8 ways to improve UX design with AI (and which tools to use)

Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into your UX design helps you optimize your workflows and enhance your understanding of user needs, leading to better products, streamlined websites, and happier customers.

But as the use of AI increases, teams are faced with a complex challenge: how do you balance the precision and depth of AI insights without losing the personalized, human touch that defines exceptional UX design?

In this article, we evaluate 8 ways to incorporate AI into your UX design workflow, without compromising ethics or quality. 

1. Analyze large volumes of user data

UX designers no longer need to manually sift through extensive user research to understand current customer behavior. Instead, AI tools quickly analyze large data sets to detect patterns, interpret qualitative trends, and predict future user behavior.

Quick access to these rich insights provides you with a foundational understanding of users’ current experiences with your product, service, or website, so you can quickly validate hypotheses and prioritize high-yield solutions, leading to enhanced usability and a more user-centric product.

AI tools for analyzing large volumes of user data

• DataRobot: build and test new designs using predictive analytics that anticipate user behavior and preferences, based on historical data

• Research AI: identify emerging patterns and trends in customer actions to shape design roadmaps and obtain stakeholder buy-in

• Contentsquare Headlines: analyzes large volumes of data from your Contentsquare tools, highlighting areas with a 5% variation from the previous week, so you can quickly identify and resolve potential issues

Contentsquare AI analyzes data and highlights key points that had a 5% variation from the previous week

2. Optimize design prototyping and testing

Design prototyping and testing are critical steps in optimizing UX functionality. In fact, one study reported that improving UX design alone led to a 400% increase in website conversions.

AI is further revolutionizing this process by offering advanced user interaction simulations, resulting in prototypes that more closely reflect real-world user behavior and preferences. 

AI tools for UX design prototyping and testing

• Uizard: leverage machine learning to transform sketches into functional prototypes based on recent design trends and user patterns

• Fronty: generate HTML and CSS code from any image to transform your static mockups into interactive websites

• Mockitt AI: forecast user behavior and generate corresponding prototypes and wireframes based on predictive analytics

3. Improve UX and product copy

Effective UX design is more than just a functional website; it also requires high-quality copy to guide users through their customer journey. From clear navigation instructions to helpful feedback messages, the words you choose play a pivotal role in shaping a seamless and intuitive user experience.

AI tools enhance UX copy—particularly for teams that lack dedicated UX writing resources—by offering word choices that align with behavior patterns and user persona data, providing clear instructions and helpful information that improve your customers’ navigation and overall interaction with the product.

AI tools for optimizing UX and product copy

• Unbounce Smart Copy: create persuasive, conversion-focused text for landing pages using generative AI based on user demographics and preferences

• Copy.ai: leverage natural language processing to generate product descriptions, error messages, and call-to-action buttons

💡 Pro tip: use Contentsquare Heatmaps to see user zone-based heatmaps and identify what UX copy on your website resonates best with customers.

Zone-based heatmaps combine heatmap data—clicks, scrolls, and hovers—to reveal the most engaging parts of your website, like

• Attention-grabbing headlines users hover or pause over

• Text buried at the bottom of a page that still—when seen—gets engagement

• CTA or button text that drive conversions

Use heatmaps alone to observe current text performance, or combine them with your A/B tests to compare the effectiveness of different copy options.

Use zone-based heatmaps to see which CTAs drive the most sales

4. Increase design accessibility

Ensuring your service or product is accessible to people with disabilities is a commonly overlooked component in UX design. In fact, one study reports that there are an average of nearly 57 accessibility errors per page on the top one million websites.

Combining AI and UX design to improve product accessibility—voice recognition, text resizing, color adjustment, alternative image text—not only demonstrates brand empathy and ethics but also makes your customers feel valued and understood. 

AI tools to improve design accessibility

• AccessiBe: optimize your UX design for screen-reader compatibility and keyboard navigation to create a more seamless and inclusive experience

• UserWay: ensure your design is conformant with WCAG 2.1 AA criteria, using a coding assistant trained in digital accessibility

• Khroma: create color schemes that enhance readability and are accessible to people with visual impairments

5. Customize the user journey

Personalization and responsive UX design—like adaptive user interfaces (UIs) and curated content delivery—are crucial for customer retention and new user adoption, especially if your product or service caters to a wide audience with varying needs. 

