Master's Thesis: User Intent in Industrial AI Interfaces

About the role

ABB is offering a master's thesis in Västerås, spring 2027 (Jan–July), reporting to the R&D Team Lead. The project studies how industrial operators formulate and communicate their intentions when interacting with advanced agentic AI systems, and how user experience design can reduce the "articulation barrier". It is worth 30 ECTS credits and involves 1-2 students; the focus can be either control room environments or mobile operators in the field.

Key responsibilities

• Conduct a literature review on supporting user intent communication with an agentic AI in an industrial context
• Carry out user research through interviews, workshops, contextual studies or discussions with ABB experts and/or end users
• Identify user needs, pain points and use cases, and summarise key design factors
• Investigate market solutions for capturing user intent in the industrial market
• Develop concepts and user experience visions for human-agent interaction focused on user intent
• Create interactive mid-fidelity prototypes and evaluate them with users or domain experts
• Summarise findings and provide design recommendations for intent-supporting human-agent interaction

Required profile

• Motivated master's student interested in designing future industrial user experiences and digital solutions
• Background in Interaction Design, HCI, UX Design, Industrial Design Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Media Technology or a related field
• Interest in user-centered design, digital product development and emerging technologies
• Ability to work independently and creatively in an exploratory research environment
• Interest in industrial automation, process industries, AI-assisted systems or industrial digitalisation is a strong merit

Required skills

• Qualitative user research and ability to turn findings into requirements, concepts and design recommendations
• Creating prototypes and visual concepts with tools such as Figma or similar

The position is part of ABB's talent pipeline and is not currently open; candidates can apply by sending their CV, academic transcripts and an English cover letter to express interest in future opportunities.