Conference Agenda

Collaborative engineering enhances industry efficiency, reduces rework, and automates design processes. Yet, challenges like poor communication, divergent goals, and cultural differences often hinder these collaborations. Innovations in collaborative practices could lead to more user-focused, innovative products more swiftly.

This workshop explores empathy and shared situational awareness in collaborative design, questioning if empathy is a cornerstone for shared awareness. Situational awareness is crucial for informed decision-making, involving an accurate understanding of one's environment. In teams, it means members have a shared understanding, essential for tackling unexpected issues together.

Empathy, the ability to understand others' perspectives and adapt actions accordingly, is seen as key to fostering this shared awareness. This session will examine if empathy within teams lays the foundation for shared situational awareness and improves collective decision-making. It will also consider methods to measure empathy and how it affects team dynamics.

The workshop encourages participation through directed questions and aims to understand empathy's role in collaborative design. Ensuring voluntary participation and ethical data practices, this workshop aligns with DESIGN Conference themes, including Human Behaviour, Creativity, and Management. It seeks to deepen our understanding of empathy's impact on collaborative design.