Abstract
Artificial intelligence is bringing comprehensive impacts to the approaches, methods, and efficiency of creation. As a result, designers are being driven to tackle more untried tasks, rather than engaging in work they have long been proficient in. This study organised a co-design experiment involving novice designers and Textual GenAI to investigate the influence of prior experience and AI literacy on collaborative design outcomes. We conducted a detailed coding of collaborative activities in the design process. This uncovered the activity characteristics, shifts, and collaboration patterns in the co-creation process. These findings deepen the understanding of the Human-AI collaborative design process and the impacts brought about by prior experience and AI literacy. They also provide valuable insights for formulating adjustment measures when different types of designers collaborate with AI.
Keywords
prior experience, AI literacy, Human-AI co-creation, collaborative activity
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1282
Citation
Song, Y., Hu, Y., Zhou, Z., Bai, Y., Du, X., Liang, Z., Shi, Y., and Deng, W. (2026) Understanding designers’ activities and cognition in co-creation with textual GenAI: Do prior experience and AI literacy matter?, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1282
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Understanding designers’ activities and cognition in co-creation with textual GenAI: Do prior experience and AI literacy matter?
Artificial intelligence is bringing comprehensive impacts to the approaches, methods, and efficiency of creation. As a result, designers are being driven to tackle more untried tasks, rather than engaging in work they have long been proficient in. This study organised a co-design experiment involving novice designers and Textual GenAI to investigate the influence of prior experience and AI literacy on collaborative design outcomes. We conducted a detailed coding of collaborative activities in the design process. This uncovered the activity characteristics, shifts, and collaboration patterns in the co-creation process. These findings deepen the understanding of the Human-AI collaborative design process and the impacts brought about by prior experience and AI literacy. They also provide valuable insights for formulating adjustment measures when different types of designers collaborate with AI.