Will Robots Replace Designers? No. It's more like an exoskeleton for designers. Algorithm-driven design tools can help us to construct a UI, prepare assets and content, and personalize the user experience. In 2016 the technological foundations of these tools became easily accessible, and the design community got interested in algorithms, neural networks and artificial intelligence (AI). Now is the time to rethink the modern role of the designer.

1. ALGORITHM-DRIVEN DESIGN
WILL ROBOTS REPLACE DESIGNERS?
YURY VETROV
MAIL.RU GROUP

2. WILL ROBOTS REPLACE DESIGNERS?
In 2016, the technological foundations of these tools became
easily accessible, and the design community got interested in
algorithms, neural networks and artificial intelligence (AI).
Now is the time to rethink the modern role of the designer.

3. THE GRID CMS
It chooses templates and retouches and crops photos all by itself.
It runs A/B tests to choose the most suitable patterns.

4. OR IT ISN’T?
The product was in private beta until recently, so we were able to
judge it only by its publications and ads.
The Designer News community found real-world examples of
websites created with The Grid, and they had a mixed reaction –
people criticized the design and code quality. Many skeptics
opened a champagne bottle on that day.

5. FULLY REPLACING A DESIGNER
WITH AN ALGORITHM?
UHM, A-HA, YES…
The idea was praised by The Grid and some technologists –
it sounds futuristic, but the whole point is wrong.
Product designers help to translate a raw product idea into a
well-thought-out user interface, with solid interaction principles
and a sound IA and visual style, while helping a company to
achieve its business goals and strengthen its brand.

6. CREATIVE
COLLABORATION
WITH ALGORITHMS
Designers work “in pair” with algorithms
to solve product tasks

7. JUGGLERS
Designers have learned to juggle many tools and skills to near
perfection. As a result, a new term emerged, “product designer.”

8. HEAVYISH…
However, balancing so many skills is hard – you can’t dedicate
enough time to every aspect of product work. Of course, a recent
boon of new design tools has shortened the time we need to
create deliverables and has expanded our capabilities. However,
it’s still not enough. There is still too much routine, and new
responsibilities eat up all of the time we’ve saved.
We need to automate and simplify our work processes even more.
*
*

9. CONSTRUCTING A UI

10. SIMPLE PUBLISHING TOOLS
Publishing tools such as Medium, Readymag and Squarespace
have already simplified the author’s work – countless high-quality
templates will give the author a pretty design without having to
pay for a designer.
There is an opportunity to make these templates smarter, so that
the barrier to entry gets even lower.

11. WIX ADVANCED DESIGN INTELLIGENCE
A semi-automated website constructor that enables
non-professionals to create a website. Sounds like The Grid?

12. FIREDROP
The idea is similar to The Grid. You provide the content, then a virtual
assistant helps you to create a layout and choose a visual style.

13. PAIRED DESIGN WITH A COMPUTER
Surely, as in the case of The Grid, rejecting designers from the
creative process leads to clichéd and mediocre results (even if it
improves overall quality).
However, if we consider this process more like “paired design”
with a computer, then we can offload many routine tasks.

14. FREEDOM FROM ROUTINE
Of course, we can’t create a revolutionary product in this way, but
we could free some time to create one. Moreover, many everyday
tasks are utilitarian and don’t require a revolution.
If a company is mature enough and has a design system, then
algorithms could make it more powerful.

15. INTERPOLATION
Florian Schulz shows how you can use the idea of interpolation
to create many states of components.

16. MY INTEREST:
AN AUTOMATED
MAGAZINE LAYOUT (2012)
Existing content had a poor semantic structure, and updating it
by hand was too expensive. A special script would parse an
article. Then, depending on its content (the number and size of
paragraphs, the number of photos and their formats, the
presence of inserts with quotes and tables, etc.), the script would
choose the most suitable pattern to present this part of the
article. The script also tried to mix patterns, so that the final
design had variety.

17. DUPLO
Flipboard launched a very similar model a few years ago.

18. VOX MEDIA: CHORUS CMS
The algorithm creates harmonious homepage layouts
using a pattern library, then selects the “best” layout.

19. MORE FLEXIBLE AND PERFORMANT
It’s more efficient than picking the best links by hand,
as proven by recommendation engines such as Relap.io.

20. PREPARING ASSETS
AND CONTENT

21. ROUTINE :(
Creating cookie-cutter graphic assets in many variations is one of
the most boring parts of a designer’s work.
It takes so much time and is demotivating, when designers could
be spending this time on more valuable product work.

22. AUTOMATIC COLOR MATCH
Yandex.Launcher uses an algorithm
to automatically set up colors for app cards, based on app icons.

