In the world of design that's always changing, a new helper has emerged: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Here, we explore how AI can make the design process faster and better at each step. This lets designers spend more time coming up with ideas and thinking about their designs, instead of getting caught up in small details like moving pixels around or taking interview notes. Some tools are already developed and working well, while others are not quite up to the mark yet. And there are even some that haven't been created at all. If you're someone who works on AI or GPT technology, reading this article will give you a bunch of new ideas for making AI tools.

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Research

Data Analysis: To analyse user behaviour data to understand how people interact with a website or app, and use this information to optimise the design for better user experience.

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Predictive modelling: To predict which colours or fonts will be most effective in driving engagement with a particular audience, based on historical data.

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Automated persona creation: AI tools can analyse user behaviour data from surveys, interviews and generate personas based on common patterns and behaviours.

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Questionnaire creation: If a user spends a long time on a particular page, the AI can generate a survey question related to that page and it can also recommend changes to questions that may be culturally insensitive or inappropriate.

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Note-making: In usability testing NLP can be used to capture and highlight notes.

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Here are some examples: 

• QoQo.ai: This tool allows you to conduct user research with AI participants that simulate real users. You can create synthetic users based on your target audience and test your prototypes, wireframes, or websites with them. You can also get feedback, analytics, and recommendations from the AI participants.

• Notably: This tool is an AI-powered user research platform that helps you collect, analyze, and share user feedback. You can use Notably to conduct surveys, interviews, usability tests, and more. You can also use Notably’s AI to generate insights, themes, and summaries from your data.

• Kraftful: This tool is an automated summary generator for user reviews. You can use Kraftful to analyze user reviews from various sources and get a concise overview of the main topics, sentiments, and ratings. You can also use Kraftful to compare your product with competitors and identify areas for improvement.

• Ask Viable: This tool is an AI-powered sentiment analysis tool that helps you understand how your customers feel about your product or service. You can use Ask Viable to upload customer feedback from various sources and get a sentiment score, emotion labels, and key themes. You can also use Ask Viable to ask questions and get answers from your data.

• Symantec: This tool is an AI-powered text analysis tool that helps you extract insights from any text data. You can use Symantec to analyze user feedback, social media posts, reviews, surveys, and more. You can also use Symantec to get metrics such as sentiment, emotion, personality, tone of voice, topics, and intents.

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Journey Mapping

Pattern Recognition: AI algorithms can identify patterns and trends within customer journeys that might not be immediately apparent. This can help businesses understand common pain points, positive experiences, and key decision-making moments in the customer journey.

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Predictive Journey Mapping: Using historical data, AI can predict potential future customer journeys based on similar customer behaviours. This helps businesses anticipate customer needs and preferences, allowing for proactive adjustments to improve the journey.

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Sentiment Analysis: It can analyse user interaction data to identify patterns in how users navigate a website or app, and use this information to find out the deviation from the happy flow.

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Here are some examples: 

• Userdoc AI: This tool is an AI-driven user persona, journey, and requirement generator. You can use Userdoc AI to create user personas based on your target market and user interviews. You can also use Userdoc AI to map out user journeys and generate user requirements for your product.

• Notion.so/product/ai: This tool allows you to generate content and insights from text queries. You can use Notion.so/product/ai to create user journey maps by asking questions about your users and their needs.

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Wireframing

Sketches to Screens: There are tools available which can convert sketch wireframes to digital wireframes. Although, it’s not very accurate currently but as it gets better it will help us in speeding up the ideation process.

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Design Suggestions: It can suggest design patterns, fonts, and colours based on the preferences of the target audience and the specific use case.

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Accessibility: It can analyse wireframes for potential accessibility issues, such as low color contrast, irrelevant typeface or non-standard screen reader behaviour.

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Here’s an example: 

• Visily.ai: This tool allows you to generate wireframes and prototypes from text descriptions, hand-drawn sketches, app screenshots, or built-in templates. You can also use Visily.ai to test and iterate on your designs.

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Visual Design

Automated design generation: AI-powered design tools can automatically generate custom logos, website designs, or marketing materials based on user input and design specifications.

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Style Guide: Platforms like Midjourney can be very helpful in the exploration phase when you’re trying to find a suitable style. Sample illustrations and graphics can be created and once finalised you can make custom designs.

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Colour palette: It can analyse images and automatically generate colour palettes that work well together.

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Layout optimisation: AI tools can analyse a website's user traffic and suggest changes to the layout that can improve user engagement and lead to increased conversions.

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Here are some examples: 

• Uizard: This tool allows you to generate wireframes and prototypes from hand-drawn sketches or screenshots. You can use Uizard to create wireframes by uploading your sketches or screenshots and letting the AI transform them into digital wireframes. You can also use Uizard to edit, customize, and export your wireframes.

• UseGalileo.ai: This tool allows you to generate complete UI designs from text descriptions. You can use UseGalileo.ai to create wireframes by describing the screens and elements of your product. You can also use UseGalileo.ai to export your designs to various formats and platforms.

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Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping: To generate interactive wireframes based on user input or pre-defined design patterns.

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Automated Prototyping: It can automatically generate interactive prototypes based on wireframes or design specifications.

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Realistic Prototyping: AI can be used to fetch realistic data in fields like Avatar, Name, Phone no. etc to make the designs look more real. This will be more helpful in SaaS platforms which are data heavy.

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Here’s an example: 

• UseGalileo.ai: This tool also allows you to to create prototypes by describing the screens and elements of your product.

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Iterations

Automated Design Feedback: It can analyse a user's design and suggest changes to improve usability or aesthetics.

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Predictive Analytics: It  can analyse user behaviour data and suggest design changes that are likely to result in higher engagement or conversion rates.

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Design Handoff

Automated Code Generation: AI-powered design handoff tools can generate HTML and CSS code based on a designer's work thus reducing time and effort required for manual coding.

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Automated Design Specifications: It can analyse a designer's design files and generate a style guide for developers.

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Here’s an example: 

• Fronty: This tool allows you to create responsive websites from your design files in minutes. You can use Fronty to upload your design files from Figma or Sketch and generate a website that includes the HTML, CSS, JS, and images. You can also use Fronty to edit your website and publish it online.

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As a designer, we should keep looking for new technologies and tools to optimise our process, as it will give us leverage to spend time on more important tasks. A lot of AI tools are not there yet but they will definitely get better with time that shouldn’t stop us from getting our hands dirty. 

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