Designing Beyond the Chatbot

[Music] Hello and welcome to the Boeing World Show, the longest running web design podcast where we look at user experience design, commercial optimization and working in the web. But on this month's show, we're going to be talking to Josh Clark and Veronica Kindred about their new book and the role of the designer in the age of AI. My name is Paul Barich and joining me is always his marker. Hello, marker. Say you're doing. Hi Paul. I'm very well as I was just saying before we got, I'm not going to say much on this episode. So, bye. I mean, how rubbish is that? No, that's not true and I'll have to interrupt at every minute. Well, you've started the show by taking up most of the talking by saying that's normal. That's normal. How does that work? So, let's talk about, well, we're talking to people who actually want to talk to me then, which is Veronica and Josh nice to have you both on. Josh, you've been on before at some point back in probably 1975, something like that, I would have thought. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I think maybe, or maybe 10 years ago when we were both white, I guess, 15 or 16 years old, when we were very young. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Veronica, you've got the dubious privilege of being on the show for the first time. It's lovely to have you here. It's so nice to be here. Thank you so much, guys. We also don't plan to talk very much today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. It wouldn't be the first time on this show. It's just been me talking for 40, 45 minutes. It's really longer sometimes. I do love the sound of my own voice. But anyway, so we're going to be talking about sensual design. I loved this title. It felt very sci-fi and slightly dystopian like design is going to take over the world, which I'm quite up for really in a positive way. But can you give people a bit of an introduction to the book and how it came about and who you had in mind when you were writing it? Sorry, that's three questions in run. I'm rubbish. First of all, the first person I think to say ever that you love the titles. So that's an honor privilege for you. And I also see Marcus shaking his head about design taking over the world. So I think this is going to be a great conversation. I've got no problem with design taking over the world. I have got no problem with AI really either. I just do it to wind up pull. I think this is a fascinating subject. I've read up a little bit before we got on the show. But the idea of using AI, because I think I've already started talking when I said I wouldn't. The idea of AI being used for this is my interpretation of the right things, the right design jobs, if you like, makes a lot of sense. And I think we're going further than interface design today. I might. Yeah. So anyway, I've already taken out your response for on. I'll let you talk. So tell us about the book for all. What is it? What's it cover? And who is it meant to be for? Right. A centennial design is really about using AI as a design material. There's been a lot of talk in the industry about tooling and how to make people's processes faster, more efficient, better, and not really about the new kinds of things we can make because of the technological advancement of AI or rather LLMs in the past couple of years. And it's really for anyone that touches web design, whether it's designers, developers, product people, anyone who is interested in kind of ushering in this new era of dare I say centennial design. Yeah. I mean, you're picking up on that Veronica and Marcus on something that you were saying too. I'm sort of like using it for the right thing. I think there's like a lot of anxiety and uncertainty right now about what AI does to design and that and the kind of current fascination with how do we use it as in our tools and about speed and it's all about production. No, get me wrong. Production is important. How we make things is important, but I would argue it's not as important as the product. Let's link it product over production. What we can make instead of how we can make. And I'm not saying that how we make things, like I said, is unimportant. But man, we can make things now that weren't possible before. And all that really matters in the end is what we deliver to our customers and what happens next. What can AI enable as a material as Veronica was saying that we couldn't do before. We've been talking for decades about adaptive interfaces and personalization and we haven't really had the technology to do it. What becomes possible now? Centennial design is the practice. We're really trying to establish a practice of creating intelligent interfaces, which are experiences that are that have the awareness and the agency to respond to the user in the moment, to make design decisions in the moment based on the rules and guidelines that we as the designer provide. And it is exciting. I am excited. Like in my 30 years of doing this, this is the most excited I've been about the creative opportunity for design. And I think that a lot of people are missing that opportunity and are rightfully anxious about what does this do to design. If you pivot to what you can do with AI for design, it becomes this remarkable, elevating experience instead of replacing it. The idea that Veronica mentioned of a design material, treating AI as a design material, really resonated with me when I first heard it because it made me think back to the very, very early days of the web where the designers who were moving into the field were basically print designers. So they'd spent decades designing for a particular medium, that of paper and print and all of the rules and conventions existed around that. And that as we moved into the web, we were having to adapt to a new interface at the time of new material that at the time was very restrictive compared to the material we were used to working with in before. And then we came out of that. And there was a period of time where there was a big debate about does a designer need to know code, right? And the big argument that I always made is yes, you do because you need to understand the medium in which you're working, which is exactly the same with anything. If you're a painter, the way that you paint with oils versus watercolors, worse, worse, you know, acrylics or anything else is totally different. And so the medium that you're working in is incredibly important. And although admittedly all of this makes us sound a little bit pretentious, I think, it is really true that once you understand the nature and the capabilities of the medium you're working in, that's when you really start to unlock its full potential. You discover what it can't do, but you also discover what it can do. And that I think is one of the big problems I'm seeing at the moment amongst designers, because like you say, a lot of people are afraid of AI, which I totally get and I totally understand I remember feeling the same way as a graphic designer when desktop publishing came along and everybody said that I'd be out of a job because there was desktop publishing there now and people could do it themselves. But equally, I think once you start exploring it's a new medium, that's when it gets really exciting. And that seems to be what you've been driving at in the book. