Tsai Lu Liu | North Carolina State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Tsai Lu Liu
Design principles & practices, 2010
User-centered design research, emerging as a focus of industrial design education, enables studen... more User-centered design research, emerging as a focus of industrial design education, enables students to explore knowledge domains beyond their own experience to create more user-friendly product concepts. Methods that interact with the users, such as observation, interviews, ...
DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, 2016
Empathic design is a process in which the designer attempts to assess the needs or problems of us... more Empathic design is a process in which the designer attempts to assess the needs or problems of users by examining them from the user's perspective. Observation establishes the knowledge foundation of empathic design. Videography, a widely adopted observation tool, is used in empathic design because it can capture subtle, fleeting body language that may convey large amounts of information that may be stored for future review and analysis. Third-person point of view videography (POVV) has been the primary method used by designers to perform video observation in empathic design. It captures the activities of users from a third person perspective with a video camera. Although third-person POVV is able to capture details of the user's activities, it does not provide designers with the user's own visual perspective. Some of the user's perspectives, such as line-of-sight and shift-of-view, are not precisely documented in third-person camera angles. First-person POVV through...
DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, 2016
Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing d... more Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing designers? As designers, we know almost intuitively that design education is 'good education', and most designers would affirm that it would be beneficial to expose children to design education, because of the benefits of the signature pedagogies of design, such as problem-based learning, human centred creativity and iterations of prototyping and testing. This paper seeks to review and synthesize existing literature and make preliminary analyses, which will support the development of design thinking education interventions at primary school level, which could lead to a paradigm shift in education at this level. While it has been widely demonstrated that design education can play a successful role in supporting traditional education models in the delivery of skills such as math and language arts, this paper seeks to demonstrate that in addition to meeting traditional education demands, design thinking principles in children's education, such as empathy, collaboration and facilitation, human-centeredness, and creativity by iterations of prototyping and testing, will provide a sound base for children not only seeking to enter a design profession in the future but moving into any profession in the future and will lead to higher engagement at school and greater success in life.
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019
This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking... more This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking strategies to primary school students in rural Trinidad and Tobago. By encouraging interactive discussions between students and instructors, the overarching objective was achieved. In order to build students’ critical awareness, agency and empowerment, during three weeks in a summer camp, the students and instructors engaged actively, in repeated dialogues concerning student rights, media bias, change, and utopian ideas for a better future. As the process unfolded, the students took more control of their learning. They identified and suggested solutions for community problems. The case study demonstrated that student-centred strategies which foster critical awareness and development of social consciousness, can be successfully implemented in schools with limited resources.
The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society: Annual Review, 2008
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2008
A growing number of universities are utilizing Design Thinking (DT) to help students develop the ... more A growing number of universities are utilizing Design Thinking (DT) to help students develop the problem finding, problem framing, and problem solving skills necessary to address today's complex real-world challenges. As an iterative, human-centered approach to problem solving, DT synthesizes what is desirable, equitable, technologically feasible, and sustainable. This data includes survey responses from 19 faculty and 196 students from 23 DT courses at four universities. <br><br><br><br><br>
Statistics show that children often feel fear around dentists even though visits to the dentist a... more Statistics show that children often feel fear around dentists even though visits to the dentist are a necessary practice. The fear not only provokes great emotional anxiety, but also inhibits the dentists' ability to do their job. According to interviews conducted in this study, one of the main factors contributing to the anxiety is the design of dental equipment, especially the handpiece (dental drill). This paper presents the research and development process of redesigning a pediatric dental drill. The process examined not only the needs of pediatric dentists, but also the emotional effects the design had on children. Children's emotional responses were studied by administering two different surveys. Many interesting insights were discovered, particularly from the children's surveys, and incorporated into the redesign of a new pediatric dental drill. This study demonstrated a new approach to researching children's emotional response to medical equipment and redesig...
