The material landscape affects people’s work productivity, feelings of well being, and their sense of social connectedness. Effective, well-designed products should empower people, satisfying both functional and emotional needs of individuals.
Preparing future designers to consider the wider community of people unlike themselves, educators must equip students with appropriate skillsets to respond to dynamic and evolving experiences of users engaging with their material landscape.
This work details an ongoing course that collaboratively engages user-experts (students with disabilities) and design students in the designing process. A range of immersive empathic research strategies incorporating the practices of shared language, ethnography, and empathy push them outside their comfort zones to encourage reflection on and sensitivity to the authentic needs of real people. User-experts (laypeople outside of design having specific experiences inherent to, e.g., age or disability) offer a rich resource relative to their insights, expectations, and aspirations that are otherwise often overlooked.
This course resulted in experiential learning for both design educators and design students, shifting student attention onto process, thinking, and practice rather than physical skill development. This paper provides insights into how empathic research strategies in design enhance and support more human-centered design education, processes and products.
8th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices
Preparing future designers to consider the wider community of people unlike themselves, educators must equip students with appropriate skillsets to respond to dynamic and evolving experiences of users engaging with their material landscape.
This work details an ongoing course that collaboratively engages user-experts (students with disabilities) and design students in the designing process. A range of immersive empathic research strategies incorporating the practices of shared language, ethnography, and empathy push them outside their comfort zones to encourage reflection on and sensitivity to the authentic needs of real people. User-experts (laypeople outside of design having specific experiences inherent to, e.g., age or disability) offer a rich resource relative to their insights, expectations, and aspirations that are otherwise often overlooked.
This course resulted in experiential learning for both design educators and design students, shifting student attention onto process, thinking, and practice rather than physical skill development. This paper provides insights into how empathic research strategies in design enhance and support more human-centered design education, processes and products.
8th International Conference on Design Principles and Practices
