The general design vector in AI powered apps is either chat, or voice. That seems like bad news for designers. But I think it opens up an opportunity.
Imagine you’re on a busy bus. You’re in a waiting room. Your spouse is sleeping. Voice works in some scenarios, but it sure doesn’t work all the time. It doesn’t jive with how a lot of humans live and work.
Then, there is chat. If you think about it: text is the ultimate design system. We’ve come up with a system that allows us to convey a lot of—but not all—meaning by combining a very limited set of little drawings. And language models are incredibly good at generating interfaces on the fly that allow users to “do stuff” by sending these little drawings back and forth.
But text is also an incredibly cumbersome way to interact with computers. When was the last time you typed something on Instagram? It’s a billion dollar business model built around swipe, tap, swipe, double tap.
Text is a stopgap. Eventually, we’ll want shorthands again. We’ll want something visual. Perhaps even something tactile. The interface may be generated on the fly though. And this is where designers will shine once again. We’ll need people to think about new systems, new shorthand, new ways of communicating visually.
It’s a very exciting time to be a designer.