Zhiping Xiao
Form: Chat

The rapid growth of Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized a lot of fields, including design. Designers need to have good communication skills to convey their ideas, concepts and visions to stakeholders and clients. However, articulating design intentions and processes can be challenging and complex. It might require nuanced understandings of visual language, various contexts, audiences, and so on.

At the end of last year, the launch of ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by OpenAI, brought a huge wave of public attention to AI systems. People from different fields started to discuss how might this tool impact them and their fields. One emerging avenue is the concept of using AI to aid self-coaching or self-learning, which refers to the independent development of skills and knowledge with the support of AI technology. With the help of AI-powered tools, designers might gain opportunities to enhance their communication abilities and streamline their articulation process, leading to more effective and efficient outcomes.

In this research project, I aim to investigate the impact of AI-aided self-coaching on designers’ articulation process for communication tasks. Specifically, I seek to understand what the workflow looks like with the presence of the AI chatbot, in this case ChatGPT, and emerging articulation strategies are there with the aid of AI tools. By identifying the communication needs, difficulties and existing methods employed by designers, I attempt to explore the potentially transformative power of AI in the design industry.

To accomplish this, I am using a combination of autoethnography and ethnography methodologies. Autoethnography involves myself being active as a participant, performing self-reflection and crystallisation methods. Ethnography includes collecting data from participants with the interview method. Through these qualitative research methods, the study captures the subjective experiences of designers with patterns related to cognitive load, communication breakdown patterns and the overall impact of AI-aided self-coaching on the articulation process.

By investigating the intersection of AI and design communication, this research aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the transformative role of AI in creative industries. The findings of this study will provide insights that might benefit designers. The finding might also offer understandings of the emerging culture to contribute to the study of AI’s impacts.