I’ve been privileged to work with Jennifer Sukis on a podcast about AI, aptly named AI Zen with Andrew and Jen. We combine Jen’s design expertise with my AI expertise and talk about the intersection of AI and design as a way to bridge the gap between these two disciplines as well as to learn about what goes on outside our regular comfort zone activities.
While Jen and I work on our next batch of episodes, I wanted to take the time to call out our previous episodes and some of my favorite parts of each one.
Episode 1: Starting Your AI Project
We started by trying to separate hype from reality when it comes to AI. What is AI and what makes it better than whatever we had before? We discuss the pressures designers and architects have to “sprinkle in some AI” as a solution seeking a problem. We identify places where AI makes a lot of sense to use and where it does not make sense to use.
We explore why designers should care about if their next project will use AI – how does the design practice change when using AI versus not using AI? AI solutions still require design and we cover all of the practices that still make sense when AI is in the picture. We also discuss some special considerations added because AI is being used.
Episode 3: Oh no, AI mistakes!
Here we discuss that all AI systems make mistakes and how careful design thought needs to be put into how we deal with them. We talk about how we define mistakes, define different kinds of mistakes and how we measure them, and how we must think about which kinds of mistakes are worse than others depending on the use case.
Episode 4: A wee bit about model maintenance
We discuss what happens when you put your first AI solution into production and why this is not the last step. We include what the maintenance phase of AI solutions look like, who needs to participate, what they need to do, and how much time it will take.
Episode 5: Can Data and Design come together?
We go back to an initial goal of bringing AI and Design experts together in harmony. We talk about the typical processes and “day in the life” of AI and Design experts and find a lot of common ground. We find that we have different terminology for similar concepts but we’re heartened by what we have in common and pledge to use empathy when we don’t understand each other.
Episode 6: Data Drives Research, Drives Design, Drives Data
We interview Keith Vertrees, a designer with experience leading AI projects, and learn about his philosophies. We deep dive on all things user research: how do user research (and how to do it for AI), what to do with the research results, and success stories where user research saved the day. We surface the key insight of spending the bulk of your time identifying the problem before building a solution.
Coming soon:
Stay tuned for future podcasts including our spooky Halloween episode! Subscribe to AI Zen with Andrew and Jen on your favorite podcast platform and send us comments or show suggestions on our LinkedIn or Twitter pages!
