2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Generative design (GD) is an artificial intelligence (AI) based design method that uses generative systems and algorithms to automatically create design artifacts by considering objectives, parameter ranges, and constraints defined by human designers. The role of the human designer in the GD process is to translate the design problem so that an AI agent may understand and explore potential solutions in a design space with defined constraints and parameter interactions. The human designer will then evaluate AI-generated designs along the Pareto front and the objective space influencing design synthesis. Therefore, generative designers engage in inverse thinking from the objective space to the design space. However, in traditional design (TD) and parametric design (PD), the human designer is responsible for design space exploration, often via cognitive idea generation and also the evaluation of the human-generated designs, which is a typical forward-thinking direction from design space to objective space. Consequently, the role of designers in the GD process fundamentally differs from the TD and PD processes and thus requires the designer to engage in a different type of design thinking, i.e., the cognitive processes activated during design. Yet, little research has been conducted to outline the cognitive processes activated during GD.

Our goal is to define GDT as the most recent evolution of engineering design thinking by systematically reviewing the concepts central to the proposed Evolving Design Thinking (EDT) model. The EDT model is a meta-representation of the evolution of design thinking from traditional design thinking (TDT) to parametric design thinking (PDT) and to Generative design thinking (GDT) across three levels: design thinking, design technologies, and design cognition. The EDT model guides our review and motivates two research questions (RQs). RQ1: What cognitive processes are activated by designers using traditional/parametric design? To answer RQ1, we review the technologies and cognitive processes activated during traditional and parametric design (i.e., TDT and PDT) and highlight how technologies shape design cognition. RQ2: What cognitive processes are activated by designers using generative design? To answer RQ2, we systematically review the technologies available to generative designers and consider the influence of technology on cognition shown through RQ1. Finally, a definition of GDT will be synthesized by considering the evolution from traditional to parametric to generative design and by considering the cognitive processes of TDT and PDT.

A definition of GDT that highlights the GD-relevant cognitive processes is expected to generate significant impacts on design education and research. For example, the research outcomes can potentially improve future generative designers’ education, as current GD curricula have been developed without insights into how generative designers think. The systematic review will also allow future research to leverage our insights and apply neurocognitive methods to further explore GDT, for example, by conducting experimental research to verify that the identified cognitive processes are carried out by generative designers, by devising methods for facilitating these cognitive processes and developing psychometric tests to measure GDT efficacy.