AI in UX Design: How designers can create intelligent user experiences

To create intuitive user experiences, understanding the users is the most important thing. The more data we gather on our users the better UX designs we can create. As technologies advance, gathering user data has become easier than ever before. Artificial intelligence and big data enable designers to create immersive experiences. AI in UX design creates a bigger scope for intuitive designs to encourage user interactions.

With smarter UX designs, brands empower their users to become more productive by making faster & better decisions. When incorporated in the right way, AI can transform the way users interact with digital products. To understand how AI impacts the user experience, it is imperative to know why intelligent designs are important.

In his blog, Gianluca Brugnoli explains smart user experiences as:

“A smart user experience is enhanced by sensors, connected things, AI algorithms and any other technology, that is able to listen, learn and adapt automatically in real-time following the users behaviour, their context and any other specific condition and rule, that influence the service delivery and outcome and, eventually, the experience itself.”

Intelligent user experiences boost user productivity which leads to higher user satisfaction. When users are satisfied, they are more likely to keep using your product for a longer time and may also recommend it to more users. This leads to faster growth for the business.

That said, let’s elaborate on how AI impacts the user experience.

Understanding the AI in UX Design

Using AI in UX design can immensely enhance the effectiveness of the design for its users. It uses big data from multiple sources to gather the information necessary to craft immersive user experiences more effectively.

Artificial intelligence can skyrocket user productivity by automating tasks and offering better personalization. All of it works to create a well-rounded user experience and increase user retention.

Below, I’ve listed the benefits of AI in UX design.

Benefits of Implementing AI in UX Design

AI technology has its uses in multiple fields & industries. For user experience, artificial intelligence can help designers complete the repetitive tasks necessary for completing a design project.

AI can improve the following aspects of UX design:

• Personalization — AI gathers and analyses user data to offer robust product & content recommendations based on user behaviour & preferences.
• Predictive Modelling — Helps predict user behaviour and decision-making to enhance UX design.
• Adaptive Learning — Analyses user behaviour to learn & adapt to fit individual user requirements.
• Natural Language Processing — Increase accessibility & usability by incorporating conversational interactions through voice commands.

Having said that, a UX designer must take ethical concerns and data bias into consideration while using AI for UX design.

AI gathers information from the data fed to it. This data is not fool-proof and may contain bias which will eventually reflect in the results offered by the technology.

Now that we have understood the importance of using AI in designing user experiences and its advantages, let’s see how you can incorporate various AI tools & techniques into your designs.

How can AI be used for UX Design?

Artificial intelligence or AI can assist UI/UX designers in multiple ways. In this section, we will discuss how different aspects of AI technology can be incorporated into creating interactive & immersive user experiences.

Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) along with Machine Learning (ML) can understand complex user queries easily to offer better results. Furthermore, these results will keep improving over time with more user queries to offer a better user experience.

NLP processes users’ voice commands to increase interaction and understand user intent. To incorporate NLP technology into your platform, the popular way is to implement chatbots, voice assistants, and conversational interfaces. NLP helps users interact with the platform using their voices. This increases the accessibility of the platform as well.

However, when it comes to language processing, people have different voices and accents which affects the efficiency of the results the user gets. The more diversely trained an NLP model is, the better results it will offer.

Computer Vision & Image Recognition

E-commerce brand Myntra added a feature for image search on its platform. It empowered users to find and purchase the clothes & accessories they see around them. This is a classic example of using image recognition AI technique to offer a seamless product finding & purchase experience for online shopping customers.

Another example of this is the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in Lenskart’s online shopping app to enable users to find the perfect frame for their faces.

In both the above examples, user personalization increases with the use of computer vision and image recognition AI techniques. Computer vision allows the device to comprehend the environment the user is in. For example, in the case of Lenskart, the app or website uses computer vision to understand a user’s facial features and with AR, it shows glasses exactly where the user’s eyes are allowing the user to understand how a product will look on them.

Image recognition, on the other hand, uses data to recognize images captured or uploaded by users to find products that match. It takes into account multiple elements like colour, style, pattern, etc. This again, is based on the data fed to the AI.

Much like NLP, image recognition & computer vision can improve your platform’s accessibility & usability encouraging more users to convert.

AI-Driven Content Generation and Personalization

If you know that a person is more into suits & blazers, recommending similar products can increase their chances of purchase. With the use of AI in UX design, you can do that on a much larger scale.

AI gathers user data such as purchase history, viewed products, and customer wishlists to recommend relevant products to your users. It helps them to find similar products to assist them in making better purchasing decisions and faster checkouts.

But that is only for e-commerce platforms. AI helps personalise user experience on other platforms as well by offering them content & services that meet their needs.

The best example of AI-driven content personalization is the Discover feature of Google. It analyses each individual user’s online behaviour, their preferred news & insights websites, the topics they follow, and similar other data to recommend content that the user might be interested in.

When people get the content they are interested in, they’ll spend more time on the platform which may eventually lead to increased conversions for your business.

