AI in consumer products is about more than shiny, voice-activated bells and whistles. It’s meant to integrate with the user experience and continually enhance it. Which means in order to function properly, consumer AI needs feedback from users and users need feedback from the AI.

Effective feedback needs to serve a larger goal. It’s not enough to passively collect data from the user experience, that data needs to be understood in order to further a goal for the product. The “like” button on Facebook is the most recognizable and arguably purest form of user feedback, but the goal of the button is about more than just tallying up how many people like a piece of content. The AI algorithms take those likes and use them to discern popular content, and customize content that comes up in user feeds.

In the context of mobility, David Foster, Head of Lyft Transit, Bikes and Scooters believes feedback loops will be critical: “I think that AI will be used to help aggregate many different inputs that a human might make into a vehicle for mobility. Combine those with inputs that the vehicle itself is sensing around road conditions, traffic hazards, etc., and then turn those into meaningful outputs that are either giving feedback to the humans through a different piece of output technology, or are themselves directing the vehicle or another vehicle to take a different action.” AI design that can give users a feeling of control while gaining actionable feedback that will enhance the user experience is the ultimate goal. To reach it, designers will have to discern what the user wants from the product, and how best the product can meet that desire.

Creating meaningful and valuable human-centric commercial AI solutions means making them relevant, and this starts from the very beginning of the design process. Understanding how this process works involves more than customer satisfaction surveys. It’s bringing customers into the design process in a very real way.

“We believe in listening to our customers in their context, actually shadowing them, helping understand what they want and sometimes trying to understand implicitly what they need,” says Shivananda. “This input from the customer will make the product and the service that we create relevant. When a product becomes relevant to a customer, it is great for the company because the demand is going to be high. And because they provided the input in building that experience, it’s going to be something that they’ll adopt. They’ll actually use it over and over again, come back to it and engage as much as they can.”

Rather than leaving impact and risk assessments to teams further along the funnel, these considerations must be a part of product development from the very beginning. Developers must assess the potential unintended and intended consequences and outcomes. This in-depth reflection at the beginning of the design process shows customers the level of attention and care involved across the company, using the design process itself as an advertisement for trust.

World-renowned roboticist, Rodney Brooks is someone who understands the importance of human-centric design for technology. As the inventor of the Roomba vacuum, he’s been developing AI for human-machine collaboration and cohabitation for nearly 40 years. “I think that for anything to be really successful, it has to be about us humans. We want it to be about us, we want it to be easy to use. We have to build systems that understand our limitations, human limitations. Systems that when we humans see them, we’ll take as some sort of promise of what they can do. And those AI systems better deliver on that promise. It’s not just human-centric AI. The whole thing has to get into our consciousness in a way that we can intuitively understand it accurately. Otherwise it’s not going to work out as an interesting or useful product for anyone.”

Historically, consumers have been taught specific ways to interact with technology. From the first computer punch cards to the evolution of the mouse into a smartphone touch screen, people interact with technology in ways in which they don’t interact with other people. And yet, consumers gravitate to AI products that feel more “natural.”

Macintosh has made a name for itself designing products that are highly tactile, with quality craftsmanship and expertly applied color palettes. Moving into a more human-centered design for their products means changing the user interface from a tactical to a voice-activated. The design challenge for Macintosh will be personalizing voice activation so that consumers don’t have to adjust natural speaking patterns when using it. Jeff Poggi, Co-CEO of the McIntosh Group, explains: “Our consumer-designed philosophy for Macintosh has been about tactile feel, you know, of buttons of knobs, that sort of the quality of craftsmanship and physical way that’s been a key part of it along with the look, the industrial design, the color palette, etc. That’s really important to us but as we move forward into a human-centered AI world, how does that user interface change? And I think it really changes from a tactile world to a voice world and I think we’re just at the infancy of a voice today. It’s uncomfortable for most people [today], especially if I can’t speak as I’m speaking today and in a normal sort of human way, if I have to adjust my speaking pattern to be more like computer data input. What are the interfaces that provide us with the best, most “natural” communications with AI products? Is it better to touch a screen, or turn a knob? Should we use avatars or robots? Virtual reality or sharing consciousness with AI? Whatever the decision, creating a “natural” experience for consumers is a key component of successful AI design.

It’s not just about the end product anymore. Designing human-centric AI means creating an entire ecosystem that is geared towards the people that will use it, starting at the moment of conception and encompassing the entire infrastructure that builds and maintains it, from the developers to the after-care team that handles problems as they arise.
AI systems must be designed to learn and adapt, taking into account the ever-shifting priorities, complexities and the diversity of human existence. Design teams must work towards interfaces that feel natural in a variety of contexts, with an eye on potential future integrations.

Bo Peng, Director at acclaimed design firm IDEO agrees. “The reality of it is that the tool must be iterated on and presented to a wide variety of prospective users so that we’re able to think through as many possible use cases as possible. So this in its very nature is an iterative problem to solve. And it’s not a problem to solve simply by thinking through with a theoretical answer.”

Done right, a human-centered design approach to AI drives the creation of efficient products that resonate more deeply with consumers, leading to increased levels of comfort, engagement and trust, not to mention satisfied end-users who fuel the growth of the technology.