Design Note: “This Design Needs Love” is intended to explore and conceptualize design ideas only, not perfect them. Designs are time-scoped and only reach mid-fidelity.
Problem
Web and user experience design are limited. We build websites and applications for architypes and personas, but not individuals with unique needs. We wrap sites in marketing jargon and templatized user flows in the hope that it fits everyone, but in reality, fits no one. There are no designs that fulfill the diversity of individuals or their diverse needs. There is no UX that holistically flexes for each user.
What if there was a way for a person to interact and reflow their online experiences based on their needs, including:
Localization and translation
Information architecture and simplicity
Accessibility and enablement
Personalization and usability
What if we integrated an AI agent into our platforms, gave it access to a library of organizational knowledge, and then allowed it to reflow a website’s interface based on a person’s individual desires?
Opportunity
Here’s a website wireframe for a faux metaverse company called Haven. It features all the standard components of a standard website, such as top-level navigation, hero and CTA banners, product feature boxes, and even a floating icon for accessibility settings.
Difficulties with the Basic Site:
Uses marketing speak and jargon and never clearly defines what anything really is.
Doesn’t understand user desires. Every user is served the same information in the same way every time.
Isn’t necessarily localized or translated for any culture or language, even if it’s internationalization-ready.
Provides only basic accessibility options in a hard-to-reach location that requires setting management.
Application
So what if we built an agent into a company’s website, gave it access to that company’s complete knowledge base, and allowed it to access the page template to reflow the page to whatever the user desired? What if we created a feature that allowed us to ignore user experience altogether and grant total control to back to the user to create their own experience?
Such a feature could upend our approach to modern web design or user experience design and eliminate the need for most types of UX research or UX design, because the user could literally change the design to fill every desire.
Here are three examples of how such a user-driven, AI-powered reflow could work:
REFLOW PROMPT 1: Translate and Localize for Japanese
"Imagine the site is being viewed by a Japanese audience. Rebuild the site so that it’s translated and more visually pleasing.”
Actions:
Localize content
Translate into Japanese
Left-align content
Compress and add content suitable for Japanese design styles and audiences
Prompt 1: Localize (Before)
Prompt 1: Localize (After)
Reflow Prompt 2: Simplify the Information Architecture
"Rebuild the site to compare pricing vs benefits from lowest to highest. Include cancellation policies. Rewrite text for simplicity and remove all other content.”
Actions:
Remove information architecture.
Rebuild page with pricing plans
Provide simple, straightforward lists of titles, descriptions, costs, features, and policies for a user to make determinations
Prompt 2: Information Architecture (Before)
Prompt 2: Information Architecture (After)
Reflow Prompt 3: Enhance Accessibility
"I have a hard time seeing small text or compact content. Make the website easier for me to consume.”
Actions:
Make text bolder and larger
Eliminate smaller descriptions unless critical to understanding
Increase padding overall
Make buttons larger and clearer
Simplify language and make more explicit
Enhance link or action visibility
Prompt 3: Accessibility (Before)
Prompt 3: Accessibility (After)
Future Considerations
Templating for 80% vs AI for 100% User Needs
If site reorienting is good enough, integrated AI may only be used for an initial design request and a few tweaks. Thus, chat data may eventually show that most users only want a few site formats, leading to marketing or design teams reverting to cheaper methods to fulfil needs based on personas or 80/20 rules. However, an AI has the opportunity to eliminate concepts of personas or user archetypes and fulfill any user need.Default Website Format
If a website can be changed to any format by any user at any time, what should the default format be then, and what principles should that default be designed around? Does that mean there’s still a need for standard UX regardless of an AI-design-driven future?