How AI Is Changing Product Design
Product designers must continue to create diversified and personalized work as the times change. This shift calls for elevated creativity at its core. Enter Artificial intelligence (AI), which can offer solutions beyond what one may consider on their own.
Recent progress in the field of AI is streamlining every aspect of design. Its capabilities are staggering, and creatives across the globe have some burning (and warranted) questions. Perhaps the most fundamental is, how will AI change product design?
The answer is a complex one. The global AI market is valued at $100 million—expected to grow to nearly $2 trillion by 2030. Like many other industries and professions, AI and product design will become inextricably linked. Product design is a creative process, and AI is intrinsically the opposite. However, designers are finding new ways of integrating AI's many usages into their creative process, saving time—and paradoxically—elevating their creativity by focusing more of their brain power on the visionary aspects.
Understanding AI in the Design Process
AI is a tool we can use to our advantage for doing things like rendering prototypes or personalizing experiences based on data sets. Working with AI is like collaborating with a new co-worker. You might be uncertain initially, but once you realize how much they can help, the prospect becomes exciting rather than tentative.
UX designers can customize the user experience by using AI to determine the user's location, history, mood, age, and gender. Using AI tools can also speed up the design process by scanning massive amounts of data on successful products to refine current iterations, suggest alternatives, and comment on how the changes would impact user engagement.
When you streamline the mundane, you can focus on high-level creative work. Refining products and streamlining laborious tasks is one thing. Even so, because a product's appearance and the meaning behind it are key attributes of its appeal, it is essential that designers continue to use AI with intention and clarity and consider the elements that only humans can provide.
Can AI Revolutionize Product Design?
Embracing AI tools is a necessity for modern designers as it is already revolutionizing design. As a tool, AI can impact every phase of the design process, from conceptual design to the finished product. In many ways, AI tools go beyond augmenting the design process, playing a crucial role in connecting products with consumers. Some of the primary ways AI is revolutionizing product design include:
Accurate market predictions: AI can be used to predict how a product will perform on the market by, collecting and analyzing vast customer data. Take it a step further, and it helps designers understand the target market on a deeper, more personal level, through identifying patterns in their moods, needs, and future goals.
Enhanced iteration speeds: Iteration has been a necessary evil in the past—a somewhat laborious approach to continuous improvement. If we lose ourselves in mockups and prototypes, the world moves on. AI can shorten rendering time from months to hours, allowing designers to push creative boundaries and identify flaws quickly and accurately.
Streamlined customer feedback: Structured, numerical data is valuable because it is easy to use. AI has made unstructured data just as usable. With generative AI, you can take customer feedback, scattered across your website and social media, centralize it, and structure it into a format that helps you understand the motivations behind the feedback you receive. Product design has always been collaborative, and AI's ability to turn qualitative feedback into actionable data points is impactful.
Redefined software interactions: AI can assist us as designers and elevate us as professionals. Much of recent product design has depended on our ability to work with a specific product suite. AI can level the playing field, limiting the need for training with product experts and providing alternatives through chat-based interfaces.
Elevated creativity: First-generation AI was about inputting parameters and letting the machine apply them to data. Now, AI goes beyond the "what" and understands the "how" of product design. AI models are beginning to understand the thinking behind what we create, allowing us to elevate our creativity and explore what's possible.
The Benefits of Integrating AI in Product Design
If AI has accomplished anything in recent years, it has disrupted previous conventions of what we believed was possible. If you're an experienced designer, you're likely skeptical about disrupting workflows. If you're a budding design student, you've no doubt been examining AI in terms of your career choices and higher education. It's a watershed moment for creatives, and both mindsets are entirely understandable. Either way, it's important to recognize AI’s many attributes which include:
Efficiency and productivity: Automating repetitive tasks leaves you free to innovate. AI can eliminate the labor-intensive side of creating art. A computer does the heavy lifting, bringing your vision to life in a fraction of the time.
Data-driven insights: Until now, identifying a need has been somewhat subjective. As AI can process massive amounts of data and identify trends invisible to the human eye. This allows you to make informed decisions about meeting users' needs.
Testing and simulation: Real-world test failures are expensive. The phrase "back to the drawing board" jumps to mind. AI exists as a virtual environment to test and elevate your designs in the conceptual phase. As a result, you can understand how your product will interact with other products or systems before investing time and resources in the production phase.
Will AI Replace Designers?
Creatives worldwide have pondered whether their talents will become obsolete in the wake of AI. The short answer is no—designers will not be replaced by AI. It's a revolutionary tool, but like any tool, it has limitations. AI can replicate thought but falls short of replacing humans in creativity. Humans are still better at aesthetics, and we have an advantage that computers don't (in fact, more than one).
Thinking of AI as augmented intelligence can be helpful. Working with AI is inevitable, and designers must find ways to use it to complement their potential while also not relying on it as it can produce generic outputs. Ultimately, designers must continue to interpret and create.
Working With AI for Product Design
Familiarizing yourself with using AI for product design is a smart move. Whether you're a working designer or a design student, start experimenting with AI tools in your design context, identifying opportunities to augment your work and spark creativity. Remember, AI is there to help you focus on innovations, so think about where it can help your team.
Potential Challenges With AI Tools
Like any groundbreaking technology, AI faces some challenges as the world adapts. The more data you give AI, the more it learns. In a design context, this means training it on other artists' work, which has already resulted in some legal conflicts. Another roadmap to navigate is the issue of trust. Users may be slow to adopt products heavily influenced by AI because they are concerned about the product’s reliability.
Collecting and using personal data is also an ethical issue that requires careful management. Designers must be mindful of obtaining the appropriate permissions and safeguarding sensitive information against harmful data breaches. Finally, there is an issue of bias and discrimination. AI is trained on existing data, which means the potential for perpetuating—or even amplifying—bias, leading to an unfair or discriminatory experience for specific user groups.
Find Unique Creative Experiences and Embrace the Future of Design
AI is here to stay. Despite the challenges, it presents a unique opportunity for designers to hone their skills and focus on innovating. For every roadblock, AI could create a new opportunity to meet society's evolving needs. One thing is clear—we need to work with AI to secure a place in the future of product design.