AI-based design tools are proliferating in professional software to assist engineering and industrial designers in complex manufacturing and design tasks. These tools take on more agentic roles than traditional computer-aided design tools and are often portrayed as "co-creators." Yet, working effectively with such systems requires different skills than working with complex CAD tools alone. To date, we know little about how engineering designers learn to work with AI-based design tools. In this study, we observed trained designers as they learned to work with two AI-based tools on a realistic design task. We find that designers face many challenges in learning to effectively co-create with current systems, including challenges in understanding and adjusting AI outputs and in communicating their design goals. Based on our findings, we highlight several design opportunities to better support designer-AI co-creation.

翻译：基于AI的设计工具正广泛应用于专业软件中，以辅助工程和工业设计师完成复杂的制造与设计任务。这些工具比传统计算机辅助设计工具具有更强的自主性，常被描述为"协作者"。然而，与这类系统高效协作所需的技能，与单纯使用复杂CAD工具截然不同。迄今为止，我们对工程设计设计师如何学习使用基于AI的设计工具知之甚少。本研究观察了经过训练的设计师使用两款AI工具完成真实设计任务的学习过程。研究发现，设计师在学习与现有系统有效协同创作时面临诸多挑战，包括理解与调整AI输出、传达自身设计目标等方面存在困难。基于研究结果，我们提出了若干设计机遇，以更好地支持设计师与AI的协同创作。