Evolving design: Embracing change in the age of AI
BITSDES Editorial Team · January 26, 2024
Evolving design: Embracing change in the age of AI
BITSDES Editorial Team · January 26, 2024
From the dawn of the industrial revolution to the digital age, every technological breakthrough has seen a mix of awe and apprehensions. The reason being our resistance to change. Moreover, we are so overwhelmed by the perceived threats of the upgrade that we overlook the benefits.
Let us address the latest entrant in the realm - Artificial Intelligence. It brings predictive algorithms, natural language understanding, and incredible creativity. Quite impressive! Yet, it raises concerns that it will displace jobs, replace humans, raise concerns about ethics, privacy and possible misuse, and more.
But just as we’ve harnessed every invention to enhance our lives, we hope Artificial Intelligence will follow the same path of progress through responsible focus on human needs. In this situation of uncertainty, the best course of action at an individual level is to learn how to make the best use of the technology.
How is AI revolutionising the world of Design?
This is not a contest between Designer and Machine. Rather, AI serves as your ever-present, ever-eager brainstorming partner. It is your team mate who can throw up logo options in a jiffy, or be that savvy analyst to recommend the best resources for secondary research and reading. All with just the right set of prompts!
How is AI being used as a tool by designers?
The advent of this creative revolution is here to push forward speed, efficiency, and innovation, allowing designers to create impactful work across all design disciplines.
- 1. Stay fast, stay curious: for a good design solution to any problem that needs solving, understanding, insights and empathy are key ingredients. AI can help with the research to help uncover these. It can also be an ally informing you of the current trends, challenges, and design solutions for similar situations.
- 2. Get Quick answers: What is the best angle for an ergonomic chair? What is the density of a particular material you are working with? AI can help with responses that are fast and (usually) accurate.
- 3. Find your partner in creativity: AI tools like DALL-E and Adobe Sensei and Firefly are like creative collaborators, at your beck and call. They help designers break creative blocks, explore countless design avenues, and generate unique concepts, all leading to innovative solutions in record time.
- 4. Level up design power: Features like AI-powered fill tools, text-to-image generation, and object removal empower designers to effortlessly elevate their work. They allow everything to be optimised with ease, be it colours, contrast, or exposure.
How can you, as a designer, fully utilise the advantages of AI?
Using AI intelligently involves leveraging the technology to enhance your creativity, improve efficiency, and derive inspiration to deliver innovative solutions. Here are some strategies to use AI effectively and responsibly:
- 1. Embrace it as a powerful collaborator
- 2. Automate tedious tasks for efficiency
- 3. Experiment and identify your preferred set of AI tools
- 4. Keep discovering new tools to push your boundaries
- 5. Treat AI suggestions as your starting point and give it your unique creative touch
- 6. Take advantage of the insightful data that AI dishes out to take your design to the next level
- 7. Practise the skill of crafting prompts and parameters to get the most out of them
What are some of the leading AI tools that boost your efficiency, spark creative exploration, and enhance your design process?
1. DALL-E (by OpenAI):
A powerful AI system that turns your imagination into high-quality images. All you need to do is key in a well-crafted, descriptive prompt.
2. Midjourney:
Just like DALL-E, this amazing text-to-image AI surprises its users by creating out-of-this-world visuals, quite literally!
3. Figma with Magician Plugin:
This AI assistant allows you to put your efforts purely on the creative side of design by automating repetitive tasks like generating mockups or data charts.
4. Autodesk Runway:
This video editing tool helps you expedite your work by automating tasks such as removing a background, tracking objects for seamless effects, and auto-correcting colours, and more.
5. UXtweak:
Consider this to be your AI detective that assists you with user behaviour analysis. It uses AI to give you heatmaps and recordings and other important insights to understand user journeys and pain points.