23. …ACCORDING TO BACKGROUND
Another example is
changing text color according to the background color.

24. EMPLASIZING EMOTION
Highlighting eyes in a photo for news articles
in an experiment from Berg studio for The Guardian.

25. PARAMETRIC TYPOGRAPHY
Interpolation of typefaces from several key points.

26. YANDEX.MARKET COLLECTIONS (RU)
A marketer picks a title and an image, then the generator proposes an
endless number of variations (they all conform to design guidelines).

27. РОБО-РЕДАКТОР ENGADGET
They nurtured a robot apprentice
to write simple news articles about new gadgets. Whew!

28. ENGADGET ROBO EDITOR
They nurtured a robot apprentice
to write simple news articles about new gadgets. Whew!

29. STYLE TRANSFER: PRISMA
Truly dark magic happens in neural networks.
Prisma app stylizes photos to look like works of famous artists.

30. STYLE TRANSFER: ARTISTO
Our product can process video
in a similar way (even streaming video).

31. WILL NEURAL NETWORKS
MAKE ILLUSTRATORS OBSOLETE?
I doubt it will for those artists with a solid and unique style.
But it will lower the barrier to entry when you need decent
illustrations for an article or website but don’t need a unique
approach. No more boring stock photos!

32. WOLFF OLINS: OI
A live identity which reacts to sound. You just can’t create crazy
stuff like this without some creative collaboration with algorithms.

33. PERSONALIZING UX
For a narrow audience segment
or even specific users

34. A FAMILIAR EXAMPLE
We see it every day in Facebook newsfeeds, Google search
results, Netflix and Spotify recommendations, and many other
products.
Besides the fact that it relieves the burden of filtering information
from users, the users’ connection to the brand becomes more
emotional when the product seems to care so much about them.

35. SPOTIFY DISCOVER WEEKLY
Giles Colborne: the only element of classic UX design here is the track
list, whereas the distinctive work is done by a recommendation system.

36. DECISION MAKING SUPPORT
Airbnb learned how to answer the question, “What will the booked
price of a listing be on any given day in the future?” so that its hosts
could set competitive prices.

37. GOOGLE NOW, SIRI, ETC.
For example, they automatically propose
a way home from work using location history data.

38. PERSONALIZED TEXT
Persado optimizes ads for a particular user.
They also experiment with UI.

39. MUTATIVE DESIGN
Liam Spradlin describes a concept of mutative design: adaptive
interfaces that consider many variables to fit particular users.

40. AN EXOSKELETON
FOR DESIGNERS

41. TOOLS
If we look back to the middle of the last century, computers were
envisioned as a way to extend human capabilities.
Roelof Pieters and Samim Winiger have analyzed computing
history and the idea of augmentation of human ability in detail.
They see three levels of maturity for design tools.

42. 1.
INCREASE POSSIBILITIES
First-generation systems mimic analogue tools with digital
means.

43. 2.
GET RID OF ROUTINE
The second generation is assisted creation systems, where
humans and machines negotiate the creative process through
tight action-feedback loops.

44. 3.
CO-AUTHORSHIP
The third generation is assisted creation systems 3.0, which
negotiate the creative process in fine-grained conversations,
augment creative capabilities and accelerate the acquisition of
skills from novice to expert.

45. A PROPER WAY TO COLLABORATE
Algorithm-driven design should be something like an exoskeleton
for product designers – increasing the number and depth of
decisions we can get through.
How might designers and computers collaborate?

46. 1
PROBLEM SPACE SOLUTION SPACE
EVALUATION
CROSS-PRODUCT
INTEGRATION
PRODUCTION
2 3
4 5

47. ANALYSIS TOOLS

48. RESEARCH
Analysis of implicitly expressed information about users that can
be studied with qualitative research is hard to automate.
However, exploring the usage patterns of users of existing
products is a suitable task.

49. MACHINE LEARNING
Jon Bruner gives a good example: An algorithm starts with a
description of the desired outcome – an airline’s timetable that is
optimized for fuel savings and passenger convenience. It adds in
the various constraints: the number of planes the airline owns, the
airports it operates in, and the number of seats on each plane.
It loads details on thousands of flights from an existing timetable;
the timetable gradually improves over many iterations.

50. A CURATOR
In this scenario, humans curate an algorithm and can add or
remove limitations and variables.
The results can be tested and refined with experiments on real
users. With a constant feedback loop, the algorithm improves the
UX, too.

51. MACHINE LEARNING FOR DESIGNERS
The complexity of this work suggests that analysts will be doing it, but
designers should be aware of the basic principles of machine learning.

