In the 2000s, I moved to a new city. I did not know anyone and I did not know how to find anything. While I had a cellphone (Motorola Razr) and a car (PT Cruiser), I did not have a way to navigate the city reliably. My solve for the time was using MapQuest.
For those of you new to MapQuest, it was basically Google Maps, but it gave you turn by turn directions you could print out. It was a simpler time.
I would look up where I wanted to go (the mall, the zoo, a movie theater) and print off the directions. I would study them, but I was new to the area and really had no idea where things were in relation to anything else. So, as was customary in the time, I ended up trying to read the MapQuest directions while driving. Not that this would come up today, but do not try this at home.
As a result, I got lost a lot, but I also learned where things were in the process. In fact, the more I got lost or took the wrong exit, the more I understood that you can always get back on track by just taking the next exit or going around the block. Worst case, you pull over in a gas station and regroup. Maybe you’d even ask another human for some guidance.
A few years later I received a Garmin as a gift. It made getting around a lot less reading intensive (safety+) and more reliable (confidence+). The downside of the Garmin devices were that they often had out of date maps, and this city loves road construction, so I’d still sometimes end up lost. Thankfully, I already had a pretty good mental map of key landmarks and main roads thanks to the MapQuest struggles. So finding myself in these situations, although not ideal, was not all that problematic. I was resilient.
As more time passed, mapping became an option on your phone and data became unlimited so you could actually use it! Miraculous! This is the future!
However, I noticed the more I relied on using navigation on my phone – whether intentional or not – the less likely I was able to effectively navigate on my own or understand where I was. I would spend weeks, months, or even years going places I did not realize were close to other places I visited.
It was an interesting phenomena.
Even though I was arriving at my chosen destinations, I often did not know where I actually was or where I was going. I was becoming pretty dependent on the tool. I would get panicky when I couldn’t get cell service in a busy area or in a parking garage. In the worst moments, I realized I had turned the wrong way down a one way street or ended up significantly turned around because I had no context for where I was.
As I was thinking about this recently and remembering how amazing it was I was able to navigate a completely new place without a GPS, I started thinking about how this reminds me of where we are at in our arc, as an industry.
When I started as a UX designer there were very few dedicated tools (Photoshop, Omnigraffle) and not a lot of definition around our roles. The “rules” and expectations of what we did was still evolving. We were doing a lot of wandering around with unclear directions. We were trying things. Experimenting. Understanding connections. Sometimes we got lost but we learned a lot in the process of being stuck and having to unstick ourselves.
Over several years, things evolved. We got better tools that were more purpose built for our jobs. We had more agreement on specialization vs. generalization and what you could expect to be a product or UX designer. We had processes, strategies, and fancy jargon I don’t think anyone understood. We still had the experiences of being lost and finding our way, so we were not as afraid of straying from the path. Our experience lead our craft, not the tools or a dogmatic process.
Then AI entered the scene. Unlike Google or Apple Maps, however, AI sprang up what felt like overnight. Some designers were told they had to use these new tools no matter what their process was (no matter their knowledge of where they were going). And our craft started to erode just as fast – we lost something tangible along the way. We quickly forget where things are when we no longer needed to solve these problems or go on the journey.
I am not implying through this metaphor that navigation apps are a detriment to society, but it did have an impact on how we understand spaces and get around. That change had pros and cons. I think the difference between navigation apps and AI is that not many folks are forced, without choice, to use a navigation app every time they leave their house. Sometimes, it feels like the industry is saying that if we aren’t using AI (even for a trip to the preverbal grocery store) we are bad designers (bad drivers).
And I think that significantly hinders our ability to learn. Learning requires you to get lost sometimes (or a lot of the time if you are going somewhere new). We aren’t giving ourselves a chance to learn how things connect and it could take weeks, months, or years for us to realize connections or proximity that would be clear to us if we had made the journey ourselves. Maybe we never realize how close the grocery store really is to the coffee shop.
Regardless of how much or how little you use AI, regardless of how successful or hindering it has been to your process, no matter how seasoned or junior you are, you need to get lost to learn. You need to experiment to learn. And sometimes, you can find something amazing by taking the least direct route.
We should not cut ourselves off from those opportunities.
