Mitigating Barriers in Novice Designers’ Prototyping with AI: A Comprehensive Approach

Prototyping plays a crucial role in design thinking, yet many novice designers fail to adopt it due to insufficient value recognition, limited technical skills, and psychological barriers. This study proposes a new approach by integrating a generative AI-based chat system to simultaneously address these three obstacles. In a two-month exploration with four participants focusing on circular economy themes, we developed two interactive tools—"Jibungoto Design Navigator" and "Try-It-Out Navigator." Our findings indicate that AI-driven dialogues help clarify project goals, boost self-efficacy, and reduce the fear of failure through rapid prototyping support. The participants created both low- and high-fidelity prototypes with fewer hurdles. These results suggest that incorporating generative AI can empower novice designers, promoting more frequent and confident prototyping endeavors while broadening access to design innovation.