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, absolutely. And I love the metaphor with the painter and the painting. I think that's great. That's exactly how I think of it as well. I think there's not like if you want to be a master designer in 2026, there is absolutely no excuse not to use AI. It doesn't mean you have to use it in everything. Rather, there's no excuse not to know how to use AI. It has to be a choice and you can't make a choice out of ignorance. I think a lot of the people who are not engaging with the new material, like we're saying, it has to do a fear and anxiety, really well deserved and well earned fear and anxiety. But that doesn't mean that it's a smart choice to ignore it altogether. I think especially when there's so many jobs at stake, the future of design is at stake. So I think the more that we engage with the material, the more we're able to make choice and decisions just like you're saying. I was thinking I'd disagree with you Veronica. You said that you can't make a choice out of ignorance. I have made a very good career out of making choices out of complete ignorance of the subject. Sorry, John. But you've learned from those choices, haven't you, Paul? Yeah, yeah. That learned from failure. Yeah, absolutely. God, John. Well, I do think that both of, you know, what Paul, you and Veronica are both saying really is a, is it a common tension at moments where we have a new design paradigm and a new material. You know, it's like the kind of dislike that we're seeing or distrust for the new thing is 100% natural if it threatens what you knew before. And if it comes from a place that you distrust, which I mean, let's be honest, like the big models and the people who are running on the company and the people behind them, there is some sketchy decisions being made here, right? So like all of that makes sense. Yeah. And yet, it also can be really powerful when used in the right way. And I think, you know, Veronica, you were just getting started not in your career, but in your life during the era that Paul was just talking about of this move into the web for design. And a lot of people didn't like it, right? A lot of people said the web. It's not going to be a big deal. The design medium is stunted. And I think that really the opportunity is to shift how we think it's like, right, it's not for what we made before. And if you try to jam what we do now into that new medium, try to use that same material, you're going to be disappointed. And you see it now, right? It's like, AI is weird. It is different from traditional computing. You know, it's like, it won't give you the same answer twice. It's not great with facts or sometimes it is. It's hard to know. And it has this confidence that, you know, it's always right. So it's like, if you try to use it as an answer machine, it's going to be disappointed because it answers things differently. How can we use its weirdness as an asset instead of a liability? Is a big part of the interesting opportunity here. But I will say as somebody who's been doing this for a while, Paul, you and I came up together at about the same time and all this. It has been incredibly helpful to write this book with someone new to their career like Veronica. Because, you know, Veronica, you may not have the experience that I have. You started your career just a few months after Chatchy PT came out, you're three years in. But you also aren't burdened by my experience that you don't take the current best practices as the next generation's best practices. And I couldn't have written this book without you and without that perspective. Just causing repair. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it is hard like this period of transition, everything is so chaotic. People really want to know what to do, like what they can do. And so they look to industry leadership and industry leadership is maybe tired or themselves doesn't know what to do. And so there's this. I think there's a real craving for leaders and for people who know what they're doing and the truth is nobody knows what they're doing. Except for us, read our book, just kidding. Well, I mean, I think something that we are really trying to do here is pull together the threads. Like, I think there's there's this ungrounded moment that Veronica is talking about. How can we sort of find stable foundations and what is emerging now? Similar vocabulary. You know, we've been building these intelligent interfaces in this sort of new era of LLN since the get go. But so, and some of other people, but it's been kind of haphazard. Everyone's been doing their own experiments. The language is slippery around this design patterns haven't exactly been consolidated and had sort of a common structure. So what sentient design tries to do is one, not only sort of inspire and give the literacy that we're talking about about what this new material can do. But what are the patterns? What are the experience archetypes that go way beyond text-based chat and text-based agents? What can we do with this in new ways? What do we call that? How do we make decisions for what we should be making given the problem in need we're trying to meet? And what even are those options and decisions? And that's what sentient design is. It is rod and deep. It's, it is a good doorstop, friends. But they're 400 pages. You know, this is, this is a good, a good time as well, right? What I mean by that is, you know, if you look back through the history of the web, this, this has happened time and time again from responsive design to the release of the iPhone to whatever else. All the way through this, this kind of period of time. And every time there is this kind of big turning point where, where everything suddenly shifts, that is a time of incredible innovation. It's a time of a lot of sharing where we come together and we share and we work stuff out together. And inevitably, good stuff comes out of it. Yes, bad stuff comes out too. I'm not claiming everything's great and rosy and lovely. But it's actually, when I get the most bored, is when things are, you know, oh, everything's worked out, right? You know, we know how to design a user interface now for maximum engagement and for usability and readability and all of that. Then you get one of these, these curve balls thrown in and that's where it gets interesting. So, you know, as I've said many times on this show, it's something I'm, I'm actually very excited about. And it's, it's the times when you haven't quite yet found the edge of what this thing is or what it's capable of. So, I mean, you mentioned chatbots and, you know, thinking beyond chatbots. And I do feel that's a great example of this where at the moment, you know, a lot of us are going, oh, AI equals chatbots. And chatbots are rubbish as a design element. Well, not always, but in, in, you know, many cases. And so, you know, that idea of thinking beyond those conversational interfaces and exploring other ways is really interesting as well. So, I'd be quite interested in your thoughts around that about the idea of, you know, a conversational interface. When should you be using it? When is it the wrong choice? What are the alternatives out there? Because it's hard to get your head around it sometimes. No, you're, you're right. I mean, there's been