Can AI make truly user friendly designs?

2023-04-04

I've been reading a lot of articles about people predicting that we will soon move to an era where people will have the ability to create unique pieces of software for specific occasions on demand. I have a few thoughts on how that might look and how we might be able to make it better, theoretically.

For the purpose of keeping this short, let's talk only in terms of UI.

It feels like there a common understanding that today's apps are "good" because people themselves are so used to the current UI conventions of modern digital products. Is a specific UI good because it is user-friendly and simple, or did it use UI conventions that people already know really well?

In my opinion, a good AI-generated UI is something that does not have to follow current conventions at all, but one that creates a unique interface that YOU will understand. A unique UI that does not force you to conform to certain UI conventions, but one that is made for how your brain truly works.

Whether it's using colors you are more receptive to in order to optimize hierarchy, or using certain layouts and images so that you don't run into confusion, a generative AI model that creates UI based on how you perceive the world will be truly user-friendly. I'm not sure how you would train an AI to understand a person's ability to perceive and solve problems in the world, but I have a few ideas we can discuss another time.

If people train AIs to create UI based on images and designs on the internet, from sources like Dribbble, Behance, Are.na, and etc., I'm afraid that every UI that's generated will all look like the same app using the same UX patterns over and over again. I don't think this is truly generative UI design nor user-friendly.

But hey, what do I know 🤷🏻