Reimagining the Goals and Methods of UX for ML/AI – challenges UX conventions and proposes new approaches for Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Through live demos and a presentation, I’ll discuss how designers can reimagine the goals and focus of UX for the unique potentials of ML/AI. Using animistic design as an example, I’ll propose how using simple intelligence, machine learning, and autonomous personalities can allow the designer to shift from crafting task oriented experiences for users, to building evolving, diverse, autonomous ecologies that support collaborative exploration and creativity for machine and human participants alike.

Articles in ACM Interactions Magazine
Special Topic: Designing AI – Over the past two years, as part of the AAAI Symposia series (2017–2018), we have organized a gathering of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to discuss the UX of AI & ML—the user experience of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our main interest in organizing these events was to discuss the HCI and design-practice implications of the current fascination with and adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning in user-facing products.

Prototyping Ways of Prototyping AI – Given the differences in design goals and strategies for autonomous systems, new tools are needed that help designers build working prototypes for both exploration and application. These tools should provide ways of working around the difficult aspects of AI and enable designers and others to quickly experiment and iterate so they can build their understanding and design better systems. With an exploratory and playful perspective, Phil van Allen’s article “Prototyping Ways of Prototyping AI” describes a toolkit he recently developed and is refining with his students. The tool is itself a prototype that asks the questions: What should an AI prototyping tool look like? What affordances do AI designers need? What are the new requirements for the design of AI?