51. The Future of Service Design in the Age of AI (featuring Erika Flowers)

This is the Neielson Norman Group UX podcast.

[Music] I'm Theres Fessendon.

We're in an era where design tools are evolving faster than ever and it's easy to get swept up in the latest and greatest features or the newest

frameworks. But design isn't just about

frameworks. But design isn't just about how good we are at using frameworks or using certain tools. It's about

understanding people, aligning systems, and designing experiences that hold up under complexity. While service design

under complexity. While service design used to be a competency primarily focused on the design of physical and interpersonal interactions, this skill

is essential and more relevant than ever before. Frankly, it's a skill that every

before. Frankly, it's a skill that every researcher and designer should have, especially as our technical landscape grows more and more complex and demands better orchestration in order to even

function properly.

In today's episode, I'm sharing a conversation I had with Erica Flowers, the co-author of a fantastic book called Practical Service Blueprinting.

Previously, she'd been a principal product and service designer at Intuitit, a senior principal design strategist at Mural, and until recently

was one of the highest ranking designers in the United States government as the human- centered strategy leader for AI readiness at NASA. There she worked on

digital transformation efforts specifically around AI. Erica's

perspective on service design is both refreshing, optimistic, and expansive.

We talk about what it means to design at scale, why blueprints are more than just diagrams, and how the role of designers continues to evolve, especially as our

tools and expectations shift. I walked

away from this conversation with a deeper appreciation for the choreography that goes into every great experience, whether that's for rocket scientists or

for another UX designer. With all that said, here's Erica. So, Erica, I'm super stoked to have you on the show today. I

I'm excited to learn more about you and about your experiences and it's exciting for me to be talking to someone who's authored a book on like practical

service blueprinting and not only that who is doing it in really interesting ways. So before we get into that angle

ways. So before we get into that angle of things, I would love for you to share a bit about your incredible career in service design so far. um what you know

could what was your journey like into design leadership and how did you end up at NASA? So the the journey into service

at NASA? So the the journey into service design follows like a a really clear like chain of events of people who um

introduced me to information and I I just got obsessed and then it went from there to there to there to

there. So, this all started a long time

there. So, this all started a long time ago and maybe like 2010 with this book called The Persona Life Cycle by Tamara

Adlin. And in that book, they had um

Adlin. And in that book, they had um narrative journeys, right? And these

weren't like service blueprints or whatever. It was more um based about

whatever. It was more um based about like how do you take a persona through a journey, but I just remember that concept of being obsessed with it because I had been doing uh like web design and code and like I I I was like

an original like '9s like web developer, but it had gotten so much more into uh like the human side of things. By like

2010, I wanted to do way more what we would eventually call like higher order UX and service design. But I mean, it was still very nesscent back then. And

so I got that book and I was like, I'm obsessed. And I see that adaptive path

obsessed. And I see that adaptive path is holding this conference, managing experience conference in 2013. And I go and I go to a workshop and the workshop

is hosted by two of the greats, Chris Rden and Patrick Quaddlebomb from Adaptive Path. And I'm just sitting

Adaptive Path. And I'm just sitting there. I'm just like and the workshop

there. I'm just like and the workshop was on service blueprinting. I'd never

heard that term before. And I I in that workshop I was like I don't ever want to do anything again. I'm never designing anything again. I just want to do

anything again. I just want to do service blueprints. And I even have the

service blueprints. And I even have the notebook from that conference where I wrote in like apparently I'd forgot grammar but it just said what is service blueprint. And so I go back home to Salt

blueprint. And so I go back home to Salt Lake City and later that that was in March. Later that year I go to the first

March. Later that year I go to the first adaptive path service experience conference very first one. And I'm go and I I see people talk and I'm blown

away and I can't believe it. and I sit down at lunch and the person sitting next to me was who would become my hiring manager at Init.

So, we exchanged information in November and I was on an airplane and I had moved and accepted a job by February to go work at in it as their very first

principal service designer for the customer um support organization which even putting design resources in the customer support organization was new to

in it. And I'm not talking about the

in it. And I'm not talking about the customer support touch points of like the website. I'm talking about like

the website. I'm talking about like agent experience, chat experience, phone, IVR, that type of stuff. The

whole flow of an ecosystem that isn't product based. And when I would go read

product based. And when I would go read resources, it was very like servicesoriented.

