We all have seen the headlines in the news, AI taking our jobs, our tasks, and changing the future of work forever. But this new reality hasn’t stopped me from pursuing a career in UX design. While many fear that these AI machines can turn out perfect wire frames and fresh interfaces, this must mean that UX design is no longer a job required for humans. But this new era isn’t taking away our design jobs. Alongside these machines, designers can be faster, more creative, and lean on their experience to continue making bigger and better products.

Better Design Thinking 

Everyone knows that great products start with a plethora of design thinking exercises. It’s the start of every great project. For most, they would start asking AI how to start, the steps they should take, or if they foresee any user issues before even creating. While there are some points in a project where AI can start to help, the brainstorming session in the very beginning can’t be done by a computer. UX designers with experience know what user interfaces work the best, and what users are most comfortable with…something AI hasn’t seemed to grasp yet. What makes UX designers so important in product design is that they know the nuances of user behaviors, the importance of accessibility design, and the long-term implications of certain design decisions. 

“UX designers … reach senior-level positions because of their understanding of the business context and their ability to navigate organizational complexity and make informed judgment calls that shape human-centered product strategy. These capabilities are not only safe from AI disruption—they are becoming exponentially more valuable.” -Ken Olewiler

Employing a UX designer over a computer will always be superior. We understand how humans function, how they make decisions, and how to motivate customers to use our products. We have an advantage simply because we are one. Brands that convince us to download the app or buy the pasta with the fancy packaging is a skill learned by doing and participating. While AI can only give us solutions based on limited data, humans can create better results after hearing testimonies from users and understanding the why behind a decision. AI is there to help us perfect and put together a plan; but the better solutions will always come from the designers who understand the product and it’s purpose.   

Having Empathy Can’t be Replaced

UX design is a field where empathy matters. As Pavel Bukengolts said in his online article: We are expected to understand people, analyze them and their behaviors, to solve their problems. But for AI, understanding human emotions is impossible. They won’t be able to understand our frustrations or feelings, and therefore unable to create a useful product. That means more revisions, more updates, and plenty of complaints, and bad reviews. It’s up to us designers to make people feel seen and heard, and take into consideration their preferences, their abilities, and create products that improve their quality of life.  

Even though we have new AI features pop up in our design tools, and seen first hand how they make our process faster. A product built without empathy is a product that doesn’t meet the standards of most users. Designers can spot these accessibility issues, the biases, and predict future product feedback. All things that AI can’t fully comprehend. No one knows your product or consumers the way a designer or company does. AI won’t know what happened during user testing, or specific feedback from stakeholders. It won’t be able to incorporate this newfound data, without designers prompting it. This makes UX designers still very much needed in the creation process of these interfaces.  

Working Smarter

In this new age of AI, we shouldn’t be surprised that our jobs are changing. But we should learn to adapt to this change. We should absolutely use AI where we can; we just need to learn how to use it to our advantage. This may mean we can work on multiple stages of a project at once, create faster iterations of a design, or analyze user data quicker. But working as a UX designer in this challenging era, it’s important to remember our human qualities are what makes us stand out. Our thinking and problem solving is what keeps us at the top of the food chain. In fact, combining that with empathy proves that creating products for humans should be made by humans. Solving difficult design problems is where true creativity can shine, we just have to trust our own process over the machine.