Children spend most of their time playing when they are not asleep or at school (Hofferth and San... more Children spend most of their time playing when they are not asleep or at school (Hofferth and Sandberg, 2001). Play is the main business of childhood (Singer and Singer, 1977). It contributes to the cognitive, motor, and social development of children, including the development of perception, attention, memory, problem-solving skills, language, communication, creativity, logical operations, emotion regulation, self regulation, social skills, gender roles, social relationships, conflict resolution, coping with stress, and so on (Power, 2000). Musselwhite (1986) even described play as a childhood occupation. When dealing with play concepts, a higher level of play themes can more effectively activate intrinsic activity, invite spontaneous and voluntary participation, and create an element of enjoyment, the themes of play according to Brofenbrenner (1979). The use of higher level of play themes in design can also better meet the criteria of play defined by Piaget (1962) to include inter...
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2010
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2011
Stagnancy Issues and Change Initiatives for Global Education in the Digital Age
In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago... more In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week vacation camp with a curriculum based on design thinking. Design problems drawn from the lives of the children were used to stimulate deep thinking and engagement. The focus of the design problems allowed students to practice and build a variety of thinking abilities. They practiced both lateral thinking and vertical thinking at different parts of the design challenges. They applied critical thinking abilities of inquiry, analysis, inference, and argument. The students also practiced metacognition as they reflected on their design choices and decisions, and thought of strategies to be successful throughout the three weeks of the study. These results suggest that design-based education can play a role in developing critical thinking skills in an engaging way, even in an under-resourced context at elementary level.
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019
This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking... more This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking strategies to primary school students in rural Trinidad and Tobago.By encouraging interactive discussions between students and instructors, the overarching objective was achieved. In order to build students’ critical awareness, agency and empowerment, during three weeks in a summer camp, the students and instructors engaged actively, in repeated dialogues concerning student rights, media bias, change, and utopian ideas for a better future. As the process unfolded, the students took more control of their learning. They identified and suggested solutions for community problems. The case study demonstrated that student-centred strategies which foster critical awareness and development of social consciousness, can be successfully implemented in schools with limited resources.
Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing d... more Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing designers? As designers, we know almost intuitively that design education is 'good education', and most designers would affirm that it would be beneficial to expose children to design education, because of the benefits of the signature pedagogies of design, such as problem-based learning, human centred creativity and iterations of prototyping and testing. This paper seeks to review and synthesize existing literature and make preliminary analyses, which will support the development of design thinking education interventions at primary school level, which could lead to a paradigm shift in education at this level. While it has been widely demonstrated that design education can play a successful role in supporting traditional education models in the delivery of skills such as math and language arts, this paper seeks to demonstrate that in addition to meeting traditional education demands, design thinking principles in children's education, such as empathy, collaboration and facilitation, human-centeredness, and creativity by iterations of prototyping and testing, will provide a sound base for children not only seeking to enter a design profession in the future but moving into any profession in the future and will lead to higher engagement at school and greater success in life.
Conference Presentations by Tsai Lu Liu
International Research & Education in Design Conference 2019 — REDES2019 14 & 15 November 2019, Lisbon School of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Children from a fourth-grade class at a primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a t... more Children from a fourth-grade class at a primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week summer camp with a design thinking-based curriculum. The study aimed to examine how children developed and practiced empathy during the design class. Qualitative data were collected from the children and the instructors, providing thick descriptions of the children's experiences during the camp. As anticipated, the findings showed that the children practiced empathy at several stages during the design process, where they had to learn to take the perspective of the target user of their designs. However, the less anticipated result was that the findings also demonstrated that the children had more opportunities to practice empathy during groupwork and critiques, where they empathized with the angst of their colleagues. These findings demonstrate how design education can be used to enhance the social development of children by providing varied opportunities for them to empathize with others.
Books by Tsai Lu Liu
Stagnancy Issues and Change Initiatives for Global Education in the Digital Age, 2021
In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago... more In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week vacation camp with a curriculum based on design thinking. Design problems drawn from the lives of the children were used to stimulate deep thinking and engagement. The focus of the design problems allowed students to practice and build a variety of thinking abilities. They practiced both lateral thinking and vertical thinking at different parts of the design challenges. They applied critical thinking abilities of inquiry, analysis, inference, and argument. The students also practiced metacognition as they reflected on their design choices and decisions, and thought of strategies to be successful throughout the three weeks of the study. These results suggest that design-based education can play a role in developing critical thinking skills in an engaging way, even in an under-resourced context at elementary level.