When I'm trying to build a SASbased software product and trying to learn service design for people who design how you get on an airplane or or a train or like all these things, it was like I didn't know what to do.

And that's where I always keep it on my desk. the book came from which was I

desk. the book came from which was I don't know how to apply this to tech and so everything came from there and so then I I was just in service design and

now it's just evolved into you know the orchestration and choreography of human experiences that sometimes involves products and services and touch points

but it really is like being a heruristic planner of events that then people can experience and we're so far away from the pixel. At this point, the last like

the pixel. At this point, the last like two years at NASA, I haven't I haven't designed anything. I haven't built

designed anything. I haven't built anything because we are just constructing experiences and more important the topography of the internal organizations

in order to deliver the experiences.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'd love to like learn more about that or obviously NASA. I can

imagine there are some things you you can share and can't share. But what what is design like in a high stakes environment like NASA? I mean you've got

rocket launches, you have rocket scientists, you have Yeah, you systems all over the place that are incredibly complex. So I would love to learn a bit

complex. So I would love to learn a bit more. I know you mentioned that it's you

more. I know you mentioned that it's you know we're beyond the pixel and I love that expression. Um so so what what does

that expression. Um so so what what does get designed? I would love to know more.

get designed? I would love to know more.

It's it's really um you know in in a large organization and and NASA is um it's large and is also uh subdivided by center and by focus. And so people who

launch rockets are different than people who do environment science or different people who do satellites or different people who do um administration. you

know NASA does a lot of stuff that is um you know like like business oriented where like they work with small businesses they work with grants they work with whatever so it's not all like rocket science some of it is like

governmental you know some of it is exploratory some of it is you know public facing and so the work that I've been doing there is really about like

connecting dots and connecting people and helping teams of teams like bridge the gaps between information and between um like silos and it's not like not not

like silos are bad but it's you know they're all doing different things. They

don't like talk to each other. They do

but they don't it's like they have their own missions and so you have to take a big like high altitude like orbital you know satellite view of the organization say well we're trying to accomplish

things more holistic. We're trying to accomplish things more in like a unified manner. How do we do that? And that's

manner. How do we do that? And that's

where myself and some other people were brought in as digital service experts modeled after the United States digital service to bring human- centered design and design thinking into the

organization to start to apply it to our own internal operations. And so most of the work is about coordinating, connecting dots, helping gather people together, understand their problems,

codify it, turn it into a hypothesis, kind of run it through like design thinking 101. Well, like who's your your

thinking 101. Well, like who's your your customer or your pseudo customer or like what benefit do they need? What are the challenges we're facing? What hypotheses

do we have we want to prove or disprove?

And then start bringing these teams that have like deep expertise and experience in things that like aren't it's not software design. It's not tech. It's

software design. It's not tech. It's

it's completely different. It's

government and and aerospace and run them through the exact same type of stuff that you would learn at like those adaptive path or like you know Silicon Valley style conference workshops. And

so it's the exact same work. It's the

exact same tenets as service design, product design, UX, like whatever we want to call it, but it's being applied almost in my case exclusively to the

orchestration of relationships and people and the translation of like ambiguous complex problems and

information into clear, achievable, measurable, complex problems that can then be broken down. And so it really is like running workshops, facilitating and

synthesizing like non-stop because this is where it's like different than working in a in like a tech company is that it's like it's not like I'm going to go help like build a rocket. I'm not

going to go help launch a satellite. So

it's like my job is kind of done because it's like they got their information and then they take it and they do science and rocketry and you know government administration with it and then I kind of like step back and go do it there.

So, it really was like being a full-time like pro facilitator and dot connector.

Yeah. And I I appreciate the expression dot connector, too, because ultimately it sounds like a lot of what you're doing is not just helping break down

some of these siloed practices, which again, not to say silos are bad, but that silos exist as a fact, right? There

are people who are heads down in their mission, and these people are heads down in their mission. And it's not always natural for these types of communications to just happen. Like it

kind of requires almost an intentional like a designed pause in our work to say let's talk through things and break our usual pattern of working in these kind

of you know kind of I I use the term tunnel vision or like you know tunnel vision sort of way or horse blinder sort of way that we're very very focused.

