Be like water: Rethinking the design process with AI

"AI has made a big splash in the UX Design industry, complicating an already turbulent landscape, but how much of that is useful is still up for debate. You have likely seen companies quickly introduce AI mandates to keep pace with these trends. In the blink of an eye, we went from having no money for a Mural license to heavily investing in a bulk subscription to Copilot. Vanity metrics, such as the number of tokens used ( tokenmaxxing) have been used to measure implementation speed, without a direct link to how they will affect OKRs or, for UX, how they can deliver consistent results for our users."

"In the UX world, we all have different ways of reacting to AI generated uncertainty. On LinkedIn, we have seen our fair share of catastrophizing: ' Figma is dead,' ' No more UI,' ' Processes are dead,' and so on. While others focus only on rituals rather than understanding, such as downloading a library of prompts to copy and paste or a git with 250 skills, without really reflecting on what is applicable to their current needs."

"Amid this trepidation, we need to understand intention and economy of motion. We need to think ..."

AI adoption in UX has accelerated, with many teams adding AI mandates and subscriptions to keep pace. Implementation is often measured using vanity metrics like token usage, which do not clearly connect to OKRs or consistent user results. UX teams respond to AI uncertainty in different ways, including catastrophizing claims that tools or processes will disappear. Others focus on copying rituals such as prompt libraries or large skill repositories without evaluating what applies to current needs. A more effective approach emphasizes intention and economy of motion, aligning actions with purpose and reducing unnecessary movement to improve consistency and relevance for users.

Read at Medium