How to effectively get started using AI-based tools as a designer

Acting on Jakob Nielsen’s stunning prediction of AI being the future of UX

Art by Midjourney

Last week, I learned that Jakob Nielsen, the guru of Web Page Usability and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, talked about how AI is the future of UX.

Now that ChatGPT has been around for almost a year, I expected many larger organizations to have an opinion. However, I wasn’t expecting how supportive he was: he predicted a shortage of UX Professionals with two years' of AI usability experience in 2025, with each professional receiving 500 job offers.

At the same time, there's quite a lot of noise around learning AI-based tools. Nestled between get-rich-quick schemes and academic theses on AI are very few resources for non-technical people. As a result, many Junior Designers may not know how to learn this skill.

However, based on my experience in Data-Informed Design and AI, the answer is more straightforward than you think. To learn AI-driven tools, you must first adopt a new mental model centered around four words: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Having the right mental model for AI is crucial