However, we need to stop that for a moment to kind of take our head out of the water, breathe, and like actually start talking through it all again. So,

it it to me it's an incredibly valuable part of pretty much any design discipline or design um function when I think about functional areas at you know, not just

in federal organizations but many others, but maybe especially federal organizations. Um, having been public

organizations. Um, having been public sector myself, um, I've worked in the US Army Reserve myself and been witness to

a lot of the pains of public sector infrastructures, tech and otherwise, and how it can sometimes be really really difficult to work through some of the bureaucracy of it and and furthermore

like the really outdated technology that sometimes people, you know, it's legacy systems that people have to ultimately work within. Yeah. And I do want to

work within. Yeah. And I do want to recognize too that we also have a very global audience. And you know, I think

global audience. And you know, I think while some of this might be US-specific, I do think there are connections to broader

trends happening on a global scale and maybe even beyond the US government. So

I would love to pick your brain a bit about that as well, which is, you know, what what are some trends that you're seeing? I mean for me I see a lot of

seeing? I mean for me I see a lot of fixation on efficiency, automation, reducing budgets. Um is that something

reducing budgets. Um is that something you're seeing and are there other things I'm potentially missing? Then you know maybe we can that's a very big question to unpack here but I would love your thoughts you know as far as how design

might potentially evolve you know given everything that we're seeing. What I see is a pretty big shift toward um it's kind of the integration of the

practice of what we would have called like UX product design thinking human- centered design over the past 10 or 15

years and it has it's kind of soaked in and I think that the big push of like the early 2010s maybe even like the 20s

you know that like um uh elements of user experience. Jesse James Garrett

user experience. Jesse James Garrett when the book came out like like blew our minds way back then. It's like like that was I mean 15 years ago. I mean

that was like and we've integrated that.

I mean there were there were kids who were in elementary school who now work with us that you know it's like and so like I think we succeeded in getting

that type of information into uh like the boardroom the seats at the table and like we climb the ladder but now like the new problem is that it is so integrated that the design and like

the human- centered specialists it's way more general and you have that like spread out now through the organizations and through initiatives and through like different forms terms of like um not not

middle management but the people who are like pushing projects forward and kind of how the people who make decisions which typically aren't like the designers like we know it's important. We know that

there's customer experience. We know

that things have to have that sort of like polish and we know that there has to be journeys. We know that there has to be kind of that attention to the longitudinal experience of like

everything touch touch points stacked up over months or years. And so with the birth of you know AI which you know we can't deny like it's here like it's it

only is becoming more and more prevalent.

the efficiencies and the automations and those things you talked about I think is coming back to the dot connecting and being able to manage people and relationships because I've I've seen it I've been doing it I see it in the

places that are like like other businesses other organizations where what's important now is like problem solving on a choreography level because

you can like go and get on chat GPT and vibe code your way to a prototype in like two hours and it works like I've done Well, that's here to stay. Like we

don't even need to talk about like is AI going to replace some functions of design? Like yes, it is. So what do we

design? Like yes, it is. So what do we do now? What we do now is the the people

do now? What we do now is the the people who call ourselves designers or like human- centered you know innovators or facilitators or practitioners have to

become the internal dot connectors and orchestrators of the internal decision-m and kind of not not politics but

advocating for um what we sell be it products or services or whatever that are going to largely now be much more like human to human interactions because

products are going to get so smart so fast. I mean, I just like I just got um

fast. I mean, I just like I just got um message about this big agentic AI conference where it's like they it can

like now do things. And so I think what's much more important is how do we translate our human needs and desires for our customers and the people we

serve through all this new technologies and not worry so much around like who broke the Figma auto layout or whatever cuz it's like that doesn't matter like by the end of this year it doesn't matter. I I can't wait to go to like

matter. I I can't wait to go to like config conference and be like what are they even gonna talk about because the minutia of having to do the hard work of

design I mean has a year or less maybe left before it's like okay now we've we've solved all that now how do we take our same skill set and apply it to the internal organizational politics and

relationships the external choreography of what we want our customers to do how do we even like still understand cuz like an AI at least right now can't go

and observe somebody in their home. Like

at into it, the biggest um top secret uh thing that we had wasn't top secret, but like our secret weapon was the follow me home. And you know, listeners, go Google

home. And you know, listeners, go Google that. The in it follow me home was like

that. The in it follow me home was like going on site to people's small businesses to accountants offices, going into their homes, riding around in Ubers with people who were going to like file their 1099 through QuickBooks

