Insights from Blink UX Leadership Exchange
Last night, I attended a panel discussion hosted by Blink UX on leadership in UX during the AI explosion. Two of the quotes that stuck with me the most were:
1. The importance, now more than ever, to be able to articulate and defend why a design works.
As rapid prototyping tools make it easier for everyone to produce design artifacts, what sets designers apart is our expertise when it comes to quality, human psychology, and understanding of what works and why. Being able to understand, explain, and defend a design rather than saying "AI said so" is crucial. Not only is this a crucial skill for designers trying to earn a seat at the table, but it is also something they can do better than AI. Being able to understand and articulate what good looks like will set designs and businesses apart from the homogeneous AI-generated styles we are increasingly seeing.
2. High-fidelity design leads to low-fidelity feedback
Ben Shown shared the statement "low-fidelity design leads to high-fidelity feedback. And the opposite is true for high-fidelity design. Meaning, when we share an artifact that looks polished and "final", people are more hesitant to share feedback, feeling like the design is too far along for a pivot in thinking. Also, seeing something polished limits diverse thinking because people become anchored to the presented design. Conversely, if we show a sketch or a wireframe to communicate our thinking, it communicates that we are early in our process and open to ideas. It also allows people to be more interpretive about what's presented to them and to share how they think it could evolve, which may be a more interesting approach than you or AI might have taken.
One designer on my team has intentionally trained Claude to create black-and-white prototypes with limited fidelity for this reason. It helps focus stakeholder feedback on the concept rather than getting locked into or distracted by the visual treatment. It also helps communicate that the project is still in the early stages and not all the details have been set.
It is interesting to see how some AI tools are starting to create tools to address this. I was delighted to see the wireframe option in Figma's First Draft tool, which lets you create an intentionally sketchy-looking mockup with prompting. As Figma describes, it is an option "to help you sketch out less opinionated, lo-fi primitives." It gave me flashbacks to the days of Balsamic, which was often used for similar reasons.
Final thoughts
My big takeaway from the discussion was that the UX profession will need to evolve, but we possess a unique set of skills that will set us up for success in this evolving approach to rapid product development. A few of the panelists enforced this idea, saying:
"Designers are faster problem solvers and better able to able to see opportunities" ~ Celeste Bernard
"Big thinkers with good judgment and the ability to collaborate will do well." ~ Bill Flora