Conference Agenda

Our most significant products require a designer whose understanding of human empathy matches their technical skills; therefore, design education must evolve to reflect this crucial balance. In this context, the supervisor’s role in Product Design final year projects is not just crucial but pivotal in preparing students to meet modern industry challenges. This paper argues that the most effective supervisors act not just as instructors but also as coaches – cheerleaders who push each student to navigate creative challenges, grow personally and professionally and reach their individual potential. The supervisor's influence has a considerable transformative effect, extending beyond the boundaries of the traditional domain of education and shaping the future of design practice.

A coaching approach focuses on understanding each student’s individual limits, providing honest feedback, and engaging deeply in the journey of their projects. Supervisors help build students’ self-confidence and pride in their work by fostering a collaborative atmosphere that emphasises creativity, problem-solving, and active participation. This human-centred supervision prioritises student growth and development, ensuring that graduates complete their studies as well-rounded individuals.

The paper draws on final-year project case studies from an undergraduate Product Design programme to demonstrate the positive impact of coaching strategies on student success, creativity, and career preparation. It highlights the concept of “exit velocity”—the momentum students carry into their careers—as a key outcome of coaching-driven supervision. The findings, which show that coaching strategies lead to enhanced skills, confidence, and innovative thinking, align with educational theories such as Schön’s reflective practice and Kolb’s experiential learning. These theories emphasise the importance of learning from experience and reflection, supporting the argument for a shift towards coaching as a pathway to developing innovative, human-centred designers.

Design thinking has become as a guiding principle in contemporary product and service development, policy planning, and community engagement. Everybody can be a design thinker or visionary, much like a professional designer. The design thinking process is typically described in five steps, represented linearly and practised using 3M post-it notes. However, it has been noted that there is a significant lack of empirical evidence supporting practical application and critical analysis within design thinking. The application of manual skills and design knowledge relies on a comprehensive understanding of an object’s purpose, usability, and aesthetic qualities. This study aims to analyse a hands-on design approach that fosters design thinking without reliance on 3M Post-it notes. This theoretical study examines multidisciplinary research to uncover insights into the human cognitive processes involved in design practice. The handling and crafting of objects levy the anticipation of action sequences and the prediction of sensory feedback, processes closely associated with the design thinking phases of empathizing, defining, and prototyping. The capacity to envision and plan actions prior to execution, referred to as the ‘mental hands’ concept, has been instrumental in the development of advanced cognitive skills, including goal-oriented planning, imagination, and conscious reasoning. An understanding of human skills uncovers the interconnections between fundamental sensorimotor processes and higher-order cognitive functions, including language, social interaction, and emotional regulation. These processes are intricately intertwined, facilitating both manual dexterity and cognitive abilities.

Recurrent education attracts a lot of interest these days. However, it is unclear how working adults in recurrent educational programs gain learning in the experience. Thus, this study aims to clarify the learning process by adopting the proposed framework for analysis. The “LAD (Learning Acquisition and Depth) framework” was developed based on Kolb’s experiential learning model and Reflection Intensity framework by Hartmann et al. to enable the investigation of the learning process and depth by analyzing participants’ reflections. The recurrent educational program employing design and art thinking was targeted, and semi-structured interviews with four participants were conducted. The proposed framework could visualize the learning process into four reflection levels and structure the link among small learnings. In addition, the result also implies that the current framework needs to incorporate the participants’ learning within their workplaces to holistically understand the process, which might be unique to the recurrent education. This study could contribute to understanding the learning process and improving the educational project-based programs.

The accelerated growth in our society of people affected by their visual capacity is correlated to the request of students with vision problems in the classrooms of educational centers. In the teaching of both design and engineering, some subjects require the full use of all the senses. Looking for a true inclusion for all kinds of students to claim study in the university classroom, this research has focused on designing strategies to adapt current technologies and design new experiences based on the creation of Braille-based tools, as well as educational experiences that range from podcast design to the use of emerging technologies such as XR and headsets that adapt to brain stimuli.

The present contribution describes the methodology for designing tools that allow higher education students to efficiently study subjects where observation and analysis are essential, including precise mathematical calculations. Because the trend in education worldwide is the development of skills, and one of the most important is project management, this research narrates the process by teachers of learning how to teach students with visual disabilities by testing their creativity to adapt tools and design new educational elements that allow students with visual disabilities to learn.

Exploration of XR technology and design of handheld devices are based on Braille language with constant feedback from users until we have tools that demonstrate promising results. This process began in the summer of 2017 and has steadily improved.

In the first-year engineering course, Understanding Product Engineering (UPE), the Productive Failure (PF) method is used to teach mechanics of materials, where students initially struggle with an unfamiliar concept for 15-30 minutes before receiving instructions, which enhances motivation and knowledge retention.

Amongst other subjects, UPE includes modules on manufacturing techniques for plastics and metals, typically taught theoretically. To address the challenge of practicing this knowledge, a simple, safe, and cost-effective machine simulating thermoforming, injection moulding, and metal bending was introduced. Developed as a graduation project, this machine encourages experiential learning, which positively impacts knowledge retention and decision-making regarding material-manufacturing techniques.

An A/B test is executed which compares the PF approach using the experiential machine with traditional direct instruction. Group A (nine students) used the machine and struggled before receiving instructional materials, while Group B (nine students) received direct instruction first. The students were interviewed on their experiences after the workshop, and tested online on the content.

Results showed significant differences in student perceptions and experiences. Group A, using the experiential machines, felt more confident, enthusiastic, intrigued, and engaged compared to group B. However, test scores showed no significant differences between the two approaches.

Teaching the philosophy of Human-Centred Design (HCD) and Design Thinking, more so the appli-cation, in a two to three-hour lecture is challenging. The authors point out how Engineering Design students in their third semester of a Bachelor of Engineering programme are guided through typical phases of human-centred and user-integrated product development, discussing the main challenges, application and key values in an industrial context. The chosen approach discloses opportunities concerning collaboration, working in interdisciplinary teams in different stages of product develop-ment and the integration of customers, respectively users. A so-called HCD roadmap reveals major benefits in the learning process. To foster a transfer to own industrial development projects students were asked to team up, to find a product or service, to develop their own roadmap, to identify cus-tomer “gains and pains” in a profile map, fit it to a value map and to sketch or prototype the product or service. The transfer from the experience attained in industry to the lecture exercise facilitated the application of HCD perceptively.

An accompanying survey shows that the consultation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) raised student motivation in the exercise. In the study AI tools particularly delivered quick insights and have been used as a source of inspiration. The study also highlights experiences made with different AI tools along the Engineering Design and Product Development process.

In conclusion, the results of a survey that accompanied the participating students’ HCD journey are analysed. The authors conclude on the findings on integrating HCD and AI in the lecture.