User Interface Vs Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has already started to touch human lives greatly. It is impacting various different aspects of human life starting from programmatic ad targeting, to chat bots, to algorithmic trading or even market analysis and data mining. However, the majority of its application at present is being utilized by the organizations who have larger pockets to expend.

User Interface is also not unmoved by artificial intelligence. AI is already taking larger roles in user experience across various interactions. What used to be a dumb machine is getting smarter and smarter!

AI is making interactions so simple that it is going to become our go-to point for communicating with apps and brands. This has already resulted into or is about to be an absolute disruption in the way humans interact with machines.

There are organizations working on designing artificially intelligent systems for creating tailored user interface for individuals. "AI is the new UI" is what they say! Yet, artificial intelligence works on historical data, usage patterns, categorizing people having similar thoughts, actions or behavior. The output of AI in UI will depend on how intelligently the system makes major design-decisions, based on the vast user activity stored in databases and mines. The one challenge though, is if we are to categorize designers and their intellection based on their common goals and behaviors, we may probably compromise on true user centered, fresh-and-unique design that could be achieved otherwise. There are people debating - Is it really worthwhile to have AI touch upon UI? The answer to this debate is – YES; don’t just think of the front end when user interface is talked about. It is the experience that distinguishes the traditional systems from the next generation ones.

AI has been a very effective tool in powering invisible UI. Invisible UIs are intuitive user interfaces, contextually available against user actions, and personalized for them. Think of the systems that are powered by natural language processing algorithms in the likes of Apple Siri, OK Google or IBM Watson. They have changed the way users have been interacting with the system until now. We are living in an age where consistent, Omni-channel and integrated user-experiences matter more than having just fancy looking web pages or mobile apps, we have moved over and above just a visual gloss. The user today, needs a quick, pain-free way to achieve their goals. This is what our customers are demanding today. Majority of IT customers are facing the pressure of maintaining a balance between ‘business-as-usual’ versus forging towards achievability of next generation intelligent systems. The adoption of AI is set to give them a competitive advantage over the others.

So when it comes to user interfaces, don’t just think of the front-end that has been luring the users of the internet, since late 90’s. Times have now changed and so have the needs of the users. The kind of needs modern users have, cannot be merely fulfilled by traditional user interfaces. The content is more relevant to users, than the real UI. Hence, the need of the hour is that UX designers are made aware of the capabilities of artificial intelligence. UI/UX and AI has to follow an equilibrist approach to understand the final goal of the systems being worked. Designers may use AI as an aid for constantly improving the human interaction points with machines. They must leverage the power of AI to generate relevant content for the end-user and place it at the most-likely and probable human interface. AI can constantly work on the data-centric and algorithmic approach to calibrate the user interfaces. Ultimately, it is the UI coupled with AI experience that matters more than just the interface!

Rahul Rakesh
Project Lead, Xavient Information Systems

Tags: User Interface, Artificial Intelligence, Rahul Rakesh, Project Lead,  Xavient Information Systems, varindia