Design Ideation with AI - Sketching, Thinking and Talking with Generative Machine Learning Models

Generative machine learning models provide opportunities to support design work in various parts of the design process. This study investigates how generative machine learning and large language models may play a part in creative design processes of ideation, early prototyping and sketching. A workshop was conducted in which design practitioners and design researchers developed design concepts for a provided design case, with the help of GPT-3. The findings point to three main themes, including i) the practical usefulness and limitations of the system in design ideation processes, ii) how the form of user interaction shapes users’ expectations of the system’s capabilities and potentials, and iii), how the broader discourse around AI both limits and enables how co-creative processes involving human and AI unfolds. The discussion outlines design implications and alternative framings of this kind of co-creative design practices based on post-human perspectives on design and technology use.