It’s simple, right? 

Good design doesn't happen in a vacuum, though. 

Improving the way we interact with and experience our digital world is the result of decades of efforts dedicated to prioritizing human needs in design. Usability pioneer and founder of the 10 usability heuristics, Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., has been at the forefront of these efforts. 

During his 42 years in the usability space, Dr. Nielsen has been on a relentless pursuit of one thing—improving user experience. 

Ahead of his appearance at Insight Out 2025, I had the pleasure of talking with the king of usability himself, to discuss the role of AI in human-centered design, where the usability space is headed, and who’s responsible for steering the ship, so to speak. 

The current state of UX suggests that we’re amidst a new revolution. With AI reshaping the way work gets done, the roles of designers, UX researchers, and product teams are changing. And while this creates uncertainty for teams and the people within them, the opportunity it provides the usability space is significant. 

“There are two big problems for usability today," Dr. Nielsen tells me. “It's too expensive… And it is not fully recognized by people in other fields.” 

While these problems might put a spanner in the works of progress, there’s a clear path forward, according to Dr. Nielsen. And AI is helping us get there. 

When it comes to AI, there seem to be two camps of people in the world—those who are fearful of it, and those who embrace it wholeheartedly. Customers of ours at Dovetail have expressed concerns about AI. A recurring theme—particularly amongst researchers and designers—is that they don’t want to hand over control. And this apprehension isn’t unique to our customers at Dovetail. “AI is going to take over our jobs”—it’s a sentiment that seems to have nestled its way into the public consciousness over the last few years. 

Dr. Nielsen’s outlook is optimistic, though. He sees AI as an opportunity to create more jobs, not take them away. 

“I really believe that all the low-level parts of design will be done by AI. Absolutely. I mean, whether or not they can do it today, that's a debate, but if I'm thinking about ten years from now, absolutely.” 

But for anyone working in UX—including those starting out their careers—he says that AI provides an opportunity to up-level, become more strategic, and be more productive.

“I only see [AI] as a threat if people define their skills very narrowly and as very low level,” he adds. 

When it comes to creating more jobs, Dr. Nielsen says it comes down to an economics argument. 

“One of the big insights in AI is what they call the scaling law, which is: if you spend more gold, AI gets smart and bold.” 

And when AI gets smarter, the more productive teams become. More productivity equals better design, equals more demand for better design. 

In the early 1990s, Dr. Nielsen developed the 10 usability heuristics, a set of general principles for interaction design, which are still widely applied by those working in user experience. 

With so much change happening in the field, particularly with the explosion of AI in recent years, I asked Dr. Nielsen what aspects of human-centered design he believes will continue to remain unchanged, regardless of technological advancements. His answer was simple: 

“Humans.” 

Technology might change fast, but humans don’t. 

“We need to design for humans’ limited cognitive capabilities—people being very busy; people not wanting to take a lot of time to read instructions.” 

He uses an analogy to describe UX: “UX is people.” 

“UX is people because we're designing for people and the designers are people as well. But with a twist now… rather, we should say designers are a team of humans and AI.” 

Dr. Nielsen uses four metaphors to describe the role of AI in teams.

As AI transitions from being a basic assistant to more of a cognitive companion for humans, it’s already solving the first problem mentioned earlier of UX being too expensive. It provides an opportunity to increase productivity and reduce costs. 

“It's very realistic to expect that you can crank out ten times more in ten years than you can now. This does not mean that we lay off ninety percent of the people and ten percent of the people can do the work. No, it means that ten times more will be done. I think thirty, forty, fifty times more will be done because it's so much cheaper.” 

As far as the second problem facing usability—that it is not fully recognized by people in other fields—the fix seems pretty achievable. 

“You have to be able to work with other people.” 

“Design happens in a company, in an organization, in not just one team, but rather multiple teams with different specialties and occupations and interests and values…So a lot of different people need to work together.”

Because UX is a fairly new field, Dr. Nielsen mentions that very few people in the field have more than ten years of experience in advocating for it and driving influence in their organizations. He says that the more people do this, the more recognized it will become, gradually moving the needle forward. 

“Big organizations change very slowly. And so we gradually gain more understanding of user centered design by doing it, because then the other people from the other disciplines experience it.” 

With AI increasingly becoming a cognitive companion for us humans, the line between what is human and what is AI may begin to blur, but according to Dr. Nielsen, it’s important that we stay at the helm.

“We need to have humans in control of the AI as opposed to the other way around.”

As we enter a new era of UX design, the integration of AI into our teams offers both challenges and unprecedented opportunities. My main takeaways from my chat with Dr. Nielsen are that a reimagining of design’s relationship with AI and other disciplines is called for. Plus, the future is looking bright. 

“There's endless need for better design in the world.”