Web design and AI: still a long way to go

In the past year, we have been subjected to much hype about artificial intelligence. Whether it’s about robots replacing humans in the office or in the driver’s seat of vehicles, bold predictions have been made by journalists, tech experts and enthusiasts. One area that has been mentioned is web design. A few companies have already tried to capitalize on that early trend including San Francisco’s The Grid and Tel-Aviv’s veteran DIY website builder Wix. I have followed the development of such ‘’AI-powered’’ website makers and my take is … such technologies still have a long way to go.

Design requires research

AI web design (for a lack of a better term) will typically scrape the web to find information about your company or yourself. It can also curate content based on selected keywords. While interesting, this level of research will only satisfy a mom-and-pop operation or a personal initiative. In other words, you still need human intervention to perform complex research on one’s industry sector, product/service offering and competitors.

Creativity is subjective

Web design, like any art-oriented endeavor, is subjective. Perhaps your client likes blue color schemes or maybe you are re-designing a website for a company whose culture favors reddish tones and round shapes. For a machine those elements are details but for humans such translates into feelings, appreciations and ultimately influences the buying decision process of customers. Until AI develops more human characteristics it simply cannot handle the subjectivity and ambiguity that aesthetics force us to consider.

Writing quality code still matters

While code quality is not the sole criterion for a website to succeed, you still want robust code with strong syntax if you are aiming to launch and maintain an ambitious web presence. So far AI web design has had trouble to pass validation standards such as W3C. This makes such unusable for many complex projects involving government entities that now require accessible interfaces.

Artificial intelligence has still a long way to go to rival web designers. Until AI web design is able to handle subjectivity and code integrity, human intervention is still very much needed. As AI technology becomes more and more refined perhaps the competition between AI-assisted software and humans will become more actual.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.