By Saya Hart

Generative AI is transforming the tech landscape by empowering applications to create content, generate ideas, and even produce entire works of art. For example, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has been used to write essays, generate creative fiction, and assist in coding tasks. As the potential for generative AI grows, it becomes increasingly important to design user experiences that are intuitive, effective, and engaging. Here are three essential UX tips to consider when designing generative AI apps:

Tip #1: Simplify Users’ First Interactions

When users first interact with generative AI apps, they may feel overwhelmed by the technology’s capabilities or uncertain about how to start. Simplifying the users first interactions can help mitigate these feelings and encourage user engagement.

Practical Application:

• Onboarding process: Develop a smooth onboarding process that guides users through the app’s main feature using simple language and visuals will help users quickly understand the app’s value and functionality.
• Interactive tutorials: Create interactive tutorials that walk users through the app step-by-step with visual cues such as arrows, highlights, and tooltips. These elements can help direct attention and explain functionalities clearly.

Example: Google provides instructive onboarding experiences for their apps, Google Photos and Google Assistant. Google Photos offers step-by-step guidance on utilizing its different features, including AI face recognition for organizing photos. Google Assistant walks the user through setting up voice commands and integrating with other services. Both use visual cues and simple instructions to help users get started quickly and effectively.

Tip #2: Provide Clear Controls

Results produced by generative AI apps can be impressive, but it can also generate unexpected or undesired outputs. Providing users with clear feedback and intuitive controls to refine the output can enhance their sense of control and satisfaction.

Practical Application:

• Real-time Feedback: Display real-time feedback as the AI generates content will allow users to see how their inputs affect the result.
• Consistent UI Elements: Ensure consistency in UI elements through the app to reduce cognitive load and make navigation easier.
• Clickable Options: Reduce the need for typing by providing clickable options, such as buttons, dropdown menus, under/redo buttons, and multi-select options. This simplifies the interactions and better guides the user.

Example: Grammarly AI provides real-time feedback on writing, highlighting errors and suggesting corrections as a user types. It utilizes clickable options for corrections and improvements to help guide users to get their desired output. Grammarly AI simplifies the user experience, making it easy to refine and enhance text with minimal effort.

Tip #3: Focus on Ethical Design

Generative AI raises unique ethical considerations, particularly around issues like bias, misuse, and transparency. Designing with these concerns in mind not only protects users but also builds trust and credibility for your app.

Practical Application:

• Bias Mitigation: Implement mechanisms to detect and mitigate bias in AI-generated content, allowing users to report biased and inappropriate outputs.
• Transparency: Be transparent about how the AI works and what data is used to build trust users.

Example: OpenAI’s ChatGPT offers users the ability to provide feedback on outputs to help in identifying and mitigating biases. Additionally, it provides transparency about how the model works and the data used to train it.

Conclusion

Designing an intuitive user experience for generative AI apps involves balancing usability, control, and addressing ethical considerations. By focusing on these UX principles, you can create an AI application that is not only powerful and innovative but also user-friendly and trustworthy. As generative AI evolves, prioritizing thoughtful UX design will be crucial in harnessing its full potential.