What does Hans Zimmer throwing a piano down a flight of stairs have to do with design?
I've been reflecting on Claude/AI's basic function of "regression to the mean" and what that means for product design today. Two thoughts right now.
1. A lot of times I see this stated as a negative, but regression to the mean isn't always bad.
If I'm driving, I sure as heck want other drivers to "regress to the mean" and drive in their lane like everybody else. If I'm listening to music, I sure want the musicians to have their instruments in tune with each other. And in design, Jakob's Law says users expect consistency across their web/app experiences.
If Claude comes up with something that is a "regression to the mean" but is perfectly suitable for what needs to be done and also lines up with your intentional, trained, judgement-informed vision for the interface, that's great! Roll with it. Regression to the mean can be the right thing in many cases, so leverage this.
2. Instead, focus your attention on areas outside the mean.
Hans Zimmer threw a piano down a flight of stairs for his score for Sherlock Holmes, and the off-key, out-of-tune result provided real character to the soundtrack that there wouldn't be otherwise.
Because Claude/AI regresses to the mean, it results in safe decisions. Nice borders, nice radii, nice icons.
You (as the designer) need to let it regress to the mean in certain areas where you (as the designer) knows that's the right thing, and focus your attention on the areas where moving outside the mean will make the product so much stronger.
This means focusing on honing judgment, crafting unique character, fine-tuning micro interactions, maybe adjusting the border Claude suggested (but not the radii) or iterating your design.md file, bringing in amazing gradients, delightful illustrations, custom animations, unexpected design decisions that were difficult to pull off before AI, focusing on more user testing, and so forth . . . things that aren't the mean and that bring character, delight, and craft to the work.