The future of Product Design

I’m nothing special, in fact I’m a bit of a bore, If I tell a joke, you’ve probably heard it before

Thinking up prompts

I write this blog post, because it is mostly, well, therapeutic. I write, to detoxify a brain, overflowing with ideas, fears, anxiety, headlines, doomsday clock countdowns and lately ChatGPT prompts. Prompts echo in my head, accompanying images and stories that would wake and inspire Salvador Dali — what’s in a name? It is after all, simply generative. I have always had the notion that we, us design folk are not all that special — hence I somehow do not find it difficult to embrance or make sense of it all. I am not afraid of my AI tools, I welcome the end of the designer, the special sensitive soul in the corner, with “an eye” for “design”.

The end of the designer

I can point you to a couple of wonderful articles on the future of generative AI Tools, (you’ve probably read most, nodding your head, as you read and your ego soothed). I can embroider on the unique abilities we have, as humans, to forge bonds, think critically “foster relationships” and all the skills masters like Brad Frost and other have written about in the past days, and weeks. However, I would simply be lying and at that trying to convince you of something I personally do not believe. How I wish it were true.

Are you really that talented?

We are not that special, you see? Or do you? The barriers to entry of the special domain of art and design and creative writing is crumbling. It is no longer a skill only a select group of sensitve souls had the privilege of being born with and learn to master. I believe I know what I am talking about, you see, I was regarded as “one of the special ones”, I had exceptional hand-eye coordination, a great sense of colour and immense confidence in the lines I put down on paper. I matriculated with a distinction in art and found it relatively easy to be accepted into the Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Pretoria. I did not feel special, I felt, it was the only thing I was good at, and had a good dose of misplaced humility which caused me to be less competitive than was good for my future career in visual arts or information design. In retrospect, I was simply too geeky to pass for an art student, and while talented, not quite talented or competitive enough — I tried and failed, none of my subjects mind you, but I failed because I was not hungry for success and could not be arsed to be part of the in-crowd. Suffice to say, I was also not particularly keen to struggle for my art and had a hard time identifying with Van Gogh and other tragic figures. I honestly did not feel that I was talented enough and experienced, what I can now name the creation of generative art, as I was fed one after the other data set of students and masters that came before me. A lot of paintings of second and third year students looked like the winners of New Signatures we were trained to model but very few of us were talented enough to break beyond the data sets of patterns we could generate.

Drop out, read books

I dropped out in my second year and while figuring out what to do with my life, read books on artificial intelligence, minds and consciousness. I loved Mathematics and Science but they were not natural strengths and I knew better than to attempt a degree in engineering — my insecurities where it concerned math kept me from pursuing an education in computer science and eventually decided a degree in Psychology was the closest thing to satisfy my facination with minds and machinery.

Try harder

Today, more than ever I question my specialness — I can point you to a number of articles that maintain that our unique abilities to build bridges and coordinate and foster relationships while we critically think and solve give us the edge! I would argue, we will be better off if we regard design as a specialisation within the broader Product Management discipline. If Product Designers don’t focus on finding useful problems to solve, and continue generating bland, templaty designs, well, I fear we are deserving of getting replaced by AI tools. Let’s face it, there is a pattern to everything. Can we still create and evoke a feeling, can we truly find a sweet spot, where the neural net has not yet cast its grasp and can we, by our humanity in the absence of human design, be humane? I have a sense, I will be dropping out of design again, but perhaps before I do, let me give it one more try.