Take AI, Analytics and Automation Seriously

Note: This is Part 15 of the Ruminations for Aspiring Designers series.

AI Changes the Orientation of Designing

The scope of design is being subtly shifted by advanced analytics and applications of AI (Artificial Intelligence).

Designers of the future would be either designing AI systems or collaborating with AI systems to design other things.

Chances are, you’ll be designing synthetic realities.

Future designers simply wouldn’t be able to design most of the times without a solid understanding of AI.

Analytics Shifts the Practices of Designing

Analytics has already become an essential part of most businesses and, frankly, any effort that addresses open, complex, dynamic and networked problems.

With digital technologies and, as a result, the increasing interconnectedness, almost every problem has become or is becoming more open, complex, dynamic and networked.

Designers of the future would need to have much stronger skills on analysis and synthesis to deal with those kind of problems. Analytics is often where you start.

Automation Changes the Nature of the Design Profession

Automation is changing the nature of professional design work.

Just think about how much design system has changed the landscape of front-end design.

It’s already very clear that front-end design and likely front-end coding will be automated by AI or human-assisted AI. In a few narrow areas, that is already the case.

When platforms dominate, there tends to be little room for lower level design tasks such as graphics, UI, interaction, workflow and even experience.

Professional design would simply become more strategic, while a minority of designers designing and curating the platform standards.

If a future designer only knows how to use a single-purpose design tool, then I’m not sure that he’d be able to find a decent design job.

Whatever automation is eroding right now and in the future, it shouldn’t be your only trick of the trade.

When automation happens, the profession simply moves on.

So should you as a designer.

Why Wait?

Learn about AI, analytics and automation right now if you can. They comes handy even right now, and they will definitively be useful and even essential in the future of the design practices.

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