Designing new technology with people in mind starts with the question, “What does the user want to accomplish?”
ADP’s Joe Kleinwaechter shares insights on people-centered tech and how using AI can help address existing needs that previously might have been too difficult to solve.
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Joe Kleinwaechter, Vice President, Global Human Experience, ADP
The pace of work has really been changing a lot. Every day I go into work, I'm learning about something new that I didn't know the day before. And I'm sure that almost everybody's feeling that they're like, what's tomorrow going to bring?
The first thing I like to think about when we're designing a new technology or working with a new technology especially, is let's not think about the technology, let's think about the human that's on the other side. So the first thing I want to know is what are they trying to do? Who are they? Why are they trying to do this?
Because the solution may not be obvious right away, and it may be something hidden down deep, and you really can't get down deep until you really understand who's on the other side. What are their desires? What are they trying to accomplish? Because there's one thing we've learned as a user experience team, and that is that to know the user means you got to forget yourself.
And that's often hard. So a lot of what we do is spent understanding, understanding the complexities of human nature, and also figuring out what that human nature is trying to go to, what they're trying to accomplish, what is their goal. Because once we know where they're trying to get to, we can help them get there.
When I think of AI, I think about it on multiple planes. I think about on the plane as it affects me as a daily person in the world. I think about it how it affects me as a member of a human experience team that has to build products for our clients. I also think at another level, which is at that macro level, how is it affecting our world that we're operating right now?
And when you think about those three layers, there's some exciting news and all three of those things at a personal level, a lot of us have tried and have already seen some great personal levels. Can it can help me with my agenda. Can you keep me straight? Heck, I have horrible navigation skills and if it can keep me on track where I'm going at any given time, and before I even know where I'm going.
Great. Have at it. You can. You can have that part of my life. From a development standpoint, you know, I have to think about what what future are we giving to our clients? What is the thing right now that they can't do that AI allows them to do. Great example: we say often in the team that, you know, let's imagine AI was born on January 1st of some year and December 31st.
Our clients all had these top ten things they needed to to do and wanted you to do in your software on January 2nd. Nothing changed. Nothing changed. The challenges are still the challenges. The technology now makes some of those challenges more possible. So maybe something that was at number ten on the list of things to do, because it was hard to do, but our customers wanted it rises to a higher level 2 or 3 because it's now possible.
So when I think about AI think about what does it make possible? What is that that I couldn't do yesterday that I can do today.
