In the era of AI, it is inseparable from "design system architects"

With the rapid development of the AI era, designers who understand business, technology, and AI will become scarce talents, and the current dilemma of design system development may have new breakthroughs.

Seeing that there are designers abroad talking about the so-called "AI designers", the conversation is quite empty. Much of the focus on this topic may be due to the fact that the development of AI tools has created a lot of uncertainty about the career prospects of designers.

Of course, there is also certainty, and what is certain is that the number of designers will definitely decrease significantly in the future, and this is already happening. What is uncertain is what it will be like to stay and continue to design under the title of "designer" in the future.

01 In the next 3 years, the division of functions of designers will be reorganized

I think that in the next 3 years, the functional division of designers will be very different from the current one, and the current division of labor is more divided by professional skill verticals, such as interaction designers, visual designers, animation designers and so on.

Boldly speculate, I think the division of labor in the AI era will be divided into two directions: the final delivery effect, the "business designer" at the front desk and the "design system architect" at the bottom.

Business designers will be responsible for the final result, such as growth designers, operational activity designers, AI conversation designers, and so on. You might say, doesn't that coincide with the work of a product manager or an operations manager?

Yes, there is a lot of overlap right now, and the development of AI technology will make these overlapping areas even bigger. In the end, either the designer will do the product function design and operation activity planning, or the current product manager will do what the designer does together.

On this trend, there will be a process of game between the two sides, which is not particularly clear at the moment. On the other hand, the direction of design system architect will develop faster.

02 In the era of AI, designers who understand design systems and technology will become scarce talents

With the development of AI, designers who understand design systems and understand the front-end will become scarce talents, of course, there is another name for this type of talent, that is, front-end engineers who can design.

If you want to use AI for UI design, you first need to have a design system. AI technology: AI tools require a sophisticated design system to really improve work efficiency. Of course, AI can also generate design systems. But no matter how good an aircraft is, it needs a pilot to fly it.

The construction, improvement, maintenance and iteration of the design system of each product of each company need to be completed by more experienced designers. The implementation of the design system means the development and application of interface components, which requires designers to have a tacit cooperation with front-end and client-side development engineers.

Therefore, the AI of an enterprise's product design and front-end development is inseparable from the "design system architect".

The same is true when it comes to visual design.

The development of Stable Diffussion will change the design template business such as Canva and Band-Aid, and designers' reliance on design materials and design templates will also evolve into a dependence on design models.

This is a new design and production model, which will bring new types of design work. For example, a full-time design model trainer may not be working at the company, but will be employed by a variety of employers to train them on the vision models they need. It is then delivered to the company for them to generate their own image materials.

Such an "SD model trainer" who understands AI technology and can control multiple design styles is actually part of the work of the visual design system. It's just that most companies in China have not established system specifications and components for visual design for themselves.

03 The dilemma of design system development may have a breakthrough

At present, the design systems of large and medium-sized enterprises in China are in a particularly embarrassing situation.

Because few companies can improve the design system in a particularly forward-looking way in the 0-1 process, the establishment and maintenance of the design system has become a long-standing problem as the business needs have been iterating. The design team and R&D team have to invest a huge amount of work to complete the construction of the component, and the benefits of this project are difficult to measure.

Therefore, the design system of most companies is not perfect at present. So how do you build on this status quo and make the transition to a new design system that can incorporate AI?

To make this clear, we need to talk about the four roles in this matter: UI designer, front-end/client-side development engineer, functional product manager, and boss who contributes money and resources.

Whether in the mobile Internet era or the AI era, the biggest benefit of building a design system is to improve the efficiency of design collaboration.

In the past ten years, the development of the domestic design system is still relatively slow, although everyone has the awareness and action of the design system, but the real landing effect is mostly unsatisfactory. If the 0-1 phase does not build the design system perfectly, it is not componentized. In the later stage, in the process of continuous iteration, the design and development will always be chaotic, and the cost of doing componentization is also very high. Many design specifications and design components have not been effectively solved.

Design system and component development has always been a very expensive thing, and the construction and maintenance of design systems often seem out of place in the "rapid iteration" product development rhythm.

However, we are now in the transition period of AI-enabled products.

What will the AI-based product form look like? At present, it is likely to be basically stable into a conversational CUI. AI products will appear in the form of countless AI agents. AI Agent helps you accomplish the tasks you want to accomplish, whether it's doing career counseling, learning English, booking hotels, or writing travel guides.

Imagine if every company had a complete design system and then plugged it into the AI-powered Figma?

The biggest benefit of building a design system is to improve the efficiency of design collaboration. In the current period of economic downturn and the explosion of AI technology, bosses will be more willing to spend resources on things that improve efficiency, provided that they can see clear efficiency results, such as the "downsizing" ratio.

You might say that the designer's living conditions are dangerous. In fact, no one is not dangerous now, and front-end engineers are more dangerous than designers. After all, there are no mature smart UI design tools yet, but there are many mature low-code development platforms. AI can't do design better than humans, but AI can write code just as well as good humans.

That day, I saw a cleaning aunt in the mall staring at a robot cleaning the floor, and said to herself, "This robot sweeps the floor so clean!"

It's the same exclamation we felt last year after seeing Midjourney's raw images: the AI-generated images are amazing!

This article is written by Everyone is a Product Manager Author【Chai Lin】, WeChat public account: [Chai Lin's Design Notes], original/authorized Published in Everyone is a product manager, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint.

Image from Unsplash, based on the CC0 license.