UX design tools have become instrumental in sharpening this process, enabling designers and website owners to quickly identify and implement curated journeys, leading to improved user engagement and increased sales revenues.

AI tools for customizing the user journey

• Pendo AI: tailor in-app onboarding and support to the right users, at the right time, with Pendo’s machine learning algorithms

• Algolia: create a dynamic and responsive flow by adapting search results and content displays in real time, based on individual user interactions

• Dynamic Yield: automatically rearrange your grid, menu items, and buttons to deliver customized layouts according to each visitor’s preferences

💡 Pro tip: different user journeys have different conversion blockers. Contentsquare’s user attributes help you find them all so you optimize the user journey even further. 

For example, you can target surveys to highly specific groups, like end-users on a specific subscription tier, or segment heatmaps and recordings to only get insights on website visitors from a certain location. This lets you gather laser-focused audience segmentation insights at every stage of the customer journey, and optimize your UX design roadmap accordingly.

6. Decrease design bias

Bias in UX design, whether intentional or unintentional, can significantly skew a product's appeal and usability, while also perpetuating stereotypes. For example, design elements might inadvertently favor certain demographics over others, leading to a product that, while functional for some, is exclusionary for others.

AI helps counteract these tendencies by identifying bias patterns in design choices and user interactions, leading to more inclusive and balanced UX solutions.

AI tools to decrease bias in UX design

• Google Fairness Indicator: assess whether machine learning algorithms used in UX design (like for personalized website design or content filtering) are biased toward certain user groups

• Acrolinx: integrate an AI-powered content governance tool to check for inclusive and non-biased content, design, and language

💡 Pro tip: use Contentsquare Interviews to reduce bias in your UX design workflow by interviewing a diverse group of users.

Contentsquare Interviews provides teams with a vast interviewee pool of 200,000+ participants from over 130 countries, ensuring a wide range of user perspectives and backgrounds for UX research.

Contentsquare Interviews also automatically transcribes video interviews into 20+ languages, breaking down language barriers and capturing nuanced cultural insights.

Tap into a diverse pool of 200,000+ participants from over 130 countries

7. Enhance UI design

UX design is closely linked with the UI design of your product or service, combining practical functionality with aesthetic appeal to continuously delight and satisfy your customers.

Especially when teams lack dedicated resources, AI tools with UI capabilities become essential to UX designers, enabling them to build sleek, visually appealing user interfaces that reinforce brand identity while still designing an engaging and cohesive user experience.

AI tools that enhance UI design

• Adobe Sensei: choose from a vast library of icons, logos, and typefaces based on predictive analytics that reflect your brand’s unique style and guidelines

• Fontjoy: leverage deep learning AI to generate font combinations that are aesthetically pleasing and align with your brand

• Colormind: analyze user data and preferences to choose color palettes that appeal directly to your target audience and increase user engagement

8. Streamline team efficiency and productivity

A growing number of UX design teams are turning to AI to streamline workflows and automate time-consuming tasks, leading to improved productivity, collaboration, and creativity.

As Martina Pérez, an AI Staff Product Designer at Contentsquare, says, “AI is a facilitator and versatile tool that enhances the efficiency of UX designers and provides a supportive framework for them to elevate their creative processes.” 

AI tools for increasing UX team efficiency and productivity

• FigJam AI: use Figma’s AI tool to auto-generate design templates, organize and brainstorm ideas, and automate repetitive tasks like preparing boards

• Brainpool AI: automatically generate wireframes based on user data or resize images based on screen size to reduce manual workload

• Synthesia.io: turn text, storyboards, and scripts into a video in minutes, including over 120 different language, voice, and avatar template options

Use AI to inform—not replace—the human element in UX design

While there are many pros and cons of AI, when thoughtfully integrated into UX design, it transforms the user experience into intuitive and engaging journeys. AI also empowers designers and website owners to get closer to their end-users, tailoring products and services to individual needs and better anticipating future desires. As a result, teams not only improve the functionality and appeal of their product or service, but also ensure that every customer interaction is meaningful and user-centric.

FAQs about incorporating AI into UX design