this gravity well around chat for 75 years, right? And it goes back to Alan Turing and his imitation game, the Turing test, where, you know, his thought experiment was an intelligent system is one that can fool you through a conversation. And that thought experiment somehow became a design brief that intelligent machines are talking machines, right? And don't get me wrong. And so, it's like, this can, a text dialogue can be really powerful in some ways because the input and the output can be totally wide open. And so, there is utility for that, but, you know, open-ended input puts it all on the user to be like, describe what you want this thing to be. And so, we are not a reading and writing society anymore if we ever were. And I'm not sure that this is like, it is tuned for some brains, but not for a lot. And walls of text are not going to be a great solution for certain kinds of data. But, you know, I think one of the things that's exciting, and then I'll kick it over to you, Veronica, and I talk a little bit more about this, is like, we have sort of four postures of experience patterns that we describe, and sentient design. And these are like four ways that the system can position itself relative to the user. And chat is one of those, along with tools, agents, and co-pilots. But we also sort of try to think about, what is chat beyond simple dialogue? And we think of it as a conversational format that is a turn-based exchange with a peer. I do something, the system responds. What are different ways for the system to talk other than text? What if the system talked in UI? What if the system engaged in a multiplayer reaction? And we start to see a whole bunch of different experience archetypes? Better of, Veronica, if you want to talk about the four postures. Yeah, sure. So Josh mentioned chat, and you're talking about our idea that chat is not just conversation, but turn-based interaction. So we see that happening with one kind of specific chat example that we have is the sculptor. So something where you might take, okay, for example, an image. Right now, when we're using LLMs to change or manufacture images, it kind of has to redo the whole thing. If you want to make any changes. The sculptor would instead change a specific part of it. So you're sculpting out a specific part of an artifact that you want to change. And that becomes a chat-based interaction because there is a back and forth between the user and the system, but it doesn't necessarily have to be completely regenerating or rather generating something new every turn of conversation, which is how LLM's work and is kind of how we think of chat right now. The other poshers that Josh is talking about, we have tools which are kind of the most controlled and precise. So rather than a back and forth, that's more given input and getting output. Shazam is like a really fun example of a tool. You know, you're like old school, but it's there. You know, you have the system listens to a song and then it gives you the name of the song, just super simple, just like that. And that's a fun one. And then agents, which are kind of a very hot topic right now and talked about a lot and right now marketing wise, everything is just called an agent, but for us agents are autonomous and proactive tasks that are happening that can be behind the scenes. And then the last posture Josh mentioned was co-pilots. And for us co-pilots means quiet and continuous collaborator. That's kind of working on par with the user. Yeah, always sort of behind the scenes. You know, it's like you use tools, you talk to chat, you delegate to agents and you are supported by co-pilots in the background. Oh, I see. So you co-pilots the things that are working in the background or is that agent slightly confused by the two, sorry, to be slow? Yeah, yeah. No, it's I think that one thing that we sort of like think about for co-pilots is that they're kind of always listening and looking for an opportunity to help. So long legacy and old school spell check, right? Like you see this something that is quietly watching. It doesn't interrupt you. It doesn't take over. You don't have to manage it. It's a little red squiggle is showing up for me to take action if I want. And so there's like another example of that is Google just came out with their sort of magic cursor. It's often called their AI pointer. Yes. It's the thing that the cursor is aware of what the context is of what you're pointing at. And when you want, you could say take this recipe and add its ingredients to my shopping list. You know, it's like, and it knows what you're talking about in terms of which recipe it's like, oh, I'm hovering over these ingredients and you can put your cursor, move those over here. So it's this thing that's like this continuous intelligence that's just aware of the content and your name, the intent. It gets it. That's interesting. What about the kind of invisible tasks that are just where AI just gets on in the background? Because that's an area that that particularly excites me. It makes me think of Christian and I can't remember a second name is a really memorable name and it's just gone out by head. The best interface is no interface. All right. I got a Krishna. Oh, Krishna. That's it. Yeah. I mean, how can you forget that name? That's such a wonderful name. And that book is also a wonderful human being. Oh, yes, he's such a nice chap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that book talks a lot about the idea of having invisible interfaces and where you've got things happening in the background and design doesn't just equate to a user interface. And that really resonated with me. And it feels like AI is opening up that huge possibilities in that area. But I'm guessing that is that mainly agents from your point of view or is it also the co-pilot? Yeah, go ahead, Veronica. Yeah, I think that just to explain on what Josh was saying, well, co-pilots are kind of always there and in the back agents are more at your back and call. So like if there's a specific task that you might need help, but that's when you might call them in. They don't necessarily need an interface like you're talking about, but they're still more on there. They're still more something you're managing than a pilot. Yeah, yeah. Okay, there's something. And I think that does bring up this thing. Right. It's like agents, you give them a goal. They figure out a plan. They execute it. They decide when they're done and they come back. And that could be in seconds or days. You know, it's like, yeah, and you don't have to think about it anymore. I think that there is this assumption. We see a lot of loose talk about how agents could mean the end of UI. We don't need an interface for this anymore. And yet we also see the early returns of people managing many agents as having this. Did you see that study about AI brain-free? This idea that's like Marcus is talking about it in the last shot. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And that thing where you just you're getting a lot done, but you're exhausted and you can't put a few sentences together after doing this. So one of the things that we're seeing, we talk a lot about in the book around agents, is this move from the user experience to the manager experience, because we do not need the UI for that task anymore. But there are these seams, these phases of delegation that are similar to what you have to do as a manager of people as well. It's like, establish the mission. I mean, that's just good leadership, right? Review the plan. Oversee the work. Redirect or stop the work if necessary. And then review the results. And for simple tasks, you might not need to have an interface for all of those. Wrote repeating tasks that resemble more of an automation. But for things that are new or complex, we need interfaces for each of those phases. And so the work of design changes yet again, along with the work of the user. I think that transition from, I mean, it's just like kind of your own career, one-zone career of moving from independent contributor to manager is a hard transition. How do we help our users make that transition with their agents? Yeah. We were talking about exactly that in the last in the last podcast actually from what does it do as to directors, I think I called it in the end. So yeah, that very much resonates me. And there's also the humans are still humans as well. And we carry with ourselves certain limitations and we don't change as fast as our technology changes. So you know, things about, well, maybe we're not going to need a user interface. Not only is that flawed because of, you know, the fact that different information is best consumed, some information is best consumed visually rather than, you know, text-based or whatever else. But then as well, I think there's the aspect of human nature and that sense of control and wanting sense of control over the process. One of the problems I see with agents a lot of the moment is that they go away and confidently say, I'm going to go away and sort this task for you. But you don't really get feedback about their progress in that task. What it is that they're doing all the decision points, either that or you get the opposite where it tells you absolutely everything it's doing is you go along and absolutely overwhelms you with all of this information. And working out that feedback process, I think he's going to be an incredibly important part of the process that I don't feel we've quite nailed yet. So that's something else that excites me quite a lot. One of the things that kind of relates to that is the relationship of trust between us and AIs. And if we're going to be working with AIs, we need to be confident in them. So and I think to some degree that's going to be a generational change. I can't see Marcus ever trusting an AI to book his holiday for him. Oh no, no, no, no, no, maybe there is a day where Marcus's kids would allow AI to book holiday for him. But it's saying that aside, there is this kind of fickle nature to AI. And in many ways, it's like a human, right? You know, everybody likes to think of AI. AI is a computer. Therefore, AI shouldn't make mistakes, right? Well, that's not the way AI works. People make mistakes. People claim all the time that they know about stuff that they don't. I can attest to that. I do it all the time. So how do you design around that? How do you design around that kind of worry and insecurity and expectations around AI? You know, because that's a tricky one. Absolutely. Yeah. So in sentient design, we have the practice of defensive design, which is a huge part of sentient design and kind of like how we work and how we think about incorporating these fickle creatures into our systems. As you're saying, LLMs are inherently probabilistic systems, right? Like they are made by putting together the statistically most likely string of words. And that's the result that we see and that's the result that we trust. And yet we so badly want them to do deterministic tasks. Like a couple of years ago, there was that meme that was going around on LinkedIn. Sorry, it's just like crazy. That means they're on LinkedIn now. But going around on LinkedIn that was like someone asked a chat you pity how many ours are in the word strawberry and it said two and the answer is three right and and everyone was like it's wrong it's it's wrong about something so simple this is a stupid system and it's not right like it it's it's it's a very smart system but we're asking it to do deterministic things when that is not at its core what it's made for so when we're incorporating this into into systems that need to be reliable if you're in like a finance industry health care industry anything that is really important that the answer be right and that people be able to trust what's in front of them you know how do we incorporate that into those systems and I think the answer comes a lot in tone you're talking about how people are wrong all the time but and we just accept that the truth is if someone says something to me where okay to say like you have a dog that's covered in blue paint or something and like the person in a person says to you like this dog is blue you understand what they're saying and you can also understand you have a lot of ways to figure out what they mean their language their body language their tone maybe their phrase their slang like there's so many ways we're like reading someone beyond the words that they're actually saying and when it comes to AI systems we really just get an answer and a disclaimer which is totally the wrong way to go about it like if if you're returning into that the dog is blue and then you have a little disclaimer that's like things may not be factual you better double check like that doesn't mean anything for people it also doesn't mean anything for people if you give confidence scores Netflix used to do this where it'd be like 73% chance you like this movie and it's like I don't I don't know what that means you know and so if you're like this dog is blue there's a 10% chance this dog is actually blue like that still doesn't really mean anything you know but if you're communicating in more ways through people through design then people can actually understand what they should or shouldn't be taking if you're like this dog is probably not actually blue you understand what that means yeah more than like this dog is blue 10% chance that's true and there's also different ways through UI you can express these things so we have a thing called spaghetti scenarios which comes from weather mapping you know when weather people were are mapping hurricanes they overlay all the probabilities on top of each other so they can see where the most likely paths actually are similarly in UI you can put a bunch of possibilities next to each other and we see this in google search so if you're asking a question like our dogs good pets you used to get a really different answer if you ask our dogs good pets versus our dogs bad pets because you're obviously like looking for particular answer with your question yeah and now you see the little box what's it called John but yeah like the feedback summary the feedback summary right and you also have this design element where it's showing you similar questions and they're like little drop down so it's like if you ask our good our dogs good pets you'll also see suggestions from google that are like our dogs bad pets and you can see the answer to that question so it's showing you a Jason a Jason paths right like that's it that sounds good that sounds better than the silly little box thing that we can't