self-employed. Like I've spent all day

self-employed. Like I've spent all day just with an Uber driver just observing and just watching and just being like, "Okay, this is what makes it difficult to be an Uber driver and then go and

like file your taxes as a self-employed person or your schedule C and yada yada yada." I mean, I've been in people's

yada." I mean, I've been in people's homes. It's like a I still can't do

homes. It's like a I still can't do that. And also I'm glad because that's

that. And also I'm glad because that's where you still need like the human lens to understand problems and like true like empathy and understand and then

bring it back and utilize these new tools that we're going to have um that are kind of replacing a lot of the old-fashioned work. But the upfront

old-fashioned work. But the upfront understanding the problem space, understanding how to frame it, understanding how to form the hypothesis and then go pitch it to the executive

you need to convince like I haven't heard of an AI convincing an executive yet of like greenlighting a project. So

we we still have to do that and we still have to advocate for the human experience. But like the minutia of

experience. But like the minutia of being the best at CSS, those days are gone. Like gone. Like if you're studying

gone. Like gone. Like if you're studying CSS and flexbox right now, you need to stop because it doesn't matter. There

are so much bigger problems to solve now. How do we do that? And I don't I

now. How do we do that? And I don't I don't know what that's going to look like because we've all seen the like examples of people like using AIs to generate wireframes to generate whatever. And yeah, like they're

whatever. And yeah, like they're stealing from other apps. They copy the Apple weather app and it's like, okay, yeah, like we got to get around that.

That's all going to be solved. That's

all going to be solved quickly. And then

you'll be able to just go to like your Figma microphone and say, "Uh, yeah, give me an app that's like Airbnb for turtles and it will do it." And then like how do you actually make that into like a product that works and how do you

actually get people to use it? And how

do you actually know that you're solving a problem? That's where it goes. So

a problem? That's where it goes. So

designers are going to have to become like like therapists and basically at this point. Yeah, actually that's I

this point. Yeah, actually that's I think that perspective is a helpful one and I think a pragmatic one. Um, so many things popped into my

one. Um, so many things popped into my mind as you were just sharing all this.

There's the design, the fundamental skills around it versus the tools which at least at NG we've always been very tool agnostic because frankly I mean

energy was around since 98 and like tools have obviously changed a lot since98. So yeah, great question. Like

since98. So yeah, great question. Like

what happens when the tools and like the the fundamental coding skills and aligning things visually like there are going to be so many automations that will kind of render that almost

redundant. I'm going to say almost

redundant. I'm going to say almost redundant cuz I think there's still going to be a need for taste and like understanding when things are off and how to like articulate and like say this is kind of the thing we need. But like

you're saying, these tools are going to get so smart that it's we'll be able to articulate things in a different way.

And that said though, like you're saying, there's a bit of design is therapy or like listening and being able to translate this back to people, compare it with what people ultimately

need, people as in our target audience, right? And and I also appreciate what

right? And and I also appreciate what you were saying too about, you know, understanding the long-term view of the customer experience, but even just the

thought of who our customer is, right?

Knowing and like to your experiences, your customers at NASA, I'm going to say customers in quotes, like customers weren't always a customer, right? Like

it wasn't someone like in a BTOC context who's paying. It's like sometimes they

who's paying. It's like sometimes they were employees, sometimes they were um people like astronauts. like there could be so many different ideas of customer that uh I think even now just the term experience design is kind of becoming

the more blanket term to respect and reflect on the fact that hey we have experiences we're designing for lots of different parties and there's still going to be a need to study that and understand it and when you mentioned you

know AI will likely not anytime soon be the one to survey and observe people I think it's also interesting to note that like we have algorithms now surveillance

algorithms and what we're seeing time and time again is that they're actually not as great as we would hope they would be and there's a lot of bias and there's a lot of really poor judgment calls that

ultimately need to be reviewed and overridden by you know a human being who has sense like so you know it certainly feels like using it as an input for

something like strategic decision-m is super risky um and that's where we as designers have a really strategic role to play So I I can imagine that our role

as designers and I'm using that kind of generally because I kind of lump researchers and strategists in under this kind of generalist designer umbrella, but but I do think designers are going to have to go into this more

generalist direction anyway in order to survive what I think is going to be a really significant change. So I totally agree with you there.

