01 / INTERFACE
UI
How do people interact with systems?
Controls, actions, feedback and accessibility.
AN ONGOING RESEARCH EXPLORATION · INDUSTRIAL DESIGN · AI
PhygitAi
Beyond Phygital.
Designing with Intelligence.
Designing for Intelligence.
What happens when AI contributes to a design decision or acts through a product? PhygitAi examines human intention, judgment, permission, disagreement and responsibility across design research, development and use.
PhysicalDigitalAIHuman-centred
THREE CONNECTED QUESTIONS
Interface. Experience. Participation & negotiation.
BUILDING ON THE PAST. DESIGNING BEYOND.
02 / EXPERIENCE
UX
How do people experience systems?
Needs, effectiveness, meaning, trust and satisfaction.
03 / PARTICIPATION & NEGOTIATION
UAiPN
How do people participate critically with AI and negotiate its contributions?
Questioning, disagreement, evidence, human judgment and justified decisions.
UI and UX remain essential, established and overlapping practices. UAiPN is a proposed educational framework within the broader PhygitAi research initiative; it examines critical participation and negotiation with AI, without replacing UI or UX.
Explore the distinctionsEDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT · BOOK III
UAiPN User–AI Participation & Negotiation
A proposed educational framework now being developed within PhygitAi. It examines how learners can question AI contributions, negotiate alternatives, justify decisions and preserve independent judgment.
UAiPN is distinct from PhygitAi's wider methodology. Its teaching procedure and comparative effectiveness remain under investigation; it is not yet a released toolkit mode.
Explore UAiPN's developmentPLATFORMS
Use PhygitAi Across Platforms
Explore PhygitAi through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, with platform-specific access information, installation instructions, and available package downloads.
Explore all platformsOUR RESEARCH FOCUS
Human–AI Collaboration in Design
A connected inquiry into human intentions, AI contributions, authorized action, and responsibility across design research, design processes, and product function and use.
Industrial Design
Exploring how artificial intelligence contributes to design exploration, development processes, and outcomes.
Physical–Digital Experiences
Examining relationships between physical products, digital systems, and adaptive intelligence.
Human-Centred Approach
Keeping human judgment, decision authority, and accountability central to the design process.
Responsible AI Use
Examining AI contributions, evidence, limitations, and opportunities for accountable revision.
01 / Research orientation
Two interconnected
directions.
Two connected research directions that operate across research, design development, and the subsequent use of intelligent systems.
Designing with
Intelligence.
Examining AI contributions to design research, exploration, critique, creative judgment, and decisions.
Designing for
Intelligence.
Examining how designed systems recognize conditions, act within permissions, and remain open to human intervention and revision.
02 / Research focus
Questions shaping
the inquiry.
Four interrelated themes introduce the research territory without presenting its unpublished framework.
AI in design processes
Exploring AI's role in ideation, design exploration, and creative decision-making.
Adaptive products
Considering intelligent behaviours in physical-digital products and experiences.
Human authority
Keeping human intention, agency, and meaningful oversight central to design.
Accountability & revision
Examining how design decisions and outcomes can be assessed and revised.
At the centre of the inquiry: human intention, creative judgment, authority, and accountability.
03 / About the initiative
An evolving
research inquiry.
PhygitAi is an ongoing interdisciplinary design research initiative that has developed a proposed methodology for investigating human–AI participation in design. Its conceptual framework, procedures and operational instruments are part of that proposal; their practical effectiveness, educational applicability and methodological contributions remain to be examined through planned academic teaching, interdisciplinary applications and empirical research.
Development and evaluation statusThe proposal connects design research, creative processes and intelligent product function and use. It remains revisable, and its effectiveness has not yet been established through systematic empirical testing.
Initiated by Abbas Sibai.
04 / The purpose behind the name
Why
PhygitAi?
An inquiry that extends beyond AI integration toward relationships among design knowledge, intelligent action, and accountable revision.
PhygitAi
PhygitAi builds on physical–digital design and artificial intelligence. Beyond describing their integration, it asks how design decisions authorize later intelligent action, and how events in use may challenge earlier intentions.
Physical×Digital×AI
When AI influences a design,
who remains responsible?
AI can contribute to design judgments and may later interpret situations or act within a product, service, or environment. PhygitAi examines who authorized those possibilities, what users can practically contest, and how responsibility is reconsidered after unexpected events.
Its goal is not to replace the designer's judgment, but to make human–AI collaboration more visible, examinable, and accountable.
Start with human purpose.
Make design objectives, assumptions, user needs, and constraints explicit.
Keep people responsible.
Distinguish AI suggestions from human evaluation, authorization, and decisions.
Question what is known.
Separate reported activity, supplied records, missing evidence, and uncertainty.
Learn from behaviour.
Examine intended versus observed outcomes and support accountable revision.
General-purpose AI assistance
Ideas and explanations.
General-purpose AI and established design methods can support many parts of this inquiry. The PhygitAi vocabulary adds focused questions without claiming to replace those methods or outperform their tools.
PhygitAi preliminary screening
Structured design inquiry.
G0–G5, the seven-field Intention–Behavior Record (IBR), and six optional digital workflows help investigate specific design decisions. They are instruments being examined within the wider research initiative, not a claim of proven methodological improvement.
For education, research, and design practice. A shared vocabulary for research inquiry, classroom discussion, design development, and the examination of intelligent products, environments, and services after production.
Explore the six workflows ↗PhygitAi is an ongoing research initiative. Its frameworks and tools build upon established practice; their distinctiveness, effectiveness, limitations and practical value are research questions. See the purpose-and-function comparison. No certification, independently verified results or methodological superiority is claimed.
EXPLORE · LEARN · PRACTICE · CREATE
Meet Luna.
Meet Luna.
Stay curious.
A colourful learning space for exploring design, AI, and the physical world, with explanations and activities for every age and learning level.
Learn with Luna
06 / Researcher & academic contact
Researcher &
academic contact.
For academic correspondence, research conversations, and inquiries relating to PhygitAi.
Initiated by
Abbas Sibai, Ph.D.
Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA)
University of Balamand
Academic inquiries
abbas.sibai@alba.edu.lb
PhygitAi is an independent, ongoing research initiative. The academic affiliation identifies the researcher and does not imply institutional endorsement.
The inquiry continues
What comes
after phygital?
Abbas Sibai, Ph.D.Researcher & DesignerPhygitAi · Beyond Phygital