Abstract
In design practice and education, emerging representations and tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are challenging the dominance of sketches as the primary creative medium. However, the role of these new representations in design disciplines and education remains ambiguous. To address this ambiguity, this paper proposes a "creative process as conversation" framework to understand representations and tools within the creative process. This framework decouples representational mediums from creative acts driven by subjective intent and knowledge source, revealing the cognitive functions of representations in ideation.. The conversational perspective clarifies AI's advantages: generating inspiring representations, accessing expansive knowledge resources, and integrating different subjectivity. By bridging traditional and new representations, this paper provides a framework to support positioning and ultilizing AI in design education.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.046
Citation
Ren, L.,and Deng, Z.(2025) Positioning Roles of AI Representations in Creative Conversation, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.046
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Full Paper
Positioning Roles of AI Representations in Creative Conversation
In design practice and education, emerging representations and tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are challenging the dominance of sketches as the primary creative medium. However, the role of these new representations in design disciplines and education remains ambiguous. To address this ambiguity, this paper proposes a "creative process as conversation" framework to understand representations and tools within the creative process. This framework decouples representational mediums from creative acts driven by subjective intent and knowledge source, revealing the cognitive functions of representations in ideation.. The conversational perspective clarifies AI's advantages: generating inspiring representations, accessing expansive knowledge resources, and integrating different subjectivity. By bridging traditional and new representations, this paper provides a framework to support positioning and ultilizing AI in design education.