UX in AI Products: From Past Experience to Future Design Responsibility

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Hello,

When I first encountered the definition “UX = User Experience,” I did not think it was incorrect.
However, from a product and design perspective, it felt somewhat insufficient as a definition.

It clearly states that users have experiences, but it does not explicitly express design responsibility,
time direction, or future commitment. This initial gap led me to think more carefully about UX,
especially in the context of AI product design.

In AI-driven products such as conversational systems, UX is often treated as a record of past interactions:
logs, feedback, metrics, and reported experiences.
Yet design decisions in these systems actively shape what users will experience and how they will feel next.

From this viewpoint, UX spans two time directions:

  • Past-oriented:
    “What users experienced and how they felt.”

  • Future-oriented:
    “What users will experience and how they feel.”

In AI products, these two aspects are tightly connected.
Design choices made today directly influence future user experience, trust, and emotional impact.

This post is not intended as a critique of existing definitions,
but as an attempt to clarify UX as an ongoing design responsibility in AI products.

I would appreciate hearing how others here think about UX:
Should it be understood primarily as a record of past experience,
or as a forward-looking commitment in product and system design?

Thank you.

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Should it be understood primarily as a record of past experience,
or as a forward-looking commitment in product and system design?

The above is a bit abstract - so lets simplify it. The concept and discipline of UX design came decades ago and had nothing to do with AI. Any discussion about UX is incomplete without Steve Jobs:

Key aspects of Jobs’s UX philosophy:

  • Simplicity & Elegance: He believed in removing features and complexity to create a clean, intuitive interface, making products accessible to everyone, not just tech experts.
  • User-First Thinking: He prioritized the user’s entire journey, from unboxing to daily use, designing for delight and emotional connection, not just technical specs.
  • Invisible Technology: The goal was for the technology to disappear, allowing users to accomplish tasks effortlessly and feel a sense of peace or quietude.
  • Holistic Design: UX wasn’t just the interface; it included the entire experience, including customer support and company processes, ensuring consistency.
  • Vision over Focus Groups: He famously stated people don’t know what they want until you show it to them, relying on vision to anticipate needs rather than just asking customers.

Impact:

  • Jobs’s relentless focus on making technology intuitive and beautiful set the standard for the entire tech industry, creating the foundation for the modern UX design field.
  • His approach, seen in products like the iPod and iPhone, demonstrated that a superior user experience could win over technically superior competitors.

And then comes what I call PX - Programmer Experience, which is beyond the scope of this discussion…

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Thank you for the thoughtful response.

I agree with you that UX as a discipline long predates AI, and that any serious discussion of UX inevitably traces back to Steve Jobs and the foundations you outlined. Simplicity, holistic design, and anticipating user needs rather than merely reacting to them are central to UX, regardless of era.

My question is not intended to redefine UX away from that tradition, but to examine how that tradition is stressed by AI-driven systems.

In Jobs’s philosophy, vision and design intent were expressed through relatively stable products: once shipped, the core user experience changed slowly and predictably. In contrast, AI systems continuously adapt, respond, and intervene in real time. Design decisions today can directly shape user behavior, expectations, and emotional responses tomorrow, sometimes without a clear “shipping moment.”

That is where my focus on time direction comes from.
In AI products, UX is not only the result of past design vision, but also an ongoing commitment that actively shapes future experience through system behavior.

In that sense, I see this less as a departure from classic UX, and more as an extension of it under new technical conditions.

I appreciate you raising the historical grounding — it helps clarify where the line between continuity and change really is.

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In that sense, I see this less as a departure from classic UX, and more as an extension of it under new technical conditions.

Ah, makes sense now. Yes, it becomes extremely challenging from a UX prospective as well as from a programming (PX). Been there, and will continue to go there. The dust may never settle…

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Thank you, I appreciate that.

Yes, that tension between UX and PX in adaptive systems is exactly what prompted my question.
I agree with you — the dust may never fully settle, and perhaps that ongoing instability is now part of the design condition itself.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

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Interestingly, when I first saw the ellipses (…), I briefly wondered whether they were clickable.
I’m still getting used to forum conventions, but it made me realize how strongly modern UI patterns shape our expectations.

Thanks for the thoughtful framing — I really appreciate the care in keeping the discussion open.