NOVICE ENGINEERS’ PREDISPOSITION TO COMPASSIONATE DESIGN

DS 80-11 Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) Vol 11:Human Behaviour in Design, Design Education; Milan, Italy, 27-30.07.15

Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco Cantamessa, Dorian Marjanovic, Monica Bordegoni
Author: Seshadri, Priya; Reid, Tahira
Series: ICED
Institution: Purdue University, United States of America
Section: Human Behaviour in Design, Design Education
Page(s): 143-152
ISBN: 978-1-904670-74-2
ISSN: 2220-4334

Abstract

The objective of this research paper is to study the ways in which engineering students naturally apply elements of compassionate design thinking to design tasks. We hypothesize that engineers will engage in compassionate design ways of thinking only when explicit information is provided and/or if they have had prior experience with the design context. The goal here was to understand whether or not engineers are able to intuit the need for compassionate design thinking and if their experience guides their approach. A mixed methods approach was used to study novice engineers in design contexts that warrant the need for compassionate design thinking. A ‘Think Aloud protocol’ was used and a coding scheme was developed to analyze the documented video/audio recordings. The results show that participants with experience invest more thought in framing the problem as compared to those without experience. Observations showed that factors like ‘dignity’ were less discussed and need more probes to be included in the design process. These results will provide information that will lead to the development of a tool, such as Design for Compassion or DfC for compassionate design thinking.

Keywords: Design For X (DfX), Design Cognition, Design Methodology, Compassion, Novice

Download

Please sign in to your account

This site uses cookies and other tracking technologies to assist with navigation and your ability to provide feedback, analyse your use of our products and services, assist with our promotional and marketing efforts, and provide content from third parties. Privacy Policy.