Semester B: Week 20
Student: Tai Ser Yeet (22064351)
Programme: BA (Hons)(SW) Digital Media Design
WEEK 20
Class Notes
In this YouTube video, Katty Kay talks with business leader Jane Wurwand about her "high touch" theory of AI and why she believes the roles that will thrive in the coming decades are those built around person-to-person connection.
My Thoughts
In a world where AI is rapidly taking over, human connection becomes ever more important. Robots and machines can perform with precision, but they cannot replicate that emotional touch, i.e., high-touch. In the context of a dance performance, nobody wants to see an expressionless robot; we have to think about our spectators as well. They are not robots, the humans, and we connect through feelings and shared experiences. Hence, jobs in hospitality which require human interaction and compassion have a higher chance of surviving the AI pandemic. To conclude, Jane also mentioned that things that used to be called "soft skills" are now "hard skills", and it is no longer a want but a need.
In a world where AI is rapidly taking over, human connection becomes ever more important. Robots and machines can perform with precision, but they cannot replicate that emotional touch, i.e., high-touch. In the context of a dance performance, nobody wants to see an expressionless robot; we have to think about our spectators as well. They are not robots, the humans, and we connect through feelings and shared experiences. Hence, jobs in hospitality which require human interaction and compassion have a higher chance of surviving the AI pandemic. To conclude, Jane also mentioned that things that used to be called "soft skills" are now "hard skills", and it is no longer a want but a need.
Google Gemini added really good points to my perspective:
I wanted to include my thoughts on a virtual event I attended 2 months ago with Cal Thompson, VP of Design at Headspace, who explored how Headspace is using AI in their design process and their learnings from implementing an AI-enabled workflow. The reason being that for the past two weeks, Steve has revolved class materials around AI and how it is shaping the experiences of the world.
Below are the notes:
Cal Thompson x Future London Academy Notes
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| Presentation Slides |
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| Screenshot of Virtual Interview Via Zoom |
The interview discusses:
→ How the Headspace design team uses AI
→ How AI is changing the role of designers and creatives
→ How AI is moving design into a more playful realness
Integrate AI Into the Design Process
1. Chapter 1: Guide the roadmap (YES TO AI)
- Generate simple images or prototypes
- easier to envision for non-designers, such as product managers, engineers
2. Chapter 2: Text synthesis tools (Miro, Figma, Fig Jam)
- Consolidate themes effectively
- Save time, as you have lots of data
3. Chapter 3: We tend to remember what users said during interviews
- Human stories are memorable because you hear them yourself and connect with humanity
- or generally because we as humans are helpful and want to solve problems, visceral memory response
- benefit so much from seeing firsthand
- Comment #1 - helps anchor our decisions in real use case evidence
- Comment #2- remembering pain points from contextual inquiries/ interviews
- Comment #3 - As we enter the AI age, I often hear from my C-suite leaders that AI can take care of things like low-fidelity designs and even design system components — but what still can’t be replaced is creativity.
- You need to stand by the work you create
- Willing to take ownership of the work you are doing, AI can’t
4. Chapter 4:
- Nice to get together to create something using AI tools such as Figma Make, lovable and Bolt
- Visualises and quickly prototypes in line with the company’s design system and edits itin real-time
- Don’t feel like a huge problem to solve
5. Chapter 5:
- AI will suggest the data that you can encourage to use, and what isn’t
Design Culture
- For the team’s creativity
- The power of designers, collectiveness
- Investing time in building team culture and community, and setting funness
- Inspiration. Fill their cup by going to e.g. galleries and exploring different places to gather inspo.
- Advantageous – a social event where you can talk with your colleagues and bond. After that, you come back with a fresh mindset
- Rituals are imperative- something the team at headspace had, e.g. 10 mins for outside walking
- Feel more relaxed, dismantle some of the walls, creating a safe and collaborative space for designers to approach people when they encounter problems and be real, as opposed to sometimes competing or struggling solo
- Because focus has shifted from community and being a human being to fast-paced, effectiveness in work
- No AI can recreate/generate/figure this out
Helpful AI Tools and How to Use
- Know your process as a designer
- Use AI to your strengths
- Claude is good at thought collaboration
- Synthesise survey responses, user journey map
- Use AI to get to where you want to go in the design process
- AI created more diverse starting points, deeper edge cases, rather than the typical research
- You discover what you wouldn’t possibly have if it hadn’t been for the AI tools
- Q1: If AI becomes your new "Intern" - how do we support real human interns be interns? I worry about junior and grad roles struggling to get work. Answer: MVP wireframes, asking difficult questions to AI
Additional Notes
- With AI, evolve your skillset continuously to figure out what your niche is
- Ask yourself, “What are the tasks that you can do with AI, and what can you give AI to do?”
- Best ideas come from creativity and teamwork
Learning Touch Designer
I have made a checklist so I can keep track of my progress and keep myself accountable.
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| Project Timeline |
After following this tutorial, I gained an understanding of how TOPs function and their limitations. By doing so, I was able to experiment with creating various creative outcomes and also compare the uses of a few with one another.
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| Touch Designer Workspace |
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| My Notes |
Part 2 of Learning TOPs 101 explores noise, how to make noise move through code, and feedback loops. In my opinion, Feedback TOPs are quite difficult to understand, so it took longer than usual to get a good grasp of what was going on.
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| Experimenting with the Feedback TOP |
Edge TOP- By inserting this specific operator, the system takes only the outlines of the work. I could use part of this logic for my final project, which resembles hair.
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| Edge TOP - Only Outline |
Enabling the "Comp Over Input" makes the colours visible, whereas when turned off, merely reveals the outline.
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| Edge TOP - Two Options |