UX Design Innovation: Challenges for Working with Machine Learning as a Design Material
Abstract
Machine learning (ML) is now a fairly established technology, and user experience (UX) designers appear regularly to integrate ML services in new apps, devices, and systems. Interestingly, this technology has not experienced a wealth of design innovation that other technologies have, and this might be because it is a new and difficult design material. To better understand why we have witnessed little design innovation, we conducted a survey of current UX practitioners with regards to how new ML services are envisioned and developed in UX practice. Our survey probed on how ML may or may not have been a part of their UX design education, on how they work to create new things with developers, and on the challenges they have faced working with this material. We use the findings from this survey and our review of related literature to present a series of challenges for UX and interaction design research and education. Finally, we discuss areas where new research and new curriculum might help our community unlock the power of design thinking to re-imagine what ML might be and might do.
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The concept of 'AI as a design material' has presented promising and novel prospects for designers or design-oriented research in HCI.
“In recent years, the concept of 'AI as a design material' has presented promising and novel prospects for designers or design-oriented research in HCI [26, 40].”
From "When He Feels Cold, He Goes to the Seahorse"—Blending Generative AI into Multimaterial Storymaking for Family Expressive Arts Therapy (2024) · cites this paper as [26]
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References 56 · Cited by 391
- Authors
- Dove, G., Halskov, K., Forlizzi, J., & Zimmerman, J.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2017-05-02
- Pages
- 278-288
- OpenAlex
- W2611748211
- Cited by
- 391
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 57 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 20.26
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- The Danish Innovation Foundation (1311-00001B)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Keywords
- machine learning, user experience design, design innovation, UX practitioners, human-machine collaboration, design challenges, design thinking, interaction design, curriculum development
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