Conference Agenda

At the Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE) 2024 conference, 53 research papers were published on AI a significant increase on previous years. These papers reveal how educators are using AI and their perspectives on its use. To better understand the nature of these papers and their contribution to the scientific community, a workshop was held at the conference asking 24 education experts to code the abstracts and share their insights. This activity supported delegates shared understanding of the AI education landscape. Following the conference, a meta-analysis was conducted on the workshop outcomes. This research goes beyond a literature review of the conference papers through quantitative and qualitative analysis, revealing the challenges of conducting research in an E&PDE context. This reveals opportunities for future research, and a reflection of the value of AI research within this context.

The aim of the study is to understand transition of Chinese industrial design students from tutor-led to student-led learning environment.

First, this paper summarizes the current demand for industrial design talents in China and it outlines potential limitations of teach and learning approaches in design courses in China. Secondly, the expected teaching objectives of the Global Studio course are introduced. Collected data from four surveys filled by the participating Chinese design students was used to assess whether learning objectives of the course were consistent with the student learning outcomes. The results indicate that there are differences between the expected course learning objectives and the learning outcomes. Most Chinese students were unable to make effective decisions independently in student-led learning environment. However, a large number of students were curious and interested in the student-led teaching model. This provides a new reference for the development of design education in China.

In every professional training process, university students receive knowledge about the activities specific to the discipline they are studying. Additionally, they are often exposed to professional practice in various ways, more so in some fields than others, until they complete the curriculum established by the university. The case of the Bachelor's degree in Design at Tecnológico de Monterrey is no exception, as students start by carrying out projects under full instructor guidance while gradually becoming more independent until they reach the point where they must propose the project they will undertake and describe all the methodology and management processes as if they were already a freelance designer or a design studio. In this context, the present research identifies the key elements that designers develop before graduating to secure their first design opportunities. To achieve the main objective of this research, a study was conducted with 43 students of the Design Bachelor's program at Tecnológico de Monterrey who graduated in 2023 and 2024. Through a multi-case study, the process these students followed in the last project course of their program was determined to identify their first professional opportunities and consolidate one of them through a real project. As part of the research, the various reports presented by the students were analyzed and compared using affinity diagrams and cross-data comparison related to brand identity, strategic planning, opportunity identification, project management, design process, and communication. This allowed for the creation of a proposed process that facilitates the professional launch for product designers.

This study adopts a human-centred approach to pluralise the design process by involving Japanese high school teachers. This research aimed to determine the critical factors for pluralising the design process by first focusing on the investigating and defining of needs in the design process. The outcome of the research is to empower non-design-trained teachers to apply design thinking in complex problem-solving. The key ideas consolidated from this study are as follows. Firstly, design-based strategies used by design practitioners must be unpacked for non-design-trained teachers to apply for general educational purposes. Secondly, design vocabulary should not be used in the design-based strategies to allow non-design-trained teachers and students to comprehend the design process easily. For complex design-based strategies, the process has to be broken down further into sub-tasks to match students’ abilities and prior knowledge. Lastly, the design-based strategies used for general complex problem-solving should be scoped to the extent that they can be implemented at the school level.

This paper presents the development of a Human-Centred Multi-Level Mentorship Framework designed to empower women in design and engineering. Despite growing awareness of the need for diversity, women in engineering continue to face challenges related to career progression, and a lack of tailored support. This research uses human-centred design principles to create a mentorship model that addresses these issues by placing the experiences and needs of women at the core of its development.

The project focuses on gathering and analysing real-world mentorship experiences through a series of focus groups and interviews with female students, academics, and industry professionals. By exploring their insights on mentorship, academic and career obstacles, and support mechanisms, the research aims to understand the critical elements of effective mentorship from a human-centred perspective.

These qualitative findings will inform the creation of a practical resource aimed at fostering impactful mentorship relationships that support women’s success in design and engineering fields.

The resource will focus on:

Empowering Women: Exploring mentorship frameworks to build confidence and self-advocacy.

Clearer Career Progression: Offering guidance on defining career paths and navigating opportunities within the industry.

Building Confidence: Encouraging mentees to set and achieve professional goals, increasing their self-assurance in technical and leadership roles.

Through this resource, we aim to support women’s advancement, strengthen their professional networks, and create a supportive pathway for success in design and engineering.

