Design Meetup - Design & AI: Applications & Implications

Design and artificial intelligence (AI) 🤖 are two rapidly evolving fields transforming the way we live and work. 

At Wolfpack Digital, we recently hosted a Design Meetup led by Denisa, one of our UX/UI Designers and Cristi, our Head of UX/UI Design, to explore the applications and implications of the way the two disciplines intertwine. ✨

During this event dedicated to designers and tech enthusiasts, our hosts gave an overview of the AI tools that have recently entered the market, including Midjourney, ChatGPT, and Dall-e, and addressed a few ways these technologies can impact and shape the work of creatives and designers.

To no one’s surprise, the most burning question on everybody’s mind was the one that has concerned almost all players in the digital industry since the appearance of these intelligent tools: “Will AI take over our jobs?”
However, since the answer is much more complex than a simple yes or no, our hosts urged the audience to reframe the question entirely and instead ask themselves: “How can we embrace and integrate AI in our day-to-day lives to enhance our processes and harness our creative thinking?”

AI Applications

After engaging the audience in a brief exercise, Cristi & Denisa proceeded to get in-depth about the applications of AI and more clearly on an AI-driven design thinking model and the steps involved in it.

• Discover - using AI algorithms, UX researchers can identify demands and pain points and test their hypotheses about their audience from the gathered data.
• Ideate - the creative process doesn't need to consist of long hours buried in piles of research data; ChatGPT helps with its ability to generate design attributes and craft immersive user flow samples. Midjourney can generate stunning mood boards and sleek user interfaces, and last but not least, Notion's AI is your best friend for brainstorming ideas. 
• Prototype - AI tools can help streamline this process by coming up with high-level UIs for apps, generating creative user flow ideas, writing real copy instead of Lorem Ipsum and brainstorming ideas for page layouts;
• Test - using the same tool (ChatGPT), one can create scenarios and user tasks for usability tests and generate post-test questions to interview users/stakeholders.

Naturally, as with anything in the world, there are always some downsides, but it is essential to see how we can extract and use the best part of them. 

Implications of AI

1. Is AI the death of creativity?
With almost infinite possibilities that AI can offer, we must continue to challenge ourselves to find outside-the-box alternatives and cultivate critical thinking. Our minds, just like any muscle, must be continuously trained and challenged.

2. Ethical considerations 
While AI is great and can make our work more efficient, we must take it with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of scepticism. Since there is still the problem of algorithm bias and a lack of ethically trained algorithms, we should use our critical thinking and decide where and how we use AI-generated content for the features or products we develop.

As a last point in the presentation, Cristi and Denisa walked us through some examples of brands that managed to incorporate AI into the stages of product development: from product design and packaging to processes and mechanical design. 

The key takeaways of the event

Cristi and Denisa showed the potential of AI to enhance creativity, productivity and innovation, encouraging us to work smarter, not harder. 
However, they emphasised the importance of ethics, putting humans at the centre of AI's development. The talk also raised the issue of the "Internet of Useless Things," reminding us to be cautious of the quality of data used by AI and the biases it may perpetuate.

Following the presentation, we had the opportunity to get to know our wonderful guests, share ideas and mingle while treating ourselves to some finger food & drinks. 🥂

We are absolutely ecstatic about how our first design meetup turned out! The buzz and energy were electrifying, with vibrant conversations and exchanges of ideas taking place all around. These gatherings are like a breath of fresh air, bringing together a dynamic community of curious minds eager to share their knowledge and pick each other’s brains. 

Meetups are also a powerful catalyst for innovation, opening the door to new ideas and fresh perspectives that can drive transformative change. It's an incredible opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals, foster creativity, and make a positive impact on the world.

We want to thank everyone who joined us, and we look forward to hosting more events like this in the future.