The AI Design Ed project

Project leader(s): AnnMarie McKenna Catherine Scott

Theme: Technologies for STEM learning
Project faculties: STEM
Status: Archived
Date: June 2024 to October 2025

Can GenAI Tools Be Passive Facilitators in Student Design Work?

The AIDED project investigated the role of generative image AI tools, like Microsoft Copilot, in supporting student design processes without acting as creative agents. While GenAI use in education raises ethical concerns around ownership and originality, its widespread adoption in the design industry for streamlining tasks highlights its relevance to future employability.

Project Overview:

AIDED Student Survey -A broad survey assessing student awareness and understanding of GenAI.
AIDED Focus Group and Reflective workshops - T217 design students instructed Copilot to render an existing design idea and design problem.

Key pedagogical questions:

Do design students have full creative agency over their own ideas when GenAI tools form part of their process for assessment?
Is AI-generated visual communication better or equal to content produced from traditional methods such as sketching or prototyping?

Objectives:

To show the usefulness of generative image-based AI tools in design thinking and visual communication.
To address ethical and intellectual property concerns through transparent practices.
To support student inclusion in design study and promote confidence in critical thinking and reflective practice.
To future-proof employability skills by aligning educational practices with wider industry changes in practice.

Key Findings:

In practical terms:

Students were able to instruct Copilot to effectively visualise a sense of something, especially context.
Students struggled to persuade Copilot to generate exact representations based on specific prompts.

In scholarship terms:

GenAI provides a potential starting point for inspiration to build from using other conventional design tools.
GenAI is useful for final visual perspective and/or contextual presentation of ideas.

GenAI has potential as creative brainstorming partner to quickly generate ideas for critical review. Co-ideation will be the next proposed research stage for the AIDED project.

Recommendations:

Embed GenAI tools into Design & Innovation (D&I) and STEM modules curricula to enhance employability and process thinking.
Develop and implement clear ethical guidelines and referencing practices for AI-generated visuals, including rationale and prompt documentation.
Build on innovative design module guidance (e.g. T190) to support responsible use of GenAI in assessments and visual work.
Promote ethical, accessible use of image-based GenAI for all students interested in design.
Use GenAI to boost visual communication capabilities across interdisciplinary cohorts, especially in STEM subjects where design skills may be less developed.

This project could not have reached the depth and insight it did without the close collaboration and partnership with our design students. We extend our sincere thanks to those students.