Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Killing the blank page

Gold
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Share the love for this talk
Killing the blank page
Speakers: Russell Blair and Milan Guenther
Link:

Summary

This talk is a case presentation about using generative AI and graph languages to come up rapidly with complex enterprise designs. We are using a repository based enterprise architecture tool and EDGY, an open source visual language, to feed GPT4 with context-rich queries. The resulting maps and models are ... wrong. But they have proven to be inspiring or even triggering for conversations across a diverse stakeholder community, and shortcut our way to a set of correct and useful models that inform design decisions. Moreover they can highlight blind spots and interrelationships previously unknown and thereby enrich the design process with minimal effort. Takeaways Recognising blank page moments in complex challenges How to embed context and an ad hoc Training in an LLM prompt How to make generate a web of coherent maps such as Journey, JTBD, Organization, Process Maps that cover a complete design related to a given challenge How to use these maps and how not to use them when co-creating with others When to keep tackling the blank page yourself instead

Key Insights

  • Designers often face the 'blank page' problem when tackling complex enterprise domains without sufficient research or domain knowledge.

  • Enterprise design requires making the invisible 'dark matter'—complex social, technical, and political systems—visible and understandable.

  • EDGY is an open source graph language that models enterprise complexity across three facets: customer experience, enterprise architecture, and organizational identity.

  • AI, particularly GPT-4, can augment designers by consuming structured repositories as context, reducing reliance on generic internet knowledge.

  • Using AI in enterprise design is more effective as augmentation of human creativity rather than automation or replacement.

  • Three AI collaboration modes identified are the 'jester' for provocative incorrect ideas, the 'sidekick' that integrates research context, and the 'matrix' that transforms knowledge across enterprise perspectives.

  • AI-generated diagrams are imperfect but valuable as starting points to defeat the blank page and stimulate discussion.

  • Inputting domain-specific research and insights into the AI prompt improves the relevance and quality of generated task maps.

  • Biases can be intentionally introduced in AI prompts to explore specific enterprise perspectives, such as organization design or brand identity.

  • Enterprise design must bridge silos by fostering knowledge sharing and cross-team collaboration, which AI and graph languages can facilitate.

Notable Quotes

"Designers are thrown into environments with experts that have decades of experience, and we have to come up with something relevant really quickly."

"The blank page can be terrifying because you don’t want stakeholders to laugh or say you got it all wrong."

"Behind simple tasks, there’s often big complexity hiding, especially in enterprise environments."

"We think the problem of 'dark matter' in enterprises is about making invisible things visible and bridging silos."

"AI is better seen as augmentation to make us more efficient, not automation to replace us."

"We use our model repository as context to help AI generate answers based on our specific enterprise knowledge rather than general knowledge."

"The jester mode throws something in your face, maybe wrong or uncomfortable, but at least it moves the conversation forward."

"AI-generated diagrams are usually not perfect, but they offer a better starting point than a blank page."

"If you say, ‘let’s look from an organization design perspective,’ AI reproduces the bias of that perspective in its output."

"Enterprise design is about sharing knowledge, analyzing it, improving it, and then consuming it to create better outcomes."

Ask the Rosenbot
Emilia Åström
Unlock Your Team’s Intelligence with Collaboration Design
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Eric Shumake
Diagnosis UX: Building Influence in Healthcare Design
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Tim Frick
The journey of building a sustainable design practice
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Harry Max
Priority Zero: Some Things are More Equal than Others
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Dorelle Rabinowitz
The Magic Word is Trust
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Dan Willis
Enterprise Storytelling Sessions
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
John Donmoyer
Shipping your code generation experiments to production
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Setting the Table for Dynamic Change
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Joseph Meersman
Sweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Tony Turner
Capturing Deep Insights
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Landon Barnes
Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Irina Tikhonova
Small Wins, Big Impact: Leveraging and Elevating User Engagement
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Marisa Bernstein
It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Maggie Dieringer
Creating Consistency Through Constant Change
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold

More Videos

Kate Towsey

"If research is going to slow down the product process, most companies will end up releasing those products without doing the research."

Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham Gardner

Participant Recruitment and Management Tools

March 12, 2026

Jennifer Kong

"We saw documentation time reduced by 64% after six months of using the AI tool."

Jennifer Kong

Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare

June 5, 2024

Kevin M. Hoffman

"Having a business background is almost the oldest form of product management, but great product requires balancing design and tech too."

Kevin M. Hoffman

Theme 2: Enterprise Team Journey

June 3, 2019

Amy Marquez

"Making your chief legal officer your best friend as a designer makes a lot of sense."

Amy Marquez

INVEST: Discussion

June 15, 2018

Gretchen Anderson

"Designers can be really paranoid and very precious."

Gretchen Anderson

Scaling the Human Center

June 8, 2017

April Reagan

"It's not enough to imagine the future; we have to make plans that influence and build those preferable futures."

April Reagan

Look, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization

October 1, 2021

Dante Guintu

"The hardest lesson is being comfortable when you're uncomfortable and finding the best use of your time to create impact."

Dante Guintu

How to Crush the Talent Crunch

September 8, 2022

Jaime Creixems

"Leave some space for creativity in your design system so designers can innovate without breaking consistency."

Jaime Creixems

Best Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System

June 7, 2023

Billy Carlson

"I like adding content to wireframes because they’re the best place for content design."

Billy Carlson

Principles of Team Wireframing

October 2, 2023