Co-creative Product Design with Interactive Evolutionary Algorithms: A Practice-Based Reflection

Progress in AI has brought about new approaches for designing products via co-creative human–computer interaction. In architecture, interior design, and industrial design, computational methods such as evolutionary algorithms support the designer’s creative process by revealing populations of generated design solutions in a parametric design space. However, the benefits and shortcomings of such algorithms for designers are not yet fully understood. This paper reports the in-depth, in-situ and longitudinal experiences of one industrial designer using an interactive evolutionary algorithm in a non-trivial creative product design task. Our study sheds light on the intricate interaction between algorithm, human designer and their environment. It identifies, amongst others, the algorithm’s contributions to design inspiration and to overcoming fixation. We contribute concrete proposals for the future study of co-creative AI in design exploration and creative practice.