that convey human presence.
-
•
AI introduces knowledge as a new material in design, complicating notions of authorship and human touch.
-
•
Systems thinking and participatory design remain crucial for understanding trade-offs and unintended consequences in AI-driven projects.
-
•
Individual designers often struggle to enact humanistic values within large organizations driven by investor and capitalist pressures.
Notable Quotes
"As designers, in many ways, we are theorists, even if we don’t think of ourselves that way."
"The Arts and Crafts movement tried to recapture the artisan’s humanity lost after the industrial revolution."
"Mass production is here to stay; modernism asked what we can do to make it more humanistic."
"Design is a rhetorical statement, an argument for living your life a certain way."
"You can’t develop a career just mastering a tool; those become obsolete as technology evolves."
"We don’t need more tactical skill training; we need a movement with shared ideals and collective purpose."
"Good designers can shift scale fluidly between the big picture and craft-level details."
"AI means knowledge is now the material we’re working with in design, not just pixels or code."
"AI-generated imagery feels too perfect and shiny, lacking the flawed human presence we appreciate."
"Trying to figure this stuff out inside your day job is nearly impossible; we need spaces for slower thinking."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Don’t weaponize your product—that’s one of our core ethical tenets in designing assessments at Pluralsight."
Ethics in Tech Education: Designing to Provide Opportunity for All
June 14, 2018
"Kenneth Bowles will close things out with a talk around responsibility and ethics."
Uday GajendarTheme 1: Introduction
June 9, 2021
"Language is what shapes us; just like visuals clarify, stories extracted via keyword clusters reveal how users think."
Andrea GallagherThe Problem Space (Videoconference)
May 16, 2019
"I’m worried you aren’t up to it, frankly."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
June 8, 2017
"The mundane object of paper, when standardized, signaled sweeping social and bureaucratic change."
Sam LadnerHow Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight
March 9, 2022
"The intercept driver survey is more reliable than NPS and worked well even with illiterate drivers using emojis."
George Zhang Molly StevensUX Research Excellence Framework
March 11, 2021
"We’re selectively skeptical – skeptical about some things but not others based on what we want to believe."
Sara LogelYour Colleagues are Your Users Too
March 29, 2023
"AI has as much capacity to do as much harm as it does good."
Dr. Jamika D. Burge Nick Fine Alexandra Jayeun Lee Greg Nudelman Bo WangHow UX researchers can partner with (and not be replaced by) AI [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series](Videoconference)
August 31, 2023
"We do not put any client data into generative AI — only our own organizational information."
Louis Rosenfeld Billy Carlson Jon Fukuda Maria TaylorHow AI will Change DesignOps Tooling
October 3, 2023
