 On the one hand, I'm very sympathetic to the argument that "AI" is an over-hyped buzzword that is rapidly losing all meaning, if it ever had any (beyond being a combination of science-fiction and an academic discipline from the 1950s) On the other hand though, I'm building a feature where LLMs help a user build a SQL query using an English-language question and I need to decide what label to put on that button, it's hard to come up with anything that's as clear as "Use AI to write this query" 36 comments
@simon I don't rate the chances of it catching on, but something like VS Code's "Try to infer the type of parameters from usage" feels like it's in the right vein. "Try to infer the correct query based on natural language"? It's not exactly catchy 😜   @simon I think you should avoid “AI” and “✨” purely for branding purposes. LLMs have a stink on them thanks to indiscriminate deployment by desperate companies hitting their growth ceilings. instead call it something like “autogenerate query” or “English to SQL” or “ask a question about your data” @frew that's more or less where I am right now, I think "AI" increasingly means so thing useful to end-users, at least as a UI term  AI is the mechanism, not the thing. How it does it's job is largely irrelevant to the end user. When I want help at the library - I don't talk to the "person" - I talk to the "librarian". So: "Wizard". Windows has had things like the "Network Setup Wizard" for literally decades. We know it means "here let me help you do this specialized task". Co-opt the term. That or "assistant". But "wizard" has a pre-established meaning in this context. @tbortels Wizard is actually pretty good, I worry that it carries a huge amount of baggage though - I would almost never select the "wizard" option in a piece of software I was using @simon @tbortels In UX, Wizard generally refers to a series of screens that guide you through complex options https://www.nngroup.com/articles/wizards/ Now, the average user may not know that, so perhaps “Wizard” could still work, but I think something like “✨Suggest query” might get across what you want, and give the user the right mindset to carefully evaluate what the AI does @simon Putting my UX hat on, why does it need a button at all? The ideal interaction could be just to do it live? Or something like Show/Preview/Generate SQL/Query.  @simon Something like „magic wand“ from Photoshop-like software? It was magic back then so they called it magic wand. The name says nothing about the feature, but now everybody still knows what exactly it does. Naming is strange. @simon "Generate query ✨". Sparkles have become an informal standard to indicate AI magic: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ai-sparkles-icon-problem/  @simon The text doesn't matter so long as it's in an aurora-toned gradient. Jokes aside I think "Generate" is understood and doesn't oversell it. @simon ignoring all arguments for or against the “AI” label - why not just call the button “generate” or “generate query”? It’s clear what it’ll do and the implementation shouldn’t be something that concerns the user. Yeah, but that sounds like “crafting a solution” rather than solving a problem. The button should offer the user a way to help, and unless the sole thing your app does is create SQL code, you can probably do better, like “What would you like to find?” or “Help me look for…” @jrconlin this is for my Datasette app, which is very open about letting users directly execute SQL - I want to give them a feature to help them figure out the query syntax for more complex things https://datasette.io/content?sql=select%0D%0A++rowid%2C%0D%0A++date%2C%0D%0A++body%0D%0Afrom%0D%0A++news%0D%0Awhere%0D%0A++%22date%22+%3E%3D+%3Ap0%0D%0Aorder+by%0D%0A++rowid%0D%0Alimit%0D%0A++101&p0=2024-01-01 @simon remember when Google had the "I'm feeling lucky" button? Current gen AI feels very on brand for that. @simon I was just thinking something along the lines of “assistive generation” to communicate that it assists you getting to what you want, and that it's machine generated. However, when I looked up “assistive” it seems to typically refer to disability aids, so it might not be the best fit. @simon automated assistance? Also prior art to potentially be inspired by: MongoDB’s online admin tool has an LLM to help users generate queries. It’s… fine for really simple queries.  @simon "Propose query implementation." That still leaves the human in charge of verifying if it works. @simon looks like in Chrome, Google is going for "Ask AI" and "AI Assistance" https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/ai-assistance/network @simon “Generate” (or “autogenerate”)? |
Gregory's Server
"Get help writing this query" implies a human support mechanism (or a link to a help desk / manual), which this isn't
I need a widely understood shortcut for "this button will get the computer to do a weirdly useful trick that needs a widely agreed upon name..."
I think "AI", at least in terms of UI micro-copy, may be by far the best option at this point
Anyone seen any UI elements that do this kind of thing and use some other widely understood term for it?