remember that yeah that's it that's why we need each other right a Jason path so you're seeing not only what you ask but also kind of similar questions and you can see how the answer is therefore from each other so there are all these ways to to show and to indicate confidence and and build trust between users and systems and almost none of it is by just being like the systems right like the systems totally right just just trust like it's it's this idea of like presenting information as signals instead of facts and thinking about what is kind of the productive humility of the interface of this is an answer it's not the answer and that's in particular as we're thinking about it for kind of fact-based results and I think one thing and I think that's often what we've relied on competing for it's sort of like the the mainstream idea of like they give me answers you know they process a thing and give me a result they give me an answer and you know I think like Veronica was suggesting not every answer is of the same specificity you know there are some things where it's like there are a million different ways that you could write that sentence and so there are a million good enough correct answers but you know if you want to know the minimum temperature to cook chicken there's really only one answer please don't give me the wrong one right um but so I think the the as we think about the grain of this um if we were talking about earlier I think I think one of the elements that is really useful here is how fluent and intent llms can be that used to be really hard right to understand what the user meant these really even just the first generation of Alexa if you didn't know the exact incantation if you said yeah yeah turn on the lights instead of switch on the lights you're gonna stay in the dark llms take that away they can understand context not just from the prompt but from a bunch of other inputs that you give it and just sort of understand what you want to do but on the other side they're also expert at manner like we see that in the way that they can change tone or expertise but also in the formats that they can deliver oh wait a second you want this pdf as a podcast format no problem you want this in json okay and so format the way that they can return as super flexible they're not great at facts right i mean that's something that uh they they are interested in continuing the conversation more than giving the right answer but they do play well with others so you know given tools like rag or mcp's or skills they can talk to other systems that know when they're about and so what all this means is like wait a second they aren't as i've said a few times they aren't answer machines but they're excellent mc's of the experience you know the presentation layer is actually where they excel how can we have them sort of understand what what i want return the result in the format that is most useful and talk to the systems that know what they're up to that's like i do agree i just i kind of just last i know what you're driving at and yes i agree but i do think where they tend to be quite weak at the moment and i it is only training it's not the inherent problem with the ar it's more how we're using it but like Veronica was saying they tend to be quite poor at presenting back that information what that they've learned in a to add the nuances of human communication in there that would be helpful so they will tend to say things like um the dog is blue um while a human being would likely say well from what i can gather the dog is blue or they might say the consensus seems to be that the dog is blue or i think maybe the dog is blue um but even that that is a really i understand why that hasn't been done as much because even that is very very tricky so just take the difference in communication between the u_s and the uk in that situation in the uk we are much more likely to add doubt in there right or we're not sure we think maybe this could be possibly don't know you better check it out for yourself you know we're much more hesitant in the way that we speak so all of that needs to be taken into account as well so part of the weird role of us as designers is almost a linguistic and a localization role as well in terms of how humans communicate and how um they express different information in different contexts and i don't feel that enough has been done in that field yeah no person right and to your point it's like these all speak like california silic and valley yeah they really do it's like it's the vibe of it but it's like i think what we're getting at all of us here is that presentation is a design challenge and it matters what the user is up to so the raw capabilities of these tools for the flexibility that they have is remarkable out of the context yeah design challenge is how do we channel this for the context either the user's specific context in the moment but also the domain like i am not a believer that quad or chatsch ebt will swallow all software because i think that the design work is really needed to shape behavior around tasks and domains i think we are going to continue to have a proliferation of software with intelligence embedded in the interface rather than a single do-it-all oracle experience um oracle small oh not big oh 90s uh but the um although he's trying he's coming back we'll see um We, um, it's almost like the large language models, you know, the Claude and the Gemini and the, the chat GPT, those are your operating system. Then on top of that, you're building effectively your software applications that are really well that the, the, the, the kind of domain specific knowledge and communication and design elements sit on top of that and a underlying LLM, LLM is never going to be focused enough, or trained enough in those specific domains to be able to do the job effectively as far as I see it. Yeah. Well, and I mean, like, like any good creative direction, right? Constraints are helpful. Yeah. As the designer, you take on this more kind of creative director rule of saying like, here's the language to use. Here are the design components that you use it. Here's the design system that you may use and how to use it. And so we're able to instead of having this wide open, ask me anything experience, which is really useful in some context, but not when you're trying to get this specific task done. Yeah. How do we have AI support with essentially making design decisions in the moment? You as a designer can't be there for every second, for every user. What if you had a capable designer making decisions in the moment to give you what you need based on the rules of the system and what you've asked for? That starts to then be like, Oh, we've got that flexibility of input and output and of making friends with other systems, but now it constraints and guidance and specific rules. And you start to see the shape of that designers using like design MD files with agents, but that is a clumsy engineering close to the metal system that is great for certain types of people who like to make their own tools. But as the designer providing solutions to people who don't like to make their own tools, most people, what a great opportunity and a collaborator that AI can be in that context. One thing that I'm and maybe is because I'm a bit of a lullaby, but