AX Framework
Design AI decision systems, by Marta Fernandez
AI changed the product. Design has to change with it. AX Framework is a practical framework for designing AI systems that understand, decide, act and evolve while keeping humans in control.
It includes seven pillars, the AX Working Model, canvases, Decision Maps, governance checks and evaluation toolkits.
The Seven Pillars
- Human-Context, decisions grounded in people, tasks and environments.
- Explain-and-Feedback, make decisions legible; invite corrections and signal uncertainty.
- Override & Fallback, clear exits, controls and human escalation at any step.
- Metrics / Co-Evolution, trust, adoption, recovery and fairness over time.
- Ethics & Privacy, consent, boundaries, least privilege by design.
- Adaptivity, fit to user goals and context; safe personalisation.
- Collaboration, shared rituals, artifacts and decisions across PO, UX, Eng and AI ops.
Mindset
- AI Trust Mindset, designing for reliability and predictability.
- Applied Ethics, ethical trade-offs and accountability in AI.
- Human Experience, designing AI experiences around people.
AXEL
AXEL stands for AI eXperience, Ethics, Limits. It is the AX Framework materialised as a governance facilitator for AI products. AXEL does not answer for you, it makes you think.
Explore
- Starter Kit, step-by-step guide and AXEL governance facilitator.
- Framework, overview of the full AX Framework.
- Seven Pillars, the 7 pillars of human-centered AI design.
- Human Mindset, trust, ethics and human experience principles.
- Working Model, ownership and Decision Boundaries for AI-first product teams.
- Previous Agile Collaboration, historical material preserved for reference.
- Tools & Methods, workshops, canvases and practical tools.
- AX Sprint Canvas, sprint-ready AX planning canvas.
- Tri-Canvas, Machines canvas for AI product design.
- Initial Governance Checklist, starting governance for AI products.
- Resources, downloads, toolkits and references.
- Templates, downloadable canvases and checklists.
- Case Studies, real-world applications of the framework.
- Manifesto, principles behind the AX Framework.
- Glossary, key terms used across the framework.
- About, about Marta Fernandez and the framework.
- FAQ, frequently asked questions.
Machine-readable summaries for AI assistants: /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt.