Recently (July 2026), I had lunch with a colleague, Maxim Safioulline, Professor of IxD; we both teach at the ArtCenter College of Design and at the Santa Monica College IxD programs. Like any nerd conversation today, it drifted into AI, and we discussed some of the challenges of adopting AI as a foundation when teaching UX/HCI/IxD design skills to students who need the practice. We both are from the ilk of designers who tinkered with technology, learned to manipulate design systems via code through trial and error, and gained design + code skills through building prototypes. For example, I was baptized into html/css code by customizing my MySpace profile page as a junior in college in 2003. (I know ….I am old!)
Over time, I learned enough about technology systems to be comfortable building things through prototyping. Out of necessity, we both learned to manipulate some aspects of code, HTML/CSS/JS, and IoT C++ & hardware manipulation via Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc. in graduate school. He went to Parsons Design and Tech MFA, and I went to ArtCenter Media Design Program (MDP) MFA. Not that graduate…