Yes, AI is Coming for Your Design Job: How Designers Can Adapt and Thrive
TL;DR
While AI will soon replace many traditional design skills, future designers can remain valuable by focusing on taste-making, curiosity-driven research, and design-thinking methodologies.
The Current Design Landscape
In 2024, the design industry is in the middle of a major transformation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly advancing, promising to revolutionize the way we approach design work. To understand the implications of this shift, let's first examine the current state of the design market.
Today, many companies seek a specific archetype for their design teams. These individuals, often titled senior, lead, or staff product designers in the digital realm, are prized for their technical skills and deep product knowledge. They're the key drivers of output, valued primarily for their skills in design tools of the moment. A strong, polished portfolio showcasing these skills is the foundational task for all designers looking for work in the current market.
The AI Disruption
However, this landscape is about to change dramatically. In the next two years, if not sooner, AI-powered tools will be capable of replicating many of these production skills. Generative AI will level the playing field, making "good enough" design accessible without the need for years of technical training.
This shift creates a dilemma: the skills most valued in design roles today will soon become obsolete. So how can designers navigate this new AI-driven world and continue to provide value?
Three Paths Forward for Designers
Designers can navigate this AI-driven future by focusing on three key areas:
1. Mastery of Design Fundamentals
Emphasize the significance of design craft, including the foundations of color, typography, grids, and the gestalt principles of perception. Many designers, even in senior roles, may have neglected these fundamentals in their practice. In the future, the most valuable skill will be serving as an arbiter of taste who can effectively prompt, evaluate, and iterate on AI-generated output.
Example: A designer might use their deep understanding of color theory to guide an AI tool in creating a visually harmonious user interface, then apply their expertise to refine and perfect the AI's output.
2. Embrace User Research
Although UX researchers have faced challenges in recent market corrections, their contributions will become more crucial than ever. Taste alone cannot determine the best solutions without a detailed understanding of user pain points, areas of satisfaction, and the economic impact of design choices on the business.
Example: A designer could conduct in-depth user interviews to uncover nuanced pain points in a product, then use this insights to guide AI in generating targeted design solutions that address specific user needs.
3. Understand AI-Driven Interactions
Gain a deep understanding of how AI will fundamentally change users' interactions with software. From initial input to output, multimodal interactions, iteration, and refinement, today's AI interfaces are still a series of disconnected solutions. Applied correctly and in collaboration with subject matter experts, design thinking frameworks can help integrate these elements into cohesive user experiences.
Example: A designer might use design thinking methodologies to reimagine a traditional form-based interface as a conversational AI interaction, considering how users might provide information through text, voice, or even gestures.
Conclusion
While traditional production skills may become less valuable, adaptable designers can contribute to this new landscape. By focusing on taste-making, research-driven insights, and innovative approaches to AI-human interaction, designers can continue to meaningfully shape the future of user experiences.
As we move forward, the most successful designers will embrace these changes, continuously learning and evolving their skills to complement, rather than compete with, AI capabilities.
Written by a human. Edited with AI.
Further reading and watching that inspired this article.
The Era of Abstraction & New Creative Tensions by Scott Belsky
The Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” Workflows by Olivia Moore
Outcome-Driven UX Metrics by Jared Spool
Design Craft Guides by Erin Malone are a wonderful collection of books to give you a refresher on the foundational components of design craft.