I'm feeling this is all a bit theoretical and a bit abstract. And you started off earlier on just saying that you've seen things that make you genuinely excited. And I wonder what they are. Can you tell me a bit more in sort of in reality of what's happening that out there that I might get excited about? Yeah. Right. If you have some examples you want to share, I've got a bunch too. Okay, yes, we have seen things that we're excited about. One thing that I thought was cool and is is not super new now is sales forces generative canvas. So that's sales force, the sales platform, built a generative canvas, which uses the sales force design system and then assembles components on the fly such that the system is bringing to the user relevant things according to the user's context. So the system can see the user's calendar and says, oh, I see you have a meeting with client X coming up. Let me go ahead and bring to you the link to the meeting as well as notes from the last meeting as well as all of your notes about this client. So the system is aware of what's going on in the user's life and is taking it upon itself to bring forward that information. And I think what's great about this is the inter the intelligent part is the assembly, but all of the actual content is not made up at all. It's all referencing real things that were touched by a person and not have been bedded by a person. So it's not making up information, but it's making decisions about what's important in that moment for that user. We call this the bespoke UI experience pattern with 14 different experience patterns that are sort of archetypes to follow. And one of them is like assembly of an interface on the fly based on a small design system. We've also got things that are what we call NPC agents, non player characters like from games where in a multiplayer environment, the agents participate in the interface itself. So an example of this is in in Miro, they have these things called side kicks where the agent comes in driving its own little cursor to do some things in the canvas itself based on your request. And so it's this thing that is participating not off to the side in a chat bot in a chat sidebar or in some other application, but it's woven into the interaction paradigm of the system itself. You know, there's this great plug in for Google docs called pointer.ai, where AI sort of participates as an editor in your document to make suggestions and comments in the side of the text like another user instead of pasting the whole thing or giving it giving Claude or chat GPT or Gemini a link to your Google doc and getting all of the suggestions over here. It's something that is like, oh, we have a pattern for collaboration already. So there's this big just shift of being like, what if AI is a collaborator, that's sort of that NBC pattern? How do we bring them into the interface? I'll tell you one example, Marcus, that that I did recently, you know, I do a lot of conversion rate optimization work. And I just hired by some company that produced landing pages at a rate of knots for every every campaign had a landing page, which is good, good best practice. But unfortunately, none of the people creating these landing pages knew anything about creating landing pages and they get a conversion rate of something at 0.4%. It is terrible. So they want to be to go in and create a template for these landing pages, which really felt like quite a weak starting point when all of these different landing pages have many different audiences were focusing on many, many different subjects. So instead, what I did is I built out a design system of components, but alongside each of those components, I provided very detailed advice about when this component should be used, where on the page it should appear, what elements should be in it, etc, etc. I also provided documentation about how the content should be written, you know, in terms of best practice for writing for the web, read ability, accessibility, all of that kind of stuff, also provided documentation for the layout of the page, whether it's top of funnel or bottom of funnel, all of that kind of stuff, not with the intention of any of them ever reading it, but simply as resources for the AI, so that they could go along and say, I need to create a landing page for this audience on this subject covering these these talking points. And it had enough information to be able to do that from a framework without the need for a designer to come into the process. Now of course, that now freaks out every designer in the room going, where there's my job gone, right? But in actual fact, what what that's doing is now opening up the designer to work on much more strategic work. So for example, they did have one loan designer, which was nowhere near enough. And that designer now is in a position to do more generic use a research around their product suite and that kind of stuff and feed that into the documentation, which empowers the AI to be creating even better landing pages based on the data and everything else. So you get really good virtuous cycles if it's set up well. Yeah, I mean, I would argue that design system should have been doing that all along. Yeah, they should have. Yeah, that all for like little micro building blocks of like your accordion and here's your input field and like whatever. I mean, it's like so much of that is generic so much of that is like why our individual organizations doing that when it's really about, oh, here is the recipe of ingredients that solve a problem. Yeah, AI thrives with those kinds of with that guidance, but also so do people. And so I think that there's this wake up call, I would say, it's the design system community to up your game and connect it more directly with outcomes than with little building blocks. You know, I mean, I think the last decade of design, the innovation has been happening in operations and process and in design systems, which was important as large companies brought design in house. It used to all be done by agencies. All right, how do we design at scale? But two things, I think we had the sort of unintended effect of that of turning the design function into a production process of assembly of just pull these things together. That wasn't the intent of design systems. It was like, hey, we've got a library of solved problems that will help you use them if you need them. And it turned into sort of a dreary compliance industry of you must use these and reduce the effect of design, I would say design systems can help to change that around by kind of connecting it to outcomes, like I said. And I think we've also got this moment where design has the opportunity to shift innovation into product. What do you mean by that? Rusty? Well, I just mean that we've been focused so much on process and production. And like you were saying earlier, Paul, a lot of settled best practices. And so we've been consolidating best practices. - Oh yeah, I'm with you. - Yeah, yeah. - Inventing and exploring new things, but we have new interaction paradigms, including, you know, sort of like, these 14 experience patterns that we mentioned of which the bookmark is thick with examples. So this isn't all just sort of like coming silly. - It's all, it's not just sort of like, oh theoretically we could do this. It is, oh