The quote is almost impossible to avoid whenever people talk about innovation.
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Whether Henry Ford actually said it is historically uncertain. Yet the idea remains remarkably powerful because it describes something deeply human.
People rarely imagine entirely new possibilities. They imagine better versions of what they already know.
Someone who has only experienced horses naturally asks for a faster horse. The automobile is outside their mental model. It belongs to a different category altogether.
For decades, User Experience has worked within exactly this pattern. we ...
- ... observed people
- ... identified friction
- ... reduced unnecessary effort
- ... simplified interfaces
- ... optimized workflows
In many ways, UX has been the discipline of making existing tasks easier to accomplish. Artificial intelligence may challenge that assumption. Today, most AI demonstrations still feel like faster horses.
We ask AI to ...
... to write emails, or summarize documents, we ask AI to create presentations. Or when it might get a little bit more complex tp plan meetings or organizing a party. Or simple to search for information. All of these are useful. For sure - I do it as well. BUT ...
But they improve and just mimic existing workflows rather than questioning whether those workflows should exist in their current form.
And perhaps this is exactly where our imagination reaches its limit.
When we think about AI, ...
.. we often start with the activities we already perform and ask how they could become faster. That is a perfectly natural human reaction.
It is also the same thinking that once produced or let us breed faster horses. I know what I am talking about - I raced sled-dogs for two decades and we breed dogs and by every generation we made them faster, more healthy, ... u name it.
The more interesting question ...
... may therefore not be: "How can AI help us perform today's work more efficiently?"
...but instead: "What if AI changes the nature of the work itself?"
Beyond Workflows ...
A party planner offers an interesting example. Today we imagine an AI that creates invitations, finds recipes, books a restaurant and manages RSVPs. But perhaps nobody actually wants a party planner. People want an enjoyable evening with friends. Planning is simply the friction standing between the intention and the experience. My understanding of good architecture ( I am an 'classical' architect - I still created my planning with ink) and my understanding of great Design and UX has always tried to remove friction.
AI may allow us to remove entire categories of work. That is a fundamentally different design challenge. The same applies far beyond party planning. People do not really want search. They ...
- ... want understanding
- ... do not want forms
- ... do not want software
- ... want progress
- ... want outcomes
- ... want to life and reach a goal or just have fun
If AI increasingly operates at the level of human intentions instead of interface interactions, design, apps, services and UX may also or for sure need to move upward. Perhaps we will spend less time designing screens and more time designing intentions, trust, orientation and collaboration between humans and intelligent systems.
That would, might, or will represent one of the biggest shifts our profession has experienced.
The future of UX may therefore not belong to those who design better interfaces.
It may belong to those who recognize when the interface itself has become the faster horse.
Comments
Post a Comment