Yeah, it's I I think of it like um it's I know that we're not in Star Trek, but I we're like closer to where like watch I like Star Trek the Next Generation, right? But all the shows have the same

right? But all the shows have the same thing where you like talk to the computer and it talks back and I think that's a lot closer to what it's going to look like. It's not like AI is going to take over and we are all just like in

like matrix pods where we just like, you know, have IVs hooked up to us and we never like emerge. Like I still think that humanity is going to I hope continue on. So how do we make it so

continue on. So how do we make it so that when we are designing we're designing things I don't think we're going to be designing software but what I think we're going to be doing is

designing for potential interactions that are much more humanistic and much more organic and natural. So, like when you know Jordy and Commander Riker go

into the hollow deck and start to give it commands of what they want to see, they they're like, "Oh, yeah. Give me,

you know, a speedboat." "No, like a red speedboat." "Yeah, now give me some

speedboat." "Yeah, now give me some water skis because we want a water ski here in the holiday deck." And like, "Can you make it sunny?" "No, actually make it sundown. I want whatever." Like,

you're just talking. You're just like vibe coding your hollow deck experience here on the Starship Enterprise. Well,

that's kind of I think what designers are going to be meant to do. It's like,

can you articulate the narrative of what you need to have happen to your customer? Can you create that story

customer? Can you create that story upfront and then use whatever tools are necessary to do that? Be it the hollow deck on the enterprise or chat GPT or Figma and Sketch or Fireworks or

Illustrator or Photoshop or like what like it's that's all like tool that's all the same. And it's like that doesn't really change the fact that we want people to experience something that

currently they don't experience. We have

a set of tools and then we have them experiencing this new thing that we created. And when um we were doing this,

created. And when um we were doing this, you know, 15 years ago, it was like websites and it was, you know, then it was mobile apps. And now it's things

that might just exist as conversations because at this point, we're almost to that point where verbalization of want and need and then verbalization of need

fulfillment is kind of where we're going. I mean, I love pulling up chat

going. I mean, I love pulling up chat GPT and going into voice mode and just doing the conversation back and forth and figuring stuff out. Um, because

we're getting now closer back to how humans communicate, which is through story and anecdote and metaphor. If we

can tap into making technology behave and pass that touring test and have it react to us like people do, now that's what we're designing for. And so that's

I think that's where if people want to get into like the future of career, it will be thinking like a choreographer, thinking like a therapist, thinking like

maybe a lawyer or like people who represent people and have to use words and language to get their point across.

And that's I I think I I'm thinking of this right now so we can coin this phrase together. Words and language is

phrase together. Words and language is going to be the top design skill of the future. And then the other hard skills

future. And then the other hard skills come next because words and language is the only way you're going to be able to facilitate and work with the other humans you work with. And you're going to be designing things that rely on words and language for its input and

output. And then the in between that's

output. And then the in between that's just that's going to continue to evolve.

It like doesn't matter. 10 years from now, we'll be on this podcast talking about something else we can't even think of because the AI singularity will have given us technologies we can't even imagine. But we will still be humans and

imagine. But we will still be humans and our brains have not evolved in tens of thousands of years. And so we still are stuck with the wet wear that we have.

And no matter what we build, it still has to go through your ear canal, through your eyes, out your mouth. And

that's like the final interface design is can you get into someone else's mind?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and actually Erica Hall um is who's the author of conversational design, like she opens up her book saying, you know, conversation isn't a new interface. It's the oldest

interface. It's the way that we've

interface. It's the way that we've communicated with each other. And not

only that, how we communicate with technology now as well. And I want to point something out that always blows people's minds. Language is an

people's minds. Language is an invention.

It's not a naturally occurring thing. It

is an invention.

And so language is like our number one.

It's bigger than the wheel, bigger than fire. Language is what has allowed us to

fire. Language is what has allowed us to evolve. And um collaboration and working

evolve. And um collaboration and working with other people. And they say like the first sign of civilization is finding a skeleton who had a femur, the big bone

in your thigh, a fracture and then set and then healed. They said that's the first sign of human civilization because before if you would have broke your leg like that, you'd just be left to die.

But if you break your leg like that and someone else in your tribe takes care of you and feeds you and brings you water and protects you and lets that bone reheal, it's that collaboration with

other people that is the first sign that humans understood the need for others.

