Beyond surface knowledge: An Exploration of How Empathic Design Techniques Enhances Engineers Understanding of Users’ Needs

This study explores the role of empathic design techniques on solvingdesign problems in a developing world context.In ourstudy, over 100 graduate students were asked to individually conceptualize and design an extremely affordable washingmachine to be used in developing countries. All participating students, many of whom had significant industry experience,were enrolled in a graduate-level product design course. This course is as much about design thinking and learning as it isabout design innovation, creativity and doing design. The design of an artifact is addressed from a multidisciplinaryperspective that includes determination through inspiration, ideation, and implementation using a design thinkingframework. Student submissions were categorized based on (1) design methods such as concept generation, productdefinition, prototyping and design verification, and (2) student demographic information. The application of the designmethods on the project influenced the further development of class-based exercises that infuse empathy into design. Thestudy presented here also provides a framework for engaging distance-learning students within hands-on empathic-designexercises. The results show that techniques such as interviews of focus groups and immersive practices help students tobetter understand user needs in developing world contexts, leading to more feasible design solutions. Visual thinking wasalso linked as an effective means to engage students in empathic design without the use of physical materials.