Rethinking Design Education in an AI-Enabled Era: A Collaborative Autoethnographic Approach

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming Industrial Product Design practice, challenging educators to reconsider how design processes are taught and how future designers will work with emerging technologies. This paper presents an ongoing collaborative autoethnographic study undertaken by Industrial Design academics at Swinburne University of Technology to examine how AI is influencing the teaching of core design processes; from discovery and ideation to prototyping, development, and delivery. Through a structured reflection framework, participants analyse their own teaching practices to identify opportunities, risks, and pedagogical priorities related to AI integration. Individual reflections are shared and collectively interpreted using Collaborative Autoethnography, enabling educators to co-construct insight through lived experience rather than detached analysis. Reflexive Thematic Analysis guides the development of themes, while constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology offer an interpretive lens for understanding educators’ attitudes toward AI adoption. Rather than treating AI as a technical skill to be added to existing curricula, the study frames AI integration as a necessary shift in preparing students to become designers who can work critically, ethically, and efficiently with AI tools. The findings reveal how AI introduces new forms of diversity in design practice; expanding how designers explore problems, test ideas, and collaborate with non-human agents. The paper contributes a framework for reflective curriculum development and offers insight into how Industrial Design education can evolve to ensure that graduates are equipped not only to use AI, but to engage with it responsibly as part of the future design process.

keywords: artificial intelligence; industrial design; design education; collaborative autoethnography

• with: Yasemin Tekmen Araci (lead), Charlie Ranscombe, and Wendy Zhang
• year: December 2025 — ongoing