And we're still there. We're there more than ever now. And so like anthropology is also something else I think we need to like lean more into, you know, as

designers because we're kind of reaching like a new age of like dkennification because all that's going to be handled what's going to be important is do we

know how to work with other people and stop relying on software to do that work for us.

Yeah. And again thinking of software instead of software being the destination, it's again merely a tool and even with agentic experiences, those are going to be by and large tools. And

so actually this kind of like sparks another question which is about what is service blueprint? Well, obviously we

service blueprint? Well, obviously we know we we've done a previous episode on what service blueprints are, but more so what is the role maybe that you might

see of service blueprints and now with we have you know agentic experiences in my mind it seems like the complexity isn't going to get easier like if

anything it's just going to get more complex because now we have intermediaries to consider. But what are your thoughts on service blueprints?

Like do you think they're still going to be relevant? Will they evolve? Like what

be relevant? Will they evolve? Like what

what do you think? Yeah, totally

relevant. I mean, it's going to become it or whatever whatever the format is called or however we do it. It's going

to become like I think the primary artifact because it's going to um become how the choreography is either identified of an existing experience or

created for a net new experience. The

the the blueprint is the this is what happens. And so like the service

happens. And so like the service blueprint to me has always been um closer to like all of the work you would go into like make a movie like the

script, the VFX previs, the um the budgetary like you know do you have the money are the producers going to pay like how much do you have? Do you have to use a green screen? you can go on location and it's not it's not the

filming of the movie, it's the planning it out and like documenting it of the movie that service blueprint or whatever this type of like map is. It's not just

the customer's experience. It's also the internal, you know, producers of the experience um and all the the systems and policies and things that you need to build to like make it happen that maybe

people never even see or know about. But

it still requires organization design and it still requires um support and it still requires thinking longitudinally over time. And so what you're mapping

over time. And so what you're mapping out isn't really like the software experience and is isn't really just the customer's experience. It is the

customer's experience. It is the combined experience of everything so that you can plan in advance how you want these really complicated complex

experiences to happen and plan for it and make sure that um the people who show up to go through it do what they're supposed to do to succeed. And if we're talking about AI backed stuff,

conversational backed stuff, agenticbacked stuff, um you're going to have to think through it like you are scripting a movie only you don't get to

control what the actors say and everything just becomes one big choose your own adventure. And how many contingencies can you think of? How many

guardrails can you think of because the world is going to become a fluid conversation. We shouldn't be thinking

conversation. We shouldn't be thinking about designing software. We should only be thinking about designing malleable unpredictable human experiences because

when somebody asks your smart agentic AI whatever to do something you aren't prepared for what are you going to do and so it has to now instead of like guardrailing things and having really uh

I don't want to say rigid but like predetermined interaction design now it has to be a dance it has to be choreography because we are going to

empower power our customers and people with the ability to kind of ask for whatever they want and then we have to be ready to receive those questions and commands and prompts and then somehow

give them back an experience and uh right now I mean we can see so many failures of how jamming LLMs and AIs into every product like isn't really

producing value. It's like we're all a

producing value. It's like we're all a part of this giant global beta test of like what happens when the machine can talk back almost like humanlike what do

people ask for? I think that's all going to be kind of smoothed out and solved in the next few years and then we have to decide what happens where uh for instance like I'm a I'm a QuickBooks

customer still. I have like a little

customer still. I have like a little tiny small business so I have to like log in. It's like tax time. I log into

log in. It's like tax time. I log into QuickBooks and it's like I do it once a year. There like all this AI stuff there

year. There like all this AI stuff there and I'm just like I don't know what to do. Like I have my transactions and I

do. Like I have my transactions and I have my whatever. It's like how do you want to autocategorize and the AI thing is here and it's like like it's the weird chimeriic blend of like old style

software which really hasn't evolved since the 70s and now this stuff that's kind of like magical. And it makes me wonder like why why do I need the rest of this bookkeeping app at all? Why

isn't it just like a big smiley face?

