Nico Aci

Research

The first step in the research was to map out all the brainstorming techniques and to find suitable AI projects that could assist in the brainstorming process. Then, we looked for existing solutions to the problem and compared them in a competitor analysis. We managed to obtain a license for ChatGPT-3 (it wasn’t accessible to the public back then) and started to experiment with it.

First Prototype and AI User Test

Our next step was to create a first prototype for user testing. We selected the best ideas and made a first scetch.

We had the idea to test the prototype using the *Wizard of Oz method by using post-it notes. The user created a brainstorming prompt, and we pretended to be the AI and wrote down the ideas. The user could also add or expand on the ideas.

*Wizard of Oz method

The Wizard of Oz method is a testing technique where users think they’re interacting with an automated system, but a human is actually controlling it behind the scenes. This lets designers test how users interact with a prototype without having to build the full system yet.

Then we had the idea to redo the user test, and this time we would use the actual AI for the answers.

We compared all the answers from the AI with our simulated answers. The AI’s answers were very similar to ours. There were two clusters that the AI didn’t address, but it was still very impressive. The language of GPT-3 was very natural and, in one instance, very personal and confronting. This moment was our very first wow-effect with the AI.

Our WoW-Effect

We presented our progress to the class, and everyone was very impressed by the function of GPT-3. We had the idea that our classmates would send us brainstorming prompts for their projects, and we would use the AI to generate ideas.

This experiment was very successful, and we decided together with our teacher to take the project in a slightly different direction. Our plan was to make a functioning prototype with a website for our school semester exhibition, a visual Prototype and to document our Wow-Journey with the AI in the form of a Medium article.

Visual Prototype

In addition to our functional prototype, we created a visual prototype to show how a fully developed AI brainstorming application could look.

This is the start screen of the application. You can write your question in the middle with the pen tool.

You can also add some of your own ideas before you let the AI generation.

After that, you can start generating brainstorming ideas.

When you click on one of the AI-generated ideas, it will open up a tab with four options. The first option on the left allows you to write additional ideas to expand the brainstorming tree in that direction. The second option is for copying the idea. The third option is for expanding the idea, where the AI will generate more context and further develop it. The last option is for deleting the idea.

There is also the option to share your brainstorming project with other people. They can write their own ideas and further expand the brainstorming tree.