Franky Wang talks about design, AI, and the future of UX
The relationship between UX Design and Artificial Intelligence has never been closer, and that connection is profoundly changing how millions of people use and perceive digital products in everyday life. What once felt like a distant promise is now a reality in banking apps, healthcare platforms, ecommerce sites, and pretty much any service that lives on a phone or computer screen.
Franky Wang, a senior UX designer at JPMorgan Chase in New York, shared a highly relevant perspective on this landscape in an interview with Digital Journal. In his view, two major forces are shaping the future of digital experiences: on one side, the rapid advancement of technologies like AI and machine learning; on the other, the urgent need to design for a global population that is aging quickly in a hyperconnected world. That perspective highlights something many people still overlook — cutting-edge technology without human sensitivity solves nothing.
It is exactly at this intersection of technological innovation and empathy that two core pillars of any serious digital project emerge: accessibility and empathetic design. Creating visually appealing interfaces or simply checking off technical compliance boxes is no longer enough. The real challenge is building experiences that work clearly, inspire trust, and respect the real limitations and needs of every person interacting with them. And the good news is that artificial intelligence is becoming a powerful ally in that process, without replacing the human perspective that remains irreplaceable 🚀
Franky Wang’s view on AI and the role of the designer
Wang does not hide his enthusiasm when the topic is artificial intelligence. Instead of seeing the technology as a threat to creative work, he argues for a far more practical and constructive mindset. According to him, it is better to embrace AI and learn how to use it in favor of design than to spend time complaining about the impact it might have on the profession. He compares the experience to having a conversation with an incredibly smart friend — someone who complements your thinking, offers new angles, and helps you notice things you might not catch on your own.
That perspective is directly reflected in the work Wang does at JPMorgan Chase, where he helped lead the redesign of the Ultimate Rewards dashboard and other high-impact features. Those changes, while often invisible to the general public, significantly transformed how people interact with their finances on the platform. They include adjustments to navigation flows, visual hierarchy, microcopy, and decision points that make all the difference when simplicity and trust matter in a digital financial environment.
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For Wang, AI is becoming an essential assistant in the UX Design process. In practice, it helps simplify data analysis, allowing designers to define clearer goals and focus on the design decisions that truly matter. During planning and testing stages, artificial intelligence can optimize tasks like framework mapping, card sorting, and synthesizing findings from user research. That saves time and frees up mental space for deeper, more strategic thinking about design. But he makes a point of stressing one crucial detail: no matter how popular AI becomes, it will not replace the role of the designer. The real value of UX still comes from human insight — the ability to connect with users, understand their emotions, and create experiences that feel intuitive and personal.
How Artificial Intelligence is transforming UX Design in practice
When we talk about Artificial Intelligence applied to UX Design, we are not just talking about chatbots or virtual assistants — even though those are popular examples. The transformation goes much further than that. AI-based tools can already analyze behavior patterns from thousands of users in real time, identify friction points in digital journeys, and even suggest layout changes that improve navigation without requiring a designer to spend weeks running manual A/B tests. That completely changes the speed and accuracy with which product teams make decisions. AI works like a magnifying lens, revealing details that the human eye alone would take much longer to detect, especially when dealing with datasets that include millions of daily interactions.
One of the most interesting points Franky Wang highlights is that AI should not be seen as a substitute for the designer, but as an extension of their capabilities. Think about this scenario: a financial platform needs to serve both young adults who are digital natives and people over 70 who may struggle to read small text or understand abstract icons. Artificial intelligence can dynamically personalize the interface, adjusting font size, color contrast, menu complexity, and even the tone of the language used in microcopy — all based on each user’s profile and behavior. This kind of real-time adaptation would be practically impossible to implement manually for every audience segment, and that is where the technology shows its real value within digital experiences.
Beyond personalization, AI is also helping design teams anticipate problems before they happen. Predictive models can flag when a particular screen is likely to drive abandonment, when a signup flow is too confusing, or when users simply are not finding a button. That allows fixes to happen proactively rather than reactively. Instead of waiting for complaints to reach customer support, the product team can already act with concrete data in hand. This preventive approach saves time, reduces costs, and most importantly improves the experience for the person on the other side of the screen.
Accessibility and empathetic design as the foundation of everything
Accessibility in the digital world is not an optional feature or a competitive differentiator — it is a responsibility. And when you look at the numbers, the scale of the impact becomes clear: the World Health Organization estimates that more than one billion people worldwide live with some form of disability. Add to that the aging population Franky Wang mentions, and it becomes obvious that designing only for the standard user — young and without limitations — means ignoring a massive portion of the population. Empathetic design comes in here as a philosophy that puts active listening and genuine understanding of human needs at the center of the creative process. It is not about following accessibility guidelines just to comply with regulations — it is about understanding that every design decision affects someone’s real life.