It's like, what do you want to do? And

I'm like, I don't know. Get this to my accountant. And it goes, okay, we'll

accountant. And it goes, okay, we'll take care of it. And I did work on that a little bit in 2019 with QuickBooks Live, which was using real human bookkeepers that would like appear in

your software. And they were they were

your software. And they were they were working from home as like gig economy 1099, you know, workers and they would get assigned and they'd show up and they'd be on camera and they'd work through stuff and they'd do it for you

while you slept. Well, now it's like that was six, seven years ago. Now, an

an AI will be able to do all that, but then it's like, why do I even need the rest of the software? Why do I need anything? Why doesn't it just send me a

anything? Why doesn't it just send me a text? Your taxes are done, and some

text? Your taxes are done, and some supercomput did it for you. And so, it's like, is everything just going to become text notifications or gives me a call?

Like, you know what I mean? It's like

software is it's just changing so much.

sticking to the idea that we need to continue to just make things like more skeuorphic or less skuomorphic. It's

like it's like nothing has changed. It's

all still 1970s, 1980s like gooies and tables and rows and it's like I I I don't think that has much time left. I

think we are going to enter an era. I

can't predict or say what it's going to look like, but it's not just going to be a repeat of what was built at like Xerox Park when they came up with the interface or like when we saw like the

mother of all demos and like the first, you know, moving a mouse around on a screen between two locations. Like that

was 20th century tech. 21st century

tech. I don't know what it's going to be, but I just I simply think we are done with the classic idea that designers sit and align boxes and arrows. And I'm so sorry for to the

arrows. And I'm so sorry for to the boxes and arrows blog. I just think that I just think that is um there's just something else. I don't know what it is,

something else. I don't know what it is, but I think it's going to have to be about choreography and anthropology and knowing how to tell a really good story

and then hope that the people you want to be the primary actors in your story do what they're supposed to do. Yeah, I

appreciate the term chimeriic blend because in some ways I feel like that's kind of where like you're saying our our technology is going to move and I

whether or not we're going to latch on to you know the 70s gooies for much longer. We might a little bit just by

longer. We might a little bit just by virtue of our you know hesitance to change but I do think uh like you're saying it's going to be complex. It's

going to require orchestration and thinking of our work as a dance, I think, is such a poetic way to put it.

Um, so Erica, it has been so fun. I

could talk to you for probably another hour. Um, but with that said, I would

hour. Um, but with that said, I would love to ask you one last question, which is, you know, what excites you most about the future of design work?

I I mean for me I mean what I want to be able to do personally and I think what is just exciting in general is getting to move away from like being the best at

operating a computer to doing things that involve um solving complex human issues out in the wild and where we're

going to be doing things I think that aren't so much about I mean there there's still going to be need for like code and design and all the things that are really kind of well established. But

I think there's such a bigger um space and opportunity now to start to think about how can we go out and do things

with people in like healthcare. We have

all this new technology. It's like how do we take it and leverage it and make the experience to drive down cost and make things so more accessible to people who do want to like diagnose you know

with an AI. And there's been tons of cases where things have been like narrowed down or properly diagnosed like by talking to um you know an LLM and it's able to look at so much information and bring it back so quickly and so

trying to figure out like what do we really need to do um as people to like help other people and how can we leverage this I mean probably what will

be literal worldchanging like Gutenberg level like step change in like human technology the printing press you know was like this using AI and LLMs and everything that's going to come after

that I think is going to end up being something like that. So, how do we make the world better using this kind of magical secret power? And so like where we think about, oh, we want to build

robots that can go and mine on asteroids and they never get tired and they never need food and they like, okay, yeah, that's like that's like one thing we could do like keep the capitalism going, but what if we could also do things that

like help the people here on Earth and we start to develop solutions that again bring us way more back to um like tribal care and support and collaboration and

like helping people on that anthropological ical like level using technology and getting way more back to um

filling the gaps that technology has not been able to fill. And we need to start applying things um humanistically and applying technology to like close

the gap because if we ever want to reach like a post scarcity society, we're going to have to hope that some of this

technology enables us to like raise, you know, that bottom end of like social support and and leverage things for people. So that's what excites me. I

people. So that's what excites me. I

like I want to work in spaces that are helping people in pain, that are helping people who are um like underprivileged,

that are helping people who need access to the type of freedom of movement or freedom of information that this

technology can allow to the point that we bring some like equity back, you know, to the common person. And I think design um I guess this will be my final

thought if you know designers who listen to this. I think that we are going to be

to this. I think that we are going to be part of the population that reenters what we do especially in like technology and like whatever we call this industry

we work in. um helping people survive, helping people, you know, endure and and leveraging things not just to continue

to feed the coffers, but um actually like help people because we need a lot of help right now and there aren't enough people and so how do we leverage

these new technologies? How do we leverage AI to actually do some good?