here's a lot of people have been experimenting and exploring with this, but it has not been brought together or shared in a common space, which is what our effort is. It's like, oh hang on a second. This may feel very chaotic, but there are patterns emerging. There's a foundation of a new practice here, and that's what we're trying to share is to give everybody that grounding for what we might do individually and as a craft and industry. So I mean, where does this leave designers? We've already talked about a kind of shift from doer to director, which is fine for old Commudjans like us, Josh, sorry, I've just lumped you in with me, which is probably unfair, but because, you know, we made that transition a long time ago. But for many designers, and we were talking about this earlier on the show as well, that for many designers, the joy of their job comes from the doing, not just the outcome, right? And if you're fundamentally changing the doing and how the doing happens, you're changing the nature of the job for many people and not everybody wants to end up being a manager. Is that an inevitable situation? And I personally, I think it probably is for better or worse, but what I'm just interested in your opinion on that, what all of this means for our future. And Veronica, how it feels for you as well as someone near the beginning of the process, because let's be honest, you know, at the moment, AI is being used to cut off more people earlier in their career and going, well, we don't need those people as much now. We can just use AI and that'll magically fix it, which I don't believe, but that's the attitude out there. And so I don't know what my question is there. I think you've already asked me to let people talk. Responsible. Yeah. (laughing) - Yeah, I think it will probably be a combination of all of those things. I think earlier we were talking about, you know, a painter in their medium and how it requires mastery of many tools in order to be a great painter. And I think that's an interesting thing to call to, because obviously painting is not a very popular or commercial medium these days, but there are still people who are painters. And I think something true, something similar will be true for design where there are still people who are just like amazing at figment, who can do incredible things. I also think there's been a shift in the industry. I know when Josh got into web design many decades ago, sorry. (laughing) - We should say, Veronica's not only my colleague, she's also my daughter. I'm very proud of her, but you can see how this works out. - Yeah, that. I think if you could have gone in a very different direction, if we don't talk to that at the beginning. (laughing) - I think the beginning of this industry, like the beginning of web design, it was kind of the wild frontier. And things like freelancing were super popular and kind of like the bread and brother, the bread and butter of many designers. And now as Josh was saying, a lot of design has moved in house. And I think a lot of younger people, like a lot of younger designers, are looking for those nine to five jobs within design. And that that has kind of become one of the great things about this industry is that it has been able to provide that for many people. I think most of the younger designers I know are in fact, at a company and not with an agency or freelance. Younger meaning like very young, like post-grad within the past couple of years. So I, which isn't to say that they're not in it for the art of it too, and that they don't love the craft of it. I just wonder if they're maybe willing to get different things from this career. I don't want to be so like, up throughout about it. I like it is still like a great way to spend time too. - Yeah, I don't, I think whether you're in house or external, I don't think should make much difference in terms of your ability to express yourself and be the designer. My concern, if I'm honest with you Veronica, is that I'm seeing those in house roles beginning to disappear because there's this false presumption that we only need one senior person to manage a load of agents and were sorted, which I think is very, very naive. Not only from the fact that I don't think AI is at the position to be able to do that yet. I also believe that we are shooting yourself in the foot for the next generation of senior people. So that, but am I wrong with that? I could well be out of touch, but that's one feeling. - I think that you're right and that there are new opportunities. You know what I think is how technology works, right? Like it's like, oh, it closes some doors and opens new ones. And I think it's clear that the trajectory so far that we've seen, we've certainly have seen it in software development and we're beginning to see it in design, we'll see how far it goes. But the trajectory suggests that a lot of production tasks are likely to be swallowed up. And I would say for a huge number of companies and individuals who want a good enough website, that work for web designers is gonna be swallowed up by AI will help them get something up quickly. We've seen that with illustration, with other generative stuff. So that's a drag. But I also think that even as some of those tasks go away, the job doesn't go away. And that a lot of the things with, so I think thing number one is, it's gonna be more and more important for designers to be behavior designers. Interaction design is all about the design of behavior, often to shape the behavior of the user, which will remain as true as ever of how do I kind of create the guard rails to help them get what they're trying to do done. But also now, another collaborator in this of AI, how do we shape the AI, the design of the system in ways that we've been talking about already, like you gave in your example of, here's the material to use AI, and here's how to use it, go ahead. The second bit that I'll say, and we're beginning to see this now, kind of in some of the more forward looking teams is designers coming back again, like in the old days to working in code. And I think that seems a bit daunting. In fact, it's AI working in code, but we're committing our work to the same common space as developers and product is beginning to put their documentation and requirements into that space too. And so at the moment, that common space is, often a Git repo. And the thing that we've seen that that enables is really compressing handoffs and cycles. And it's like, oh, if we're all working in the same place, development can come forward into the design process. We can participate in the development process as designers, product can contribute to that. And so what we're seeing is like this, really creative opportunity, where there's more overlap in roles, which is challenging, right? I mean, that's like a new management and role and career challenge. But there's also like, wow, with teams that get it, we've seen some incredibly powerful and creative results come from this. It is not just about speed, but it's about all of these disciplines participating and collaborating in a richer way to create what ultimately matters most, which is a great experience for the customers and a powerful result for the company. And I think, yeah, I would agree with that. I think there's a big democratization going on in a lot