How Experienced Designers of Enterprise Applications Engage AI as a Design Material

HCI research has explored AI as a design material, suggesting that designers can envision AI’s design opportunities to improve UX. Recent research claimed that enterprise applications offer an opportunity for AI innovation at the user experience level. We conducted design workshops to explore the practices of experienced designers who work on cross-functional AI teams in the enterprise. We discussed how designers successfully work with and struggle with AI. Our findings revealed that designers can innovate at the system and service levels. We also discovered that making a case for an AI feature’s return on investment is a barrier for designers when they propose AI concepts and ideas. Our discussions produced novel insights on designers’ role on AI teams, and the boundary objects they used for collaborating with data scientists. We discuss the implications of these findings as opportunities for future research aiming to empower designers in working with data and AI.