And that's kind of like, you know, the Prometheian myth of fire. Fire destroys,

but fire creates. You know, we're pyrobiological people. Like our brains

pyrobiological people. Like our brains didn't like start to evolve till we learned to cook food and denature proteins over fire and then we started to eat that. We started to evolve again is hundreds of thousands of years ago.

That's that's something else we studied at Mural, by the way, is the metaphor of the campfire and how cooking food actually helped humans brains evolved.

by denaturing, you know, protein of like animal meat. We're at that stage again.

animal meat. We're at that stage again.

So, it's weird. It's like 2025 and yet we are now having to recapitulate how humans evolved socially prehistorically.

And I'm excited for that because everyone's lonely. Everyone is

everyone's lonely. Everyone is struggling and we need people and each other more than ever. I'm in so many signal groups over the last few months of people I've never met just talking non-stop and it's like where was all

this a year ago it's like we didn't need it and now there's probably 50 people I could get on a Zoom with or a chat with or whatever just surviving and just

being there to talk and just staying connected. So that's what excites me um

connected. So that's what excites me um is using this to like keep the connection of people who want to help going. Yeah, I think that's such a great

going. Yeah, I think that's such a great way to end the episode and I couldn't agree more. I mean, look for the helpers

agree more. I mean, look for the helpers and be the helpers. I think that's a really exciting place to be. Well,

Erica, thank you so much for your time today. Um, if people want to learn more

today. Um, if people want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where could you point people to? Um,

well, I pretty much only live on LinkedIn now, so go look me up there.

Um, my my website where you can find my info is hello ericflowers.com.

E R I K A. Everyone spells my name wrong. Um and I I can relate. Yeah.

wrong. Um and I I can relate. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. Um but yeah, yeah, send go send me an invite. If as long as you're not like a bot or somebody who looks like mean and scary, I accept all LinkedIn requests and chat and do

whatever. Like, let's see if we can get

whatever. Like, let's see if we can get me to Let's see if we can get me to 50,000 followers. I'm trying to catch up

50,000 followers. I'm trying to catch up to Hong and he's got like 40,000 followers and I'm just like, how do you get so many followers? So, oh my gosh, he has so many. We'll do a before and after this podcast to see how many

followers I get. Oh, I certainly hope it helps. Um, and side note for those

helps. Um, and side note for those listening, Hung Hungu is our mutual mutual connection, mutual friend, um, who is mind-boggling in in the work he does. I'm hoping to have him on an

does. I'm hoping to have him on an episode soon. And he he's he's amazing

episode soon. And he he's he's amazing and he's who he's who connected me to this podcast. Yes. And so I I do have to

this podcast. Yes. And so I I do have to give a shout out to Hong. He's the best.

Yeah. Thanks, Hong. And thank you. Thank

you, Erica, for being here. It has been so fun. Super fun. It was great. I love

so fun. Super fun. It was great. I love

just I came up with like three different phrases I'll have to go coin and write a blog post about now. Hopefully I

remember them. I forgot what I said.

I'll have to put the transcript. Oh,

we'll send it your way. Well, anyway,

Erica, thanks so much and I hope you have a great rest of your day. You too.

Thank you. That was Erica Flowers. She

is now the principal service designer at the Insulate Corporation where her latest design challenge has been focusing on helping people with diabetes live uninhibited lives. You can learn

more about her work by visiting her website at hell erica flowers.com.

That's erica with a K. And you can also follow her on LinkedIn. You can find links to all of those in the show notes.

And don't forget NG has thousands of free to access articles, videos, and upcoming courses on things like service blueprinting, design facilitation, and

how you can futureproof your UX practice. If any of those sound

practice. If any of those sound interesting to you, go to our website www.ngroup.com.

www.ngroup.com.

That's ngrup.com.

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This show was hosted by me, Theres Vessendon, and produced by me and Chrissy Richardson. That's it for

Chrissy Richardson. That's it for today's show. Until next time, remember,

today's show. Until next time, remember, keep it simple.