the wizard of Oz
design patterns for the age of AI Product Design, OpenAI being an attention *bleep* and AI decreasing conversions
Welcome back, brat. Last week was a rollercoaster of a week for AI, and today’s musings reflect that. As always, share your thoughts and recommendations in the comments or directly to hello@jelenacolak.com
Current Learning Phase: Research and Information Absorption
Educational Resources
Last week I shared the UX of AI website as one of the educational resources in this section. What I like most about it is how the website itself outlines 16 design principles but then under each includes more links for further learning and research. In attempt to make this learning process a little more community oriented, I started a special study chat for everyone to join in each week.
Last week’s homework was to take a look at the first AIX principle and share what other resources we’ve all stumbled across in our readings and research related to the principle. I’m extending the first principle homework and discussion to this week as well, so please join in and share questions, thoughts, and useful links in the chat.
In the meantime here’s what I found:
Wizard of OZ User Research Method
In my readings for our first tech brat homework assignment, I stumbled upon the concept of the Wizard of OZ Usability Test. It’s a great way to test your ML system for possible gaps in design of the recommendation system. It is done as part of a moderated usability test where one team member facilitates the test, while the other acts as the system in the background, giving back results based on the test user’s interactions. I’m pretty sure I’ve done something of the sort in one of my first UX college classes.
Designing Machine Learning Systems
This is the first time I am featuring a book on the list, and a technical book might I add. Since I just bought it last week, there aren’t many insights I can add right now. However, I’m mentioning it here in case there is someone that might find interest in it as much as I did. In order to be able to design products, there is a certain degree to which you need to understand how they are built. This is the case for Machine Learning Systems as well. Anyone who tells you otherwise is giving you bad advice. This book seems to have the perfect blend of technical and strategic information that helps big picture thinking, and if you are thinking about designing some type of AI based product, what type of system you need to build. Looking forward to diving deeper into this book and share what I’ve learned.
Five UX Principles for Designing AI Models
It was refreshing to find a publication that focuses on the same POV I’m focusing on with my writing.
writes where a lot of his content is bridging the gap between UX/UI Design and AI. This article takes a look at some familiar design principles and helps us adapt them for the new era of products.Interesting Opinion Pieces
Research shows customers don’t trust AI
An interesting discussion popped up in the Reddit UX Design community the other day - the true effect of AI implementation not on just user experience but customer experience. Consequently, that thread led me to this link from Marketing Dive. I’m not surprised consumers are skeptical.
First, a lot of people do not understand the technology, yet businesses and people in tech that do completely disregard that. Consumers haven’t been introduced to AI properly, and if it’s a bit of a scary thing for us in tech how can it not be to an average Joe? Second, most AI experiences suck. I talk about that all the time.
Just this past Sunday I was on GoDaddy trying to get an agent to talk to me through their chat, and it took me a little bit of effort to bypass the annoying chat bot. Not to mention how many times a day Meta AI starts messaging me on Instagram to my dismay. I keep reiterating how our approach is all wrong - we keep trying to implement AI into existing workflows when really we should be reimagining workflows with AI as the system supporting them. I’m trying to think of ways to start spreading this message more strategically, stay tuned for whatever I come up with.
Make your life easier
New Notion AI can help visualize flows
The first time I’m seeing AI potentially taking away some aspects of my jobs is this example of Notion AI creating a diagram purely from the user’s existing content in the platform. It doesn’t worry me. On the contrary, it shows how there might be some unexplored ways to tap into this product and streamline current processes. When creating large products, there is miles and miles of information about the product written in requirement docs. If you were to stick those requirement docs into Notion, it could save not just designers time but also PMs. I can see it helping with gathering all complex requirements and creating a first pass design for certain flows, or maybe even the IA for an entire platform. Time will tell, but I degfinitely suggest logging onto Notion AI and checking it out!
News You Shouldn’t Miss
Last week felt like the most insane AI news cycle ever. Maybe it was because I was watching it very closely and in tune with the reactions on X. Either way, lots of interesting developments that have me on the edge of my seat.
OpenAI Developments
Monday: Sam Altman publishes his Intelligence Age essay and Tech Twitter’s reactions are mostly along the lines of “forget founder mode, bro is in god mode,” and not in a… inspiring way.
Tuesday: OpenAI announces rollouts of Advanced Voice. I have yet to check it out because I myself have been slow to accept ChatGPT and am still getting friendly with it. I also was never a big voice command girl, but of course I will put some time aside to try it out and report back.
Wednesday: OpenAIs CTO Mira Murati announces she is stepping down and a few hours later we hear that OpenAI is considering giving Sam Altman a 7% equity stake in the company and restructuring to become a for-profit business. My inkling is that this has something to do with that Jony Ive project. 🕵🏻♀️
In other news…
Meta gives us a glimpse of their Orion glasses and Zuck talks about how he can see glasses become what the smartphone became to a computer - not a complete replacement of technology, but a leader in devices we use in our everyday lives.
Notion launches its newly improved AI, which you were porbably aware of by now if you read the “Make your life easier” section of this letter. 😉
In another universe…
Not a lot from the other universes this week. Ya girl was too focused on AI topics to even notice if anything else is going on.
Got beef?
Feel free to send hate mail directly to hello@jelenacolak.com.