User Research and User Testing with AI

As we have already mentioned, AI technology uses user data to help create hyper-elaborate user personas. Furthermore, since AI accesses data from across the globe, it can easily offer you insights from a much larger user base than regular user research data.

UX designers can make use of AI technology to create & test wireframes & prototypes while saving time on these repetitive tasks.

AI can help understand the positive or negative user sentiments in texts like reviews, answers, and feedback. It can also be used in analysing user feedback across multiple channels like surveys, interviews, and group discussions.

Furthermore, AI can extract valuable insights by tracking user behaviour during testing and research. All the data & insights gathered like this can be used to create super-intuitive user experiences that successfully retain users and convert them into paying customers.

Till now, we discussed how AI can be helpful in UX design, however, while using artificial intelligence, one needs to ensure that the use is transparent to the audience and takes accountability for its ethical concerns.

How to Ensure Fair use of AI in UX Design?

Using Explainable AI in UX Design

People do not trust the things they don’t understand. With a complex technology like AI, it is easier to lose consumer trust if the users do not know how your design is coming up with the results. This is especially crucial in fields like medicine & finance. Since people’s lives & earnings are on the line, they are more cautious about trusting any AI-driven platform.

Advanced AI often uses algorithms and calculation processes that are harder (read: impossible) to comprehend or interpret by its users. These processes are called “Black boxes”. Black boxes are created directly from the data received by the AI and hence even the engineers have a hard time comprehending how the AI reached a result it did.

The goal of Explainable AI (XAI) is to help users understand the AI algorithms to create transparency and easier interpretability in AI-driven UX designs. Some techniques to ensure explainable AI are:

• Continuous AI model evaluation — Comparing AI data, insights, and results with the previous models and the changes made to create the new one.
• Using KPIs for AI risks — Evaluating key performance indicators like fairness, bias, data protection, privacy compliance, and comprehension to improve XAI. After all, UX designers & developers will be accountable for the system’s behaviour.
• Ensure quality data to train AI models — AI generates results from the data it is fed on. Hence, it is imperative to provide quality data that aligns with the data it is expected to run on. For example, if the AI is trained with the Japanese language processing it will not comprehend voice commands given in Indian languages and may produce inaccurate results.

AI in Multimodal Interfaces

AI in multimodal interfaces refers to the integration of artificial intelligence techniques and technologies in user interfaces that support multiple modes of interaction. A multimodal interface combines different input modalities, such as voice, gestures, touch, and vision, allowing users to interact with a system using various sensory channels simultaneously or interchangeably.

When we apply AI to multimodal interfaces, it enhances the system’s ability to understand and respond to user inputs across different modalities. With respect to the above-mentioned AI techniques, here’s how AI can be utilised in multimodal interfaces:

• Natural language processing — NLP allows users to interact with the system through voice commands, text input, or a combination of both. AI helps in speech recognition, language understanding, and generating appropriate responses.
• Computer vision — AI algorithms can detect and track user gestures or actions, allowing users to interact with the system through touchless gestures or hand motions.
• Context awareness — By leveraging machine learning algorithms, the system can analyse user behaviours, preferences, and environmental factors to adapt its responses or provide personalised experiences. For example, the system can adapt its behaviour based on the user’s location, time of day, or previous interactions.
• Intent recognition — Analysing user inputs across different modalities, the system can infer the user’s intentions and respond accordingly.
• Adaptive learning — Through machine learning algorithms, the system can adapt its behaviour, recommendations, or responses based on user preferences and historical data.

By incorporating AI into multimodal interfaces, systems become more intelligent, context-aware, and capable of understanding and responding to user inputs from multiple modalities. This enhances the user experience, allowing for more natural and intuitive interactions and opening up possibilities for innovative and personalised user interfaces.

FAQs about AI in UX Design

Is there AI for UI/UX design?

Yes. Software like Figma and Adobe Photoshop uses AI plugins to help simplify UI/UX design creation processes.

Can AI replace UX designers?

While the topic is quickly gaining momentum, it is hard to say that AI would replace a creative and empathetic designer. AI can help gather data, draw useful insights, and in UX testing.

What is the future of AI in UX design?

As AI technology advances, UX designers can create hyper-personalised user experiences. With natural language processing, more intellectual conversations and results can be made possible. With contextual understanding, AI will be able to offer more accurate results relevant to your surroundings. The possibilities are endless.

Conclusion

With constant advancements in artificial intelligence, AI is transforming the way we get our work done, the way we interact with digital products, and the way we create new things. By implementing AI in UX design, designers can not only simplify their work but also offer intelligent user experiences to their audiences.

Having said that, it is also critical to ensure fair AI usage to reduce bias, improve results, and increase user trust.

Want to know how you can offer smart user experiences to your customers? Schedule a quick consultation call with us to know more.

I come from a Psychology and hospitality background which made me work closely with people and understand the nuances and ways of dealing with diferent individuals and I consider that my biggest strength. My previous roles have given me the opportunity and exposure to be involved in a bit of everything- Finance, BD, and general management. I am a dogophile and a cleanliness freak and I love to dance!

Originally published at https://www.yellowslice.in on August 30, 2023.