Worrying about the future of interaction design

A weeknote starting 9 September 2024.

This post from Steve Messer got me thinking about the future of interaction design again this week.

With the rise of tools like GOV.UK Forms, Figma and AI, combined with the layoffs seen in recent years, I often find myself wondering what my role is going to look like in a few years time.

(Related, check out Tim Paul's amazing AI demo if you haven't seen it yet.)

Am I just gatekeeping my own role by hoping that the barrier to entry remains high? To be clear, I think GOV.UK Forms is a great thing, and a force for good in government. But when being a 'designer that codes' is already a rare and undervalued thing (especially when looking outside gov to the private sector) I wonder what will happen if the industry shifts further.

What if teams can ship great digital products without interaction designers?

Will interaction designers all have to transition towards being service designers?

I guess part of the answer is to ship the digital parts of the product quickly and cheaply so the team can focus more on the wider service, making sure it's truly inclusive?

Thing is, I really like tinkering with HTML!

I think for me, I can see a path where I focus more on design systems or accessibility. Both of those areas interest me, and it feels like these spaces will continue to need people who like get to their hands dirty with writing code.

In the end, I think similar questions came up with rise of design systems too. Hopefully I am worrying about nothing.

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