The pen or the prompt : investigating novice design students' use of sketching and generative AI for initial concept visualisations

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Holliman, Freddie and MacFie, Rebecca and Gunn, Kieran and Brisco, Ross; (2026) The pen or the prompt : investigating novice design students' use of sketching and generative AI for initial concept visualisations. In: DRS2026: Edinburgh. Design Research Society. (https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1328)

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Abstract

The pervasive use of AI in design continues to increase, affecting most, if not all, facets of design practice. This is reflected in the expectations and practices of design students, even at an early stage in their education. The integration of digital tools in sketching is nothing new, but the use of AI tools may see the outright replacement of this well-established skill. This study considers the experiences and perspectives of novice design students, examining their use of AI tools and whether GenAI could replace sketching for creating images of initial concepts, assessing both against the novice designers’ intentions using a vividness of visual imagery scale. Along with examining links between designers’ own vividness of visual imagery in comparison to their education, assessing each method’s ease of use and designers’ preferences, this study uncovers various themes in novice designers’ perceptions of each method.

ORCID iDs

Holliman, Freddie ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9511-8121, MacFie, Rebecca, Gunn, Kieran and Brisco, Ross ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8216-9218;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)