Design principles & practices, 2010
User-centered design research, emerging as a focus of industrial design education, enables studen... more User-centered design research, emerging as a focus of industrial design education, enables students to explore knowledge domains beyond their own experience to create more user-friendly product concepts. Methods that interact with the users, such as observation, interviews, ...
DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, 2016
Empathic design is a process in which the designer attempts to assess the needs or problems of us... more Empathic design is a process in which the designer attempts to assess the needs or problems of users by examining them from the user's perspective. Observation establishes the knowledge foundation of empathic design. Videography, a widely adopted observation tool, is used in empathic design because it can capture subtle, fleeting body language that may convey large amounts of information that may be stored for future review and analysis. Third-person point of view videography (POVV) has been the primary method used by designers to perform video observation in empathic design. It captures the activities of users from a third person perspective with a video camera. Although third-person POVV is able to capture details of the user's activities, it does not provide designers with the user's own visual perspective. Some of the user's perspectives, such as line-of-sight and shift-of-view, are not precisely documented in third-person camera angles. First-person POVV through...
DRS2016: Future-Focused Thinking, 2016
Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing d... more Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing designers? As designers, we know almost intuitively that design education is 'good education', and most designers would affirm that it would be beneficial to expose children to design education, because of the benefits of the signature pedagogies of design, such as problem-based learning, human centred creativity and iterations of prototyping and testing. This paper seeks to review and synthesize existing literature and make preliminary analyses, which will support the development of design thinking education interventions at primary school level, which could lead to a paradigm shift in education at this level. While it has been widely demonstrated that design education can play a successful role in supporting traditional education models in the delivery of skills such as math and language arts, this paper seeks to demonstrate that in addition to meeting traditional education demands, design thinking principles in children's education, such as empathy, collaboration and facilitation, human-centeredness, and creativity by iterations of prototyping and testing, will provide a sound base for children not only seeking to enter a design profession in the future but moving into any profession in the future and will lead to higher engagement at school and greater success in life.
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019
This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking... more This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking strategies to primary school students in rural Trinidad and Tobago. By encouraging interactive discussions between students and instructors, the overarching objective was achieved. In order to build students’ critical awareness, agency and empowerment, during three weeks in a summer camp, the students and instructors engaged actively, in repeated dialogues concerning student rights, media bias, change, and utopian ideas for a better future. As the process unfolded, the students took more control of their learning. They identified and suggested solutions for community problems. The case study demonstrated that student-centred strategies which foster critical awareness and development of social consciousness, can be successfully implemented in schools with limited resources.
The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society: Annual Review, 2008
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2008
A growing number of universities are utilizing Design Thinking (DT) to help students develop the ... more A growing number of universities are utilizing Design Thinking (DT) to help students develop the problem finding, problem framing, and problem solving skills necessary to address today's complex real-world challenges. As an iterative, human-centered approach to problem solving, DT synthesizes what is desirable, equitable, technologically feasible, and sustainable. This data includes survey responses from 19 faculty and 196 students from 23 DT courses at four universities. <br><br><br><br><br>
Statistics show that children often feel fear around dentists even though visits to the dentist a... more Statistics show that children often feel fear around dentists even though visits to the dentist are a necessary practice. The fear not only provokes great emotional anxiety, but also inhibits the dentists' ability to do their job. According to interviews conducted in this study, one of the main factors contributing to the anxiety is the design of dental equipment, especially the handpiece (dental drill). This paper presents the research and development process of redesigning a pediatric dental drill. The process examined not only the needs of pediatric dentists, but also the emotional effects the design had on children. Children's emotional responses were studied by administering two different surveys. Many interesting insights were discovered, particularly from the children's surveys, and incorporated into the redesign of a new pediatric dental drill. This study demonstrated a new approach to researching children's emotional response to medical equipment and redesig...
