DEVELOPING ADVOCATES FOR DESIGN: AN INTRODUCTORY EXPERIENCE TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN THINKING AND METHODS OF PROBLEM SOLVING (original) (raw)

The Industrial Design Fundamentals course at Carnegie Mellon helps non-majors to build a broader view of design through hands-on engaging experiences. This sixteen-week open elective offered through the School of Design is a sought after course that consist primarily of undergraduate students from a wide range of disciplines including; engineering, business, humanities & social sciences, human computer interaction, and psychology. Its value has been its ability to weave design thinking, exploration, and problem solving into human centered projects in a condensed timeframe. This course seeks to demystify the product design process through discussions and lectures by introducing new skills, and engaging students in critical thinking and hands on experiences. Three interwoven goals support a holistic approach: Visual thinking — through tools and strategies developed by the author, students are taught the value of sketching, low-fidelity modeling, and imaging (photography, collages, etc.) as key tools for seeing, understanding, exploring, and representing complex information. This knowledge allows them to effectively and efficiently mediate between their minds eye and those of an audience. Human-centered design — each project introduces a different user (self, general, and target) to direct goals and opportunities. Exploration— strategies are shared for generating multiple ideas that shape complex information and lead to new discovery and ultimately a well-reasoned proposal. By the conclusion of the course students have gained an understanding of design as a process of discovery through collaborative and often complex multidisciplinary processes and see stronger connections to their field of study. Further, many share their course experiences with friends and peers, which has contributed to making design more visible and valuable within the university. Such advocacy has strengthened already established ties between engineering and design by spurring new conversations about collaborative efforts and planted the seeds for others. The goal of this paper is to share the structure that has made the course successful and generate discussion that allows it to grow and others to adapt usable methodologies.