Artly: Exploring Digital Artists' Perceptions of AI-Generated Feedback
2026-08-17 • Human-Computer Interaction
Human-Computer Interaction
AI summaryⓘ
The authors developed Artly, an AI tool designed to help artists improve by giving personalized feedback and learning materials, rather than just generating images quickly. In a study, artists using the system with image variation features felt more creative but interacted less with the feedback compared to those without image generation. Most artists found Artly helpful for learning, except the most skilled ones. The findings suggest that combining AI feedback with human-created resources can support artistic growth effectively.
generative AIimage generationAI feedbackartistic growthpersonalizationuser studyhuman-computer interactioncreative toolslearning resourcesart technology
Authors
Ulvi Rajabli, Alexander Wiethoff, Zelun Tony Zhang
Abstract
Recent developments in generative AI have lowered barriers to image generation, but existing tools mostly optimize for efficiency, producing generic results and offering little support for artistic growth. We present Artly, an AI system that combines personalizable AI feedback with human-authored learning resources. In a between-subjects study with artists, we compared a mode without image generation features against one that allowed to generate variations of users' illustrations. Artly was perceived as helpful for learning and self-improvement, with the exception of the most proficient participants. Participants who used the image generation feature interacted slightly less with the AI feedback. They reported feeling more creative after using Artly than participants using the restricted mode, while reporting slightly lower scores on new ideas for their work. Overall, our findings underline the potential of our feedback approach for supporting artistic growth in a manner that is well received by artists.