Mind the AI gap

UX keeps learning and working with AI tools to recognize any opportunity.

A Designer’s role is to keep learning while we are working. We learn about our users, we work at closing skills gaps, we learn about designing software, we work on addressing change, we learn new AI tools, and so on. The only constant is there is always something new to learn, and we have to work because change is inevitable.

If you are new to Design (UX/UI/Product/IxD), you need to watch this video with a quote by Ira Glass of This American Life.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
― Ira Glass

The reality of being a designer is that there will always be a gap. The world changes too fast for there not to be. Consider the rapid change brought on by COVID. The number of organizations that adapted quickly due to everyone saying home has been both remarkable and inevitable. Telecommute technology has been around for a while and was even dreamed up by Douglas Engelbart in 1968 as a possibility in “The Mother of All Demos” (see below)