Wang sees strong potential in using AI to simplify interactions, provide helpful guidance, and reduce cognitive load for older users, so they can feel confident and included in a digital world that changes fast. Both he and JPMorgan Chase are actively exploring these possibilities, looking for ways to create experiences that go beyond meeting technical accessibility standards and actually work with empathy, clarity, and trust.
In practice, empathetic design means going beyond conventional usability testing. It means involving people with visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities from the earliest stages of research and prototyping. It means testing interfaces with screen readers, checking whether animations may cause discomfort for people with vestibular sensitivity, making sure forms can be navigated using only a keyboard, and confirming that color contrast not only meets WCAG guidelines but also works well for people with color blindness or low vision. Artificial Intelligence has been helping a lot in this area, with tools that run automatic accessibility audits and flag problems that could go unnoticed during development. But it is important to reinforce this point: AI can identify the technical problem, yet it is human sensitivity that understands the emotional impact that problem causes.
Franky Wang reinforces a point that is well worth highlighting — the trust a digital product inspires is directly tied to how it handles the diversity of its users. When an older adult can complete a bank transfer without asking for help, when a visually impaired person can navigate an app independently using only voice commands, or when a neurodivergent user finds a clean and predictable interface that does not overwhelm their senses, that is empathetic design truly working. These quiet wins do not make headlines, but they deeply and durably transform people’s relationship with technology. And that is the kind of outcome no vanity metric can measure.
Mentorship, community, and the role of giving back
Beyond his technical work at JPMorgan Chase, Wang is also committed to contributing to the design community in a broader way. He actively participates in mentorship initiatives, cross-team collaboration, and ongoing knowledge sharing. For him, supporting junior designers, improving internal team processes, and building a culture where thoughtful, strategic design can thrive is not just a professional responsibility — it is a privilege.
That mindset says a lot about the kind of professional who will stand out in UX over the next few years. It is not enough to master tools, understand research, or know how to build polished prototypes. The market increasingly values people who can raise the level of those around them, who invest time in teaching, documenting processes, and creating collaborative environments where good ideas can come from anyone on the team, regardless of seniority.
When asked about his long-term goals, Wang shared a vision that goes beyond functional success. He wants his work to represent a broader contribution — helping create a digital environment that is more inclusive, respectful, and human-centered, one that gives value back to the people who use it every day. That perspective directly connects personal purpose with collective impact, something that is becoming increasingly relevant in a sector that deals with billions of human interactions every day.
The future of digital experiences depends on the union of technology and humanity
Looking ahead, the landscape points to an increasingly sophisticated integration between UX Design, Artificial Intelligence, and accessibility. Advanced language models, computer vision, and continuous learning algorithms will allow interfaces to adapt in ways we can barely imagine today. Think of apps that automatically recognize when a user is in a very bright environment and adjust brightness and contrast without requiring any action. Or platforms that detect hesitation patterns and offer subtle contextual guidance without interrupting the flow. The technology for that already exists in early stages, and the trend is for it to become standard in the coming years. That progress, however, needs to come with constant ethical reflection on how and for whom these solutions are being designed.
Franky Wang’s warning about population aging is especially relevant for markets like Brazil, where the age pyramid is changing quickly. According to data from the IBGE, the country will have more older adults than young people by 2060. That means companies that do not start now to incorporate accessibility and empathetic design as core values in their digital products will face serious relevance and retention problems in the medium term. It is not an exaggeration to say that the ability to design inclusive digital experiences will be one of the main competitive differentiators of the next decade. And here, Artificial Intelligence plays a strategic role, accelerating research processes, automating accessibility validation, and enabling personalization at scale that would be impossible otherwise.
The journey toward smarter and more human interfaces also requires a cultural shift inside companies. It is no use having the best AI tools if the organization’s mindset still treats accessibility as a secondary task, or if design is seen only as an aesthetic layer applied at the end of development. Professionals like Franky Wang are showing in practice that user-centered design needs to be present from day one of any project — informing architecture decisions, influencing business priorities, and ensuring that the voice of the end user is never forgotten amid spreadsheets and roadmap meetings.
At the end of the day, the message is fairly simple, but powerful: the best technology in the world does not replace the human ability to understand what another person feels, needs, and expects when using a digital product. Artificial Intelligence is an extraordinary tool that expands the reach and precision of UX Design, but empathy remains at the heart of the process. As Wang puts it, AI enhances the process, but final judgment must always be grounded in human understanding. Designing for everyone is not just a technical exercise — it is a commitment to the idea that technology should serve people, not the other way around. When accessibility, empathetic design, and artificial intelligence work together, the result is digital experiences that respect, include, and work for everyone 💡
