Design is much more than the way things look. It encompasses every aspect of every interaction with the device, object or software package you’re using. Josh Clark published a talk he gave on behalf of his design studio big medium, that is focused on design in the era of the algorithm, or Artificial Intelligence.
It’s a very long and deep article, well worth the read if you design anything at all. I found it very relevant as we are currently designing our most complex and powerful app. Read on for a list of the topics.
The topic list provides a simple way to summarize the content:
- What’s the next mobile (what’s the next thing that will similarly transform our culture)
- Technical advance inflates expectations faster than it can fulfill them
- Machine Learning powers it all (even at Apple)
- Welcome to the Algocracy ( Algorithmic interfaces are a huge part of our future, and getting their design right is critical—and very, very hard to do.)
- Machine learning on the cheap (API access is easy and inexpensive, but interestingly the author completely ignores IBM Watson as an Machine Learning API provider)
- Ready for Experiments (Because stringing together multiple APIs is powerful)
- The machines make mistakes (The world is a complicated place, full of nuance. And sometimes machines aren’t terribly subtle.)
- Google and the one true answer (In trying to get the definitive answer, Google can create fake news)
- Productive Humility for machine-generated interfaces
he then continues with ten design principles for conceiving, designing, and managing data-driven products.
- Favor accuracy over speed
- Allow for ambiguity
- Add human judgment
- Advocate sunshine
- Embrace multiple systems
- Make it easy to contribute (accurate) data
- Root out bias and bad assumptions
- Give people control over their data
- Be loyal to the user
- Take responsibility
The article provides a deep look at designing with machine learning, and I recommend you read it.