Children spend most of their time playing when they are not asleep or at school (Hofferth and San... more Children spend most of their time playing when they are not asleep or at school (Hofferth and Sandberg, 2001). Play is the main business of childhood (Singer and Singer, 1977). It contributes to the cognitive, motor, and social development of children, including the development of perception, attention, memory, problem-solving skills, language, communication, creativity, logical operations, emotion regulation, self regulation, social skills, gender roles, social relationships, conflict resolution, coping with stress, and so on (Power, 2000). Musselwhite (1986) even described play as a childhood occupation. When dealing with play concepts, a higher level of play themes can more effectively activate intrinsic activity, invite spontaneous and voluntary participation, and create an element of enjoyment, the themes of play according to Brofenbrenner (1979). The use of higher level of play themes in design can also better meet the criteria of play defined by Piaget (1962) to include inter...
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2010
Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 2011
Stagnancy Issues and Change Initiatives for Global Education in the Digital Age
In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago... more In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week vacation camp with a curriculum based on design thinking. Design problems drawn from the lives of the children were used to stimulate deep thinking and engagement. The focus of the design problems allowed students to practice and build a variety of thinking abilities. They practiced both lateral thinking and vertical thinking at different parts of the design challenges. They applied critical thinking abilities of inquiry, analysis, inference, and argument. The students also practiced metacognition as they reflected on their design choices and decisions, and thought of strategies to be successful throughout the three weeks of the study. These results suggest that design-based education can play a role in developing critical thinking skills in an engaging way, even in an under-resourced context at elementary level.
Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019
This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking... more This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking strategies to primary school students in rural Trinidad and Tobago.By encouraging interactive discussions between students and instructors, the overarching objective was achieved. In order to build students’ critical awareness, agency and empowerment, during three weeks in a summer camp, the students and instructors engaged actively, in repeated dialogues concerning student rights, media bias, change, and utopian ideas for a better future. As the process unfolded, the students took more control of their learning. They identified and suggested solutions for community problems. The case study demonstrated that student-centred strategies which foster critical awareness and development of social consciousness, can be successfully implemented in schools with limited resources.
Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing d... more Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing designers? As designers, we know almost intuitively that design education is 'good education', and most designers would affirm that it would be beneficial to expose children to design education, because of the benefits of the signature pedagogies of design, such as problem-based learning, human centred creativity and iterations of prototyping and testing. This paper seeks to review and synthesize existing literature and make preliminary analyses, which will support the development of design thinking education interventions at primary school level, which could lead to a paradigm shift in education at this level. While it has been widely demonstrated that design education can play a successful role in supporting traditional education models in the delivery of skills such as math and language arts, this paper seeks to demonstrate that in addition to meeting traditional education demands, design thinking principles in children's education, such as empathy, collaboration and facilitation, human-centeredness, and creativity by iterations of prototyping and testing, will provide a sound base for children not only seeking to enter a design profession in the future but moving into any profession in the future and will lead to higher engagement at school and greater success in life.
International Research & Education in Design Conference 2019 — REDES2019 14 & 15 November 2019, Lisbon School of Architecture of the University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Children from a fourth-grade class at a primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a t... more Children from a fourth-grade class at a primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week summer camp with a design thinking-based curriculum. The study aimed to examine how children developed and practiced empathy during the design class. Qualitative data were collected from the children and the instructors, providing thick descriptions of the children's experiences during the camp. As anticipated, the findings showed that the children practiced empathy at several stages during the design process, where they had to learn to take the perspective of the target user of their designs. However, the less anticipated result was that the findings also demonstrated that the children had more opportunities to practice empathy during groupwork and critiques, where they empathized with the angst of their colleagues. These findings demonstrate how design education can be used to enhance the social development of children by providing varied opportunities for them to empathize with others.
Stagnancy Issues and Change Initiatives for Global Education in the Digital Age, 2021
In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago... more In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week vacation camp with a curriculum based on design thinking. Design problems drawn from the lives of the children were used to stimulate deep thinking and engagement. The focus of the design problems allowed students to practice and build a variety of thinking abilities. They practiced both lateral thinking and vertical thinking at different parts of the design challenges. They applied critical thinking abilities of inquiry, analysis, inference, and argument. The students also practiced metacognition as they reflected on their design choices and decisions, and thought of strategies to be successful throughout the three weeks of the study. These results suggest that design-based education can play a role in developing critical thinking skills in an engaging way, even in an under-resourced context at elementary level.