Building a layered approach with AI

We have made significant strides in the evolution of design. It is crucial for us to recognize that disruptive technologies have always been the catalyst for change, shaping the way we design and communicate. In an era before the printing press, people painstakingly wrote books by hand. Similarly, the emergence of mobile phones, computers, and the internet has changed everything.

Embracing these changes and adapting to newer technologies is essential for staying relevant in the field of design. There are designers who use Adobe Dreamweaver and Photoshop to create website UI. It feels like a different era since the introduction of more recent software such as Figma, and Adobe XD. However, the core principle remains the same: staying pertinent requires adaptability as the times change.

While there’s an ongoing discussion about AI potentially replacing design jobs, my personal perspective is that we should not fear it but rather leverage it to our advantage since AI is an execution tool. AI is poised to simplify our lives. When you consider the broader picture, your value as a designer in the upcoming years will be determined by your ability to synthesize innovative ideas to solve problems. Let me elaborate on how, as designers, we must strengthen our problem-solving muscles.

Tools like Midjourney are designed for image-specific tasks, enabling the creation of visually appealing images. Chat GPT on the other hand is a text-based AI model, although now with the incorporation of DALL-E inside Chat GPT, it gives image outputs too.

I want you to imagine for a second, what if you used Chat GPT to create nuanced prompts for Midjourney.

This is layering software on top of another software to receive your desired output. For this to work, you have to first train your Chat GPT agent on Midjourney’s functionality and then prompt using a basic framework.

The framework works like this:

First, you inform Chat GPT about your desired role or objective and define your approach or task. For example, ‘I am a skilled graphic designer who designs illustrations for top brands in India. You need to provide me with ideas for designing a coffee shop logo, along with some links for inspiration.’

Then, you specify your timeframe or any restrictions. For instance, ‘I can’t spend more than 30 minutes looking at inspiration, so please only provide the best ones you find that you believe would be most helpful.’

Finally, after training your agent, request Chat GPT to provide a prompt for Midjourney.

The key thing to remember while implementing this approach is to churn out a nuanced prompt that will serve as a base for your creative design process later. That’s it—two layers of software, and the pivotal layer comes into play once you’ve received the output: your creativity. You make AI as Robin to your Batman. Consider this as no longer needing to begin from a starting point. With AI tools such as these, people who have the potential to think clearly to formulate ideas would flourish. I encourage you to use these AI tools in your daily life to learn and become the best in your respective fields.

There are many more tools that have come into the market such as for UI, a single line prompt can generate a whole app’s UI screens with tools like Uizard. Builder.io is a tool that uses AI to convert Figma design files into code. Recent developments also suggest that AI can help with user research for large organizations, potentially marking a paradigm shift in the UX industry, as these AI models have been trained on human behaviors, this has been put forth by fantasy.co. There is so much more to come, the least we can do is be prepared for it.

I hope you had a good read and this article gave you a sense of what is waiting in our future.

About the Author:

Shivani Shukla is a Senior UI & UX designer at Mantra Labs. Updating her knowledge and staying up to date with the current trends has always been her priority.

Building a layered approach with AI

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