Designing Responsible AI tools: Launching the UX Design of AI Learning Group

Despite years of effort mainstreaming Responsible Digital Development thinking and Human Centred Design into international development lifecycles, too many AI powered interventions are being designed and released without returning to first principles: understanding users and their context of use, co-designing, prototyping and testing in communities, establishing meaningful feedback loops and ongoing participation mechanisms.

The MERL Tech Initiative is excited to address that gap with the launch of a new Learning Group. Co-led by Isabelle Amazon-Brown, Sofie Meyer, and Sara Chamberlain, this learning group will focus on the practical, hands-on aspects of designing AI-powered tools for development and humanitarian contexts.

Whilst many current efforts touch on factors that feed into the design of AI-powered tools, we don’t currently have a dedicated space for design professionals directly involved in the day-to-day work of shaping these tools in the social sector. This learning group aims to fill that gap by creating a forum to share insights, learn from each other’s experiences, and collectively define what inclusive, human-centered AI design looks like in practice. Sign up now, or read on to find out more.

What we’ll explore

This learning group will aim to meet quarterly and provide opportunities for practitioners with hands-on experience to:

• Share insights into who is and isn’t using AI tools and why (trust, awareness, device ownership, data affordability, digital competency, costs, liability, and more)
• Discuss common usage patterns to help inform more intelligent design (onboarding behaviors, informed consent, frequency and duration of use, pain points, guardrails, human-in-the-loop considerations)
• Share and critique emerging design and prompting conventions, with emphasis on data privacy, safety, inclusion, accessibility, and usability
• Document challenges and promising examples of responsible, human-centered design practices
• Increase awareness of safety risks and mitigation strategies (red-teaming, retrieval) 

We also want to provide designers and others with the opportunity to talk openly about how AI is changing our profession and day to day tasks – for better and worse.

Who should join

We would especially welcome anyone involved in the hands-on design, customization, or development of AI-powered tools for use within the development and humanitarian sector, including:

• User Experience Researchers & Designers
• Service Designers
• Conversation Designers
• Digital Content Creators and Copywriters
• Prompt Engineers
• Engineers & Data Scientists
• Product Managers
• Subject Matter Experts
• Digital Safeguarding and Data Privacy Experts
• Academics and Researchers working in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) or digital ethnography

Of course, our intention is that anyone interested in general best practices related to AI, such as grant managers, or those interested in how to effectively measure the usage and impact of AI tools, including MERL professionals, will enjoy the sessions. No engineering or data science knowledge will be expected,

How we’ll work

To encourage open and honest discussion about what’s working and what’s not, we expect most sessions to follow Chatham House Rule. We welcome members from the commercial sector and hope to learn from them, whilst ensuring we can speak freely about our collective concerns with commercial AI providers. Speakers will be strongly encouraged to share usage data transparently, even and especially if it suggests something is not working. We expect to see tech platforms and product builders represented in the working group, however we will discourage sales-focused content or pitches, and promote nuanced, critical discussions.

Get to know the co-leads

Isabelle Amazon-Brown is a design researcher and UX designer with 15 years experience designing award winning digital tools with vulnerable groups, including AI-powered chatbots. She also works with funders and implementing organisations, advising on responsible design & AI.

Sofie Meyer is a conversation designer at Turn.io, with a background in neuroscience and psychotherapy and a keen interest in AI and, in particular, safe use thereof at scale.

Sara Chamberlain is a globally recognized expert in gender and digital inclusion, bringing 25 years of hands-on digital development experience, including 17 years co-creating impactful solutions with low-literate women in LMICs.

Join us

If you’re interested in joining this learning group or have a use case or research you’d love to share, please sign up here.

---

More information about the CoP

Convened by The MERL Tech Initiative, the NLP Community of Practice brings together MERL practitioners, AI experts, and data responsibility advocates to learn and collaborate. We focus on responsible, appropriate, and effective applications of AI to address demand-driven, real-world MERL challenges. Learn more and join here.