Nordkapp worked with a leading Finnish telco Telia to explore and discover the potential of AI in a fast-moving, large-scale digital services design deployment.
Telia is a 170 years old technology pioneer and telecom operator, with 25 million customers across Nordic and Baltic regions. Nordkapp is a leading strategic design agency from Finland. Together we studied the impact of AI tools on the design process.
As a technology pioneer, Telia is always looking into the future and committed to user experience. All this combined with recent interesting advancements in Artificial Intelligence and design cooperation with Nordkapp created a perfect opportunity to study the AI landscape in terms of design.
Telia uses the Double Diamond design process and its four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. Our work followed these phases, building insight into where the AI tools are at their best and where they can provide meaningful value.
In this pilot project we tested several AI tools. It’s important to choose tools wisely, favoring larger and more common ones for enhanced productivity. Utilize AI to rapidly expand your understanding of a subject, and then determine what’s relevant. Critiquing AI-generated outputs is crucial, as generative AI may produce inaccurate answers. While AI generally provides satisfactory results, the question arises: what is “good enough” sufficient for practical use?
The pace of AI evolution is rapid, and new tools are being introduced frequently. At the moment, AI complements designers by speeding up tasks and fostering creativity. Designers with specialized skills might need to broaden their expertise and either venture into the AI space, augmenting their speciality, or to a more human-driven field. Human empathy remains paramount in design work, and this is an area where AI falls short. Maintaining a balance between AI’s capabilities and human design intuition is vital for running successful design teams.
An unsolved challenge relates to intellectual property ownership when AI generates content. Copyright ownership hinges on AI being viewed as creative agents or tools used by individuals or corporations. AI often uses personal data, necessitating privacy law compliance and user data protection. Avoiding biased design outcomes requires training AI on diverse, unbiased datasets.
Using AI tools in real projects offers valuable insights but demands human evaluation of the results. Staying current with the latest tools and thoroughly addressing your research questions is essential for ensuring effective AI integration in UX design.
Conclusion
Our AI pilot showcased remarkable results, including AI-aided data analysis and accelerated design iterations. It uncovered insights, helped us to streamline some processes, and gave tools for better user experience and accessibility, while also identifying AI tool challenges. This project helped Telia to pinpoint the most valuable tools and workflows, which are now already being integrated into their daily processes.
“In the project done together with Nordkapp, we extensively experienced the added value of generative AI tools in design work, in the form of very concrete use cases. The collaboration with Nordkapp is smooth and flexible.” — Jani Heinola, Information Technology Business Partner at Telia
