Author: Jesse James Garrett
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Design fundamentals and AI disruption: Dan Saffer on Finding Our Way
The question of the value proposition of design and designers—of what the practice and its practitioners bring to the table and why it matters—has been a dominant undercurrent in the conversations I’ve had with design leaders in my AI transformation work over the last year. So it was very interesting to hear these themes reflected…
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Adaptive Path at 25
Today marks 25 years since the seven of us threw in together to prove that there was a business to be built in doing user experience work. Not web design work or interactive design work or even information architecture work. The company was called Adaptive Path, and the stand we took was for user experience,…
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AI’s impact on product and design: Christina Wodtke on Finding Our Way
When I ran into my friend Christina Wodtke at the Game Developers Conference back around 2009, we both had the same question for each other: “What are you doing here?” For me, one big reason I was there was to investigate what was going on in the strange parallel universe of game development in AI.…
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Jumping in the deep end: Christian Crumlish on Finding Our Way
Just how much of your role could truly be automated away? How much of your knowledge would you have to instill in an AI for it to really do some part of your job? Veteran product leader Christian Crumlish’s exploration of these questions has turned into his full-blown AI project Piper Morgan, as he shared…
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How AI is evolving design practice: Andrew Hogan on Finding Our Way
Designers have been caught between speed and quality since long before toolmakers started telling us we didn’t have to choose. But with AI-driven automation making its way into design processes, that tension is surfacing in unexpected ways. “People feel like they’re a lot more efficient when they’re using AI in their design process, but they…
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Responding to the AI mandate
You’ve seen the all-staff emails. The mandate coming down from C-suite executives regarding AI is overwhelmingly consistent: “Figure out how to use it or you’re fired.” These people are telling you they don’t know what they’re doing. Executive leaders literally do not know how AI tooling might impact their teams, their metrics, their outcomes. There…
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Rising above AI mediocrity: Teresa Torres on Finding Our Way
The easier it is to create something, the more important human discernment becomes. But when it’s hard, when technical expertise is necessary to achieve an outcome, that serves as a sort of forcing function. Getting to an outcome requires a significant investment of time and energy to develop the acumen to both understand a problem…
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Optimism for the future of design: Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel on Finding Our Way
We didn’t talk much about AI in our conversation with Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel on the latest episode of our design leadership podcast Finding Our Way, but maybe that’s because AI really set the context for the whole conversation. As Dean of Design at OCAD University, Dr. Noel has to keep adapting her programs to prepare…
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The AI opportunity for digital design agencies
For most of my early career in the 90s and 2000s, design agencies were the leaders. They could attract the best talent, they had the most mature processes, and they had the ability to try new things and break new ground that internal teams (who were then still small and new) couldn’t muster. Then I…
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Talking AI and UX on FOW
Every design leader, no matter what size your team, needs a point of view on AI. Now. Maybe you haven’t yet felt the pressure from your executives (or your team) to articulate a perspective on where this new technology can be applied to create the most value. If so, you are part of what I…
Jesse James Garrett 