52. SYNTHESIS TOOLS

53. AUTODESK DREAMCATCHER
It’s based on the idea of generative design, which has been used in
performance, industrial design, fashion and architecture for many years now.
It made a lot of noise and prompted several publications from UX gurus.

54. PARAMETRIC DESIGN
Many of you know Zaha Hadid Architects;
its office calls this approach “parametric design.”

55. LOGOJOY
It replaces freelancers for a simple logo design. Logojoy generates
endless ideas and shows an example of a corporate style based on it.

56. A GENERATIVE APPROACH
It’s not yet established in digital product design, because it
doesn’t help to solve utilitarian tasks.
Of course, the work of architects and industrial designers has
enough limitations and specificities of its own, but user interfaces
aren’t static – their usage patterns, content and features change
over time, often many times.

57. The working process of digital product designers could
potentially look like this:
1. An algorithm generates many variations of a design using
predefined rules and patterns.
2. The results are filtered based on design quality and task
requirements.
3. Designers and managers choose the most interesting and
adequate variations, polishing them if needed.
4. A design system runs A/B tests for one or several variations,
and then humans choose the most effective of them.

58. FILTERING CONCEPTS
It’s yet unknown how can we filter a huge number of concepts in
digital product design, in which usage scenarios are so varied. If
algorithms could also help to filter generated objects, our job
would be even more productive and creative.

59. CREATIVE AI
Roelof and Samim launched a website on this topic,
it lists many interesting concepts.

60. RENE
The experimental tool Rene by Jon Gold, who worked at The Grid, is an
example of this approach in action. Gold taught a computer to
make meaningful typographic decisions.

61. BRUTE-FORCE DESIGN
While Jon jokingly calls this approach “brute-force design” and
“multiplicative design,” he emphasizes the importance of a
professional being in control.
Notably, he left The Grid team last year.

62. DO TOOLS
ALREADY EXIST?

63. ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
The company constantly adds “smart” features.
Photoshop learned to complete a missing part of a photo.

64. DESIGNSCAPE
It automatically refines a design layout for you.
It can also propose an entirely new composition.

65. ADOBE SENSEI
A platform that uses machine learning; it will be the foundation
for future “smart” features in Adobe’s products.

66. JOHN MCCARTHY
He coined the term “artificial intelligence”
and famously said,
“As soon as it works,
no one calls it AI anymore.”

67. Look at experimental ideas and tools –
they could become
a part of the digital product designer’s
day-to-day toolkit.

68. STYLIT
Creates a 3D model out of sketch.

69. ANIMATION AUTOCOMPLETE
Microsoft learned to autocomplete
illustrations and animations.

70. PATCHY GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE
Right now, it’s more about individual companies building custom
solutions for their own tasks.
One of the best approaches is to integrate these algorithms into a
company’s design system.

71. OLIVER ROEDER
The algorithmic software is written by humans, after
all, using theories thought up by humans, using a
computer built by humans, using specifications
written by humans, using materials gathered by
humans, in a company staffed by humans, using tools
built by humans, and so on. Computer art is human art
— a subset, rather than a distinction.

72. CONCLUSIONS

73. This is a story of a beautiful future,
but we should remember the limits
of algorithms — they’re built on rules
defined by humans, even if the rules are being
supercharged now with machine learning.

74. The power of the designer
is that they can make and break rules;
so, in a year from now, we might define
“beautiful” as something totally different.

75. Remove the routine of preparing assets and content, which is
more or less mechanical work.
Broaden creative exploration, where a computer makes
combinations of variables, while the designer filters results to find
the best variations.
Optimize a user interface for narrow audience segments or even
specific users.
Quickly adapt a design to various platforms and devices, though
in a primitive way.
Experiment with different parts of a user interface or particular
patterns – ideally, automatically.

76. We can only talk about a company’s custom solutions in the
context of the company’s own tasks. The work requires constant
investment into development, support and enhancement.
As The Grid’s CMS shows, a tool alone can’t do miracles. Without
a designer at the helm, its results will usually be mediocre. On the
other hand, that’s true of most professional tools.
Breaking past existing styles and solutions becomes harder.
Algorithm-driven design is based on existing patterns and rules.
Copying another designer’s work becomes easier if a generative
design tool can dig through Dribbble.

77. LET A COMPUTER
PLAY WITH THE FONTS
Digital products are getting more and more complex: We need to
support more platforms, tweak usage scenarios for more user
segments, and hypothesize more. Rather than hire more and
more designers, offload routine tasks to a computer.

78. P.S.The revolution is already happening, so why don’t we lead it?

79. THANKS!
YURY VETROV
www.jvetrau.com twitter.com/jvetrau

80. BONUS: A COLLECTION WEBSITE
http://algorithms.design/