The Design Difficulties of Human-AI Interaction

Designing for Human-AI interaction is hard.

Here Yang et al. catalog where designers run into problems when applying the traditional 4Ds process to designing AI systems. These difficulties can be broadly attributed to two sources:

1. Uncertainty surrounding AI capabilities

2. Output complexity of AI systems.

This uncertainty and complexity combination then manifests throughout the design process.

4D difficulties in designing with AI

Of course, these pain-points are not insurmountable. Rather they highlight key areas where attention should be focused to ensure that bad design outcomes do not creep in.

For example, despite the challenges, AI prototypes really can help.

If you’re looking for fertile ground to explore in AI innovation, look no further than these design problems. Not all AI advances are algorithmic.

Sources & inspiration

• Re-examining Whether, Why, and How Human-AI Interaction Is Uniquely Difficult to Design by Yang et al.

• AI Design Principles