The Slot Machine Problem: Better Uses for AI in Design
The Slot Machine Problem: Better Uses for AI in Design
About This Talk
Most designers use AI as a slot machine for mockups — pull the lever, get a screen, polish it, repeat. This talk is a field report on a different practice: one product designer's daily use of AI across design systems documentation, microcopy at scale, component specs, and a personal app shipped with no engineers.
Sid Chhatani draws on a year of hands-on practice inside a product org serving thousands of school districts. He'll walk through unglamorous, real examples: converting messy meeting decisions into a governed design-decision record system, pressure-testing UX microcopy against accessibility and plain-language standards, generating interactive documentation that engineers actually read, and building a functioning record-catalog app solo over a few weekends. For each one, you'll see what the AI produced, what he changed, and why that division of labor holds.
The core argument: AI collapses the cost of production. Taste, systems thinking, and knowing what to cut become the scarcest skills on your team — and you can build them on purpose.
You'll Learn
Where AI actually belongs in a design process, and where it doesn't
How to turn messy meeting decisions into a governed design-decision record system
How to pressure-test microcopy against accessibility and plain-language standards
How to talk about AI with PMs and engineering leads without sounding like a hype merchant or a Luddite
Who It's For
Mid-level designers stuck in the uncomfortable middle — expected by leads to have an AI opinion, while still building the craft AI seems poised to cheapen. Most AI advice out there is written for principals or bootcamp grads; this is for everyone in between.
🎤 Speaker: Sid Chhatani
Sid is a Senior Product Designer building AI-powered systems for education and enterprise. At ParentSquare, he designs agent features that help teachers communicate with K-12 school communities. Previously at TechnologyAdvice, he led design for an AI-driven platform that reduced account lookup from 48 hours to 20 minutes. At Mark43, he redesigned Computer-Aided Dispatch interfaces for law enforcement agencies. With a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan and nearly a decade across EdTech, GovTech, and SaaS, Sidharath bridges AI capabilities with practical user needs. He teaches AI design through workshops and hosts UX Over Dinner in Denver.
LinkedIn: sidharathc
Website: sidharath.com
🏠 Hosted by: Designed Forward — a coaching community for designers, researchers, and entrepreneurs
📅 Wednesday, September 10 | 9:30 AM PST / 12:30 PM EST
🖥️ This event is online only. A Zoom link will be emailed to registered attendees before the event.
People who made this event possible:
Designed Forward is a coaching community for designers and career-driven professionals — built on real accountability, honest feedback, and the belief that growth happens faster with people around you who actually push you forward.