The GenUI Study: Exploring the Design of Generative UI Tools to Support UX Practitioners and Beyond

TL;DR

This study investigates how UX practitioners and related professionals adopt and integrate Generative UI tools into their workflows, revealing practical insights and design gaps to improve future GenUI development.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights from a formative study on GenUI adoption by diverse UX roles, highlighting user needs, workflow integration, and design implications.

Findings

GenUI supports multiple UX roles with specific workflows

Participants identified gaps between GenUI capabilities and user needs

Design implications for improving GenUI tools were proposed

Abstract

AI can now generate high-fidelity UI mock-up screens from a high-level textual description, promising to support UX practitioners' work. However, it remains unclear how UX practitioners would adopt such Generative UI (GenUI) models in a way that is integral and beneficial to their work. To answer this question, we conducted a formative study with 37 UX-related professionals that consisted of four roles: UX designers, UX researchers, software engineers, and product managers. Using a state-of-the-art GenUI tool, each participant went through a week-long, individual mini-project exercise with role-specific tasks, keeping a daily journal of their usage and experiences with GenUI, followed by a semi-structured interview. We report findings on participants' workflow using the GenUI tool, how GenUI can support all and each specific roles, and existing gaps between GenUI and users' needs and expectations, which lead to design implications to inform future work on GenUI development.