AI UX: User Experience Design for AI

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For the first time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become widely available for users. Products that contain AI now comprise a portion of every day moments when using had previously, been reserved for research labs or only found in advanced enterprise systems. Examples of products that now utilize AI are chatbots, recommender engines, voice assistants, smart searching, and customized applications among others.

As AI becomes more recognizable by users, the area of design known as AI UX (Artificial Intelligence User Experience) is now an emerging area that must go into producing and designing digital products.

AI UX is focused on helping users interact with intelligent systems and providing information about how intelligent systems make decisions, predict actions, and perform in ways that feel helpful, transparent, and human based.

What is AI UX?

AI UX is a concept that refers to designing user experiences (UX) for products powered by an Aritifical Intelligence (AI). In comparison to traditional UX processes, AI powered products are different because while traditional UX processes result in a predictable outcome, AI powered UX processes do not have a predictable outcome because AI powered products continuously learn, adapt and changes how they produce results based on the data they collect about users.

Some of the main design principles have been developed to help designers create AI UX to ensure users:

  • Understand what AI does
  • Trust the AIs decisions
  • Experience natural, non-confusing interactions with AI
  • Experience an error-free and uncertainty addressed by AI

In summary, AI UX serves as a link between complex algorithms and how humans will perceive or understand the results produced by the AI algorithms, or the AI.

Why AI UX is Important

1. User Trust is Developed

AI often makes automatic decisions like recommending something or approving something. If a user doesn't understand the reasoning behind an Automatic Decision, they lose trust in the AI and/or its recommendations. Well-designed AI UX helps clearly explain the outcome of the decision made by the AI.

2. Fear/Confusion Reduces

AI can feel unapproachable and intimidating. By designing AI UX thoughtfully, the user will see an AI as a helpful assistant and not a mysterious "Black Box" that doesn't help them.

3. Enhances Adoption of AI

Users cannot use AI effectively if they don't understand how to use it. AI UX will assist users through the UI to explore and use AI to its full potential.

4. Error Handling is Enhanced

Although AI continues to improve, AI will always make errors. AI UX prepares users for errors in the AI and also shows users how the AI learns from that experience and improves the next time.

Principles of Designing AI UX

1. Transparency

The user should understand:

  • When the AI is used
  • What data influences the AI's decisions
  • Why an event resulted in that recommendation by the AI

For instance, "Recommended because you viewed..." is clearer.

2. Explainable

AI UX should explain, in layman's terms, why the AI recommended something to the user. The user does not need to see the algorithms but wants to see why the AI gave them a recommendation.

Bad UX:

"Prediction Confidence 0.87"

Good UX:

"We're confident because others with similar interests made the same choice."

3. Control and Feedback

  • Ability to correct the AI's suggestions
  • Options for customizing their preferences
  • Clear feedback that the AI has learned from their feedback

4. Design For Humans

AI UX should consider the human, their needs, feelings and context, not just how quickly they can do things. It's more important to be empathetic than it is to be intelligent.

5. Dealing With Uncertainty

There are times when AI cannot determine an answer. Therefore, good AI UX should do three things:

  • Acknowledge Their Uncertainty
  • Provide Users With Options
  • Avoid Exaggerated Confidence

I might have this completely wrong, but here's what I was able to find out.

Final Word:

AI UX is not about making AI smarter; it’s about creating AI to be comprehensible, trustworthy, and user friendly. As intelligent systems enter everyday life AI UX will help make the decision on if users want to use AI-enabled products.

The future is experiences where technology adapts to humans, not vice versa.

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