Teaching UX in the Age of AI
Four years of teaching interaction design at Miami University taught me that the fundamentals don't change: empathy, clarity, iteration. But the context shifts everything.
When I started teaching at Miami University in 2017, AI was a topic for the last week of the semester. A "future of design" conversation. By the time I left in 2020, it was the context for everything we discussed.
Here's what I learned about teaching in that shift: the principles don't change. Empathy is still the foundation. Clarity is still the goal. Iteration is still the method. But the questions change. Instead of "how do we understand our users?" it becomes "how do we understand our users when an algorithm is mediating the relationship?" Instead of "how do we test this?" it becomes "how do we test something that behaves differently for every person?"
The students who did well weren't the ones who learned the tools fastest. They were the ones who asked the best questions. Who could sit with ambiguity. Who could hold two contradictory truths ("this technology is powerful" and "this technology is dangerous") without collapsing into either one.
That's what I tried to teach. Not Figma. Not user flows. The capacity to think clearly when things are complicated. To design with intention when the ground is shifting. I think that's more important now than ever.