In a sobering Sunday reflection, designer and educator Jon Kolko draws a stark parallel between Henry Ford's revolution in manufacturing and the modern trajectory of user experience (UX) design—raising urgent questions about employment for the next generation of creatives. As AI begins to automate layout generation and other repetitive tasks, Kolko's analysis suggests that UX, much like Ford's assembly line workers, faces a future where only a privileged few thrive, while the majority are relegated to low-wage, commoditized roles. This isn't just a cautionary tale; it's a mirror to the tech industry's relentless push for efficiency, where the human element of design risks being sidelined.

The Assembly Line Blueprint: From Ford to Figma

Kolko meticulously traces Henry Ford's journey: starting with handcrafted prototypes like the Quadricycle in the late 1800s, scaling to the Model T's debut in 1908, and culminating in the fully mechanized assembly line by 1913. This innovation brought massive productivity gains—doubling wages initially—but eventually led to layoffs, union battles, and robots like the Unimate handling tasks by the 1960s. The timeline, Kolko notes, spanned roughly 70 years from invention to automation, marked by phases of euphoric growth and painful labor reckoning.

"That sure looks familiar-ish," Kolko writes, drawing a direct line to software's evolution. From Doug Engelbart's groundbreaking 1968 demo of interactive computing, through the chaotic BBS era and boxed software of the 80s-90s, to today's standardized frameworks like jQuery and design tools such as Figma, we've seen a similar industrialization. Modern UX often resembles an assembly line: tickets flow in, designers operate within constrained systems, and products churn out uniformly. The result? A 'blanding' of applications, where creativity is stifled by efficiency-driven processes.

AI as the New Unimate: Automating the Design Workforce

Here's where Kolko's analogy turns foreboding. Just as Unimate robots replaced spot-welders in GM plants, AI is now encroaching on design tasks—generating layouts, optimizing user flows, and handling routine iterations. Tools leveraging machine learning can already produce viable UI mockups from simple prompts, reducing the need for human intervention in foundational work. For entry-level designers, this spells trouble. Kolko argues that much of UX has devolved into 'assembly line' work: executing predefined patterns rather than innovating. This commoditization, he fears, will drive wages down to '$11/hour shit work' without the union protections that eventually emerged in manufacturing.

The implications for design education are grim. As AI handles the grunt work, only a small cadre of strategists and interaction specialists—those who tackle complex, ambiguous problems—will remain in demand. Kolko bluntly questions whether design is a sustainable career path: 'Maybe the kindest thing we can do to our prospective students is to tell them to go study something else.' This isn't just about job loss; it's about a fundamental shift in what design means. When creativity is industrialized, the value shifts from artistry to operational efficiency, echoing Ford's legacy where innovation gave way to scale.

Beyond the Grim Forecast: Reclaiming Human-Centric Design

Yet, Kolko's narrative isn't entirely defeatist. He hints at a silver lining: AI might free designers from mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-order thinking like empathy, ethics, and systemic innovation. But this requires a radical rethinking of design education and industry practices. Instead of training students for assembly-line execution, programs must emphasize critical thinking, user research, and adaptive problem-solving—skills AI can't replicate. For tech leaders, this underscores a responsibility: invest in human-centric processes, or risk a future where software loses its soul to automation.

As we stand at this crossroads, Kolko's Fordian lens forces a hard truth. The 'golden years' of UX may be fading, much like Ford's early profit-sharing era. But just as cars evolved beyond the Model T, design can transcend its industrialized phase—if we prioritize the irreplaceable spark of human creativity over the cold logic of the assembly line.

Source: Jon Kolko, Sunday morning thoughts on Henry Ford and UX