of different areas. So, you know, back when I started, obviously, I did code as well as design and you know, you had to be something of everything. And then we moved into this world of huge specialization where we all had to specialize in different areas. Now I feel like the edges between those specializations are bleeding into one another because, you know, you can democratize the basic UI design process to product owners, for example, you know, with adequate AI guard rails and all of the rest of it set by the designer, they can be in a position to do prototyping, they can be in a position to do some of their own user research. But equally, we can start, like you say, producing stuffing code. Now I find that very exciting and I love that idea. But there will be people out there that are going to struggle with that. And I have to say, I kind of agree with Veronica that I think if you can get to, if what you love is sitting down, and pushing pixels around and creating a design like that, you are going to struggle. Unless you're exceptional, right? The person that we've sprints to my mind in this situation is people like Mike Kus or Andy Clark, right? Both of those people have got an exceptional design style and you will go to them if you want a style and an aesthetic. They're going to be the they're going to appeal to the people who still like vinyl, right? The people that don't want the mainstream thing, that don't want the AI-generated thing, but it's going to be a tough environment for a lot of people. If you're not truly exceptional in that mechanics of building out a design. My community here, as always, will continue to do well and adapt, but the commodity tier, the production team. This is a real worry about what has happened to design, like I mentioned earlier, of becoming kind of understood as a production capability. For the teams and organizations that have allowed that to happen, that will be replaced by AI and the opportunity for organizations, design and designers is to return to really that more important piece of what design is, of understanding the problem, of exploring the possibilities of collaborating with AI to deliver radically adaptive, individualized experiences where intelligence is woven into the interface. And that's like new stuff. AI can't do that on its own. That requires guidance of design around the presentation issues that we've been talking about, about what the domain knowledge and tasks are, the expectations of the users. That's all stuff that, for the moment, is really uniquely human. And I mean, I think this is a moving target. I think tasks are going to continue to be changing, but I am confident that the job will remain. And like I said, I am a booster of what is possible here in the best possible way, like really optimistic. That this is an exciting time to come into. If the institutions can get out of the way of the young designers, people like Veronica, I think it's like, look out. Yeah, go. I totally agree with that. I'm excited too. But I can understand people's concerns. I can understand people's worries. I think it is about kind of being redefining maybe what you consider design to be in a lot of ways. The design is a lot more about just pushing pixels around in Figbear. I know I keep using that line, but to think about human behaviour, to think about, you know, organizational benefits and work within the constraints of the technologies that we have and all of the rest of it. If you can get your head into that space, if you could get yourself seeing design in its broadest sense, then there is real, it is incredibly exciting. And I look back with huge gratitude that I hadn't to hit the web just as it came along. And so if you've just graduated now, you'll get in that same experience. If you can ride this wave, because it will be an incredible ride. And I think it's hugely exciting. I think that it's like, I think there's that opportunity for the young ones coming up. I think the old heads have an opportunity here too. One of the reasons that we really want to. That's right. Really important. None of it will happen without us. That's right. That's right. And we'll whisper it to you in your ear and sleep. But I think one of the big reasons that we wrote this book is we came into this with some fear and anxiety. And the more that we explored this, the more that we met the opportunity with a sense of not only enthusiasm, but relief. That there is a chance here, this could go horribly wrong. Right. So what we're advocating for is something is what we consider to be a good outcome. How can AI elevate design instead of replace it? And some tasks will be replaced. But I think there's a bigger opportunity for us to embrace. And I think we have a lot of examples of how to do that. Yeah. And to get back to the heart of what design is really all about in many ways. Because like you say, it's been processed and productized and and reduced to pushing pixels. And so this is an incredible opportunity that I'm very excited about. If you want to learn more about sentient design, you can do so by going to boag.world/30036, which will get you the show notes and you can find a link to the book in there. You've all sent. Yeah. I'm sorry. I was about to say you also can get 20% off of the book through to the August 31st with the very disturbing coupon code sentient-boag, which makes it sound like I'm not currently sentient. But I am going to come alive in this kind of Frankenstein sentient monster ways. We believe in your Paul. We believe that you can do it. I can make it. Yeah. I will no longer be in a Bieber. So yes, there's that. Now, one of the things that Josh will know about Veronica one is that at the end of all of our episodes since since 2019, I nearly went 19. 2019 2005. Please, please, Veronica tell me you were at least alive in 2005. You must be. So since 2005, Marcus has been telling shit jokes at the end of every podcast. We have tried, I've tried desperately to get rid of them, but we always get in trouble if we do stop them. So Marcus get it. My fault. No, it's not. Anyway, blaming you. These are listeners. Well, so whether these are shit or not is a matter of opinion, but these are from a quite famous comedian called Tim Vine, who's famous for doing one line of dreadful puns. But he's also famous for being funny. I'm just saying that he's got that advantage. So this is this is the delivery. Okay, this is the delivery. It's going to let it down. So I'm preparing you for that. Okay. Phil Crowe. What a rip off. I love it. One more. Yeah, go on. Do another one. Exit signs. They're on the way out. Once you've had one, the second one doesn't land just one. That's good. That's good. That's all you get. Well, thank you guys for coming on the show hugely appreciated. And yeah, where can people find out more about you both? You can find us at bigmedium.com, which is the agency that I lead and where Veronica is my colleague. We publish a lot there and we have a newsletter and of course you can find out more about the book and our publisher Rosenfeldmedia.com. I guess we got Veronica and Josh on the way out. Thank you guys so much for having us. Thank you. Oh, I'm going to play a shot. *Thank you for always supporting my blog, it's free! sesame.com/ج there to see our other videos! excitementaccel.com Outro