The paper details the methodology of using human-centred design to extract and incorporate user experiences into a mentorship resource and discusses how the insights helped shape a resource tailored to the unique needs of women in design and engineering.

Design studio practice is a pivotal element in design education, serving as a constructivist learning environment where students tackle complex, open-ended challenges through hands-on experience. This study focused on how the design studio, with its inherent structure and interactive framework, fostered multicultural awareness among students from two different countries and academic disciplines.

Within the design studio model, three essential types of interaction drive learning: learner-teacher, learner-content, and learner-learner. These interactions enable a dynamic exchange of ideas, experimentation, and teamwork, allowing students to engage deeply with both content and their peers (Tucker, 2017). The importance of interaction in learning cannot be overstated, as Simpson and Galbo (1986) describe it as the reciprocal exchange of behaviors among individuals and groups. This process encompasses various forms of communication—verbal and nonverbal, conscious and subconscious—and is particularly effective in promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and intercultural understanding within the design studio.

Cultural awareness is crucial within the design field, as professionals are often called to collaborate with individuals from diverse backgrounds. Culture, encompassing one’s beliefs, values, behaviors, and communication styles, shapes how individuals view and interact with the world (Awang-Shuib et al., 2017). To prepare students for this reality, the design studio environment encourages them to engage with peers from varied cultural backgrounds, fostering skills that are increasingly valued in forming effective, globally minded teams (Finley, 2021).

This study carried out in two years, involved one hundred eleven (n = 111) undergraduate students from three design disciplines—Interior Design, Product Design, and Interactive Media Design—studying at two universities in Colombia and one in the United States. Together, these institutions implemented a virtual exchange (VE) project, which is in line with the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) framework. This collaborative endeavor had students work together to share insights on their respective cultures, cities, and design fields. Acting both as designers and clients, students were tasked with creating a concept for an "experiential environment" that transcended physical boundaries, delivering a holistic dining experience. Each discipline contributed its specialized knowledge: interior designers focused on spatial arrangements, product designers on furniture and environmental elements, and interactive media designers on user experience and interfaces.

To measure the project’s impact on cultural awareness, a validated survey, regularly used by one of the partner institutions for VE initiatives, was administered both before and after the project. This instrument, featuring 26 items rated on a 5-point Likert scale, assessed students’ attitudes toward multicultural engagement. Results showed a general increase in scores across most items, with a slight decline in “I prefer to socialize with people of my culture” and no change in “I like working in groups with students from other countries.”

Ultimately, this project illustrates the power of design studio practice in cultivating cross-cultural competencies and preparing students for the global demands of the design field. It highlights how the interactive, interdisciplinary, and collaborative nature of the studio environment contributes to a holistic, real-world learning experience that aligns with the evolving needs of the design industry.

Creating respectful and sensitive engagements in design students is essential for conducting research in complex healthcare and social environments. These skills help students understand the diverse experiences of different stakeholders, ensuring respectful and relevant interactions and design solutions. This paper presents the design and development of a new approach to teaching user-centred research methods for an MSC programme in design for health care. The approach focuses on the development of building block projects that equip students with observation and qualitative research skills, ensuring sensitivity and empathy before engaging in real-world projects. Three projects are described. The first two building block projects took place within the university: the first involved observing the First Time User Experience of a product with users within the student’s network, the second involved interviewing paramedic students in role-playing scenarios and the third project, external to the university involved an immersive real-world experience, where students collaborated with various stakeholders—patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. The students showed significant growth post focus group, in qualitative research skills, improving their ability to navigate complex human contexts and translate findings into actionable design insights. These findings emphasise the importance of developing these skills in an educational setting before involving students in real-world healthcare contexts.

The Human-centred Design (HCD) standard has been the foundation for designing interactive systems since the 1980s, inspiring commonly adopted design and development approaches. However, it questioned whether HCD alone can address today’s complex societal challenges. Critics highlight that individual user needs may conflict with collective or long-term goals, prompting a shift toward ethics-focused design approaches such as Value-sensitive Design and Humanity-centred Design.

This “ethics turn” in design education encourages students to follow a human-centered approach and account for a broader set of stakeholders, including non-users, manufacturing chain actors, and more than human entities like ’the environment’ or ‘nature’. Although we share the concerns addressed by these authors, in this paper, we argue that such approaches are insufficient for ethics-focused design education because they do not help students recognize the ethical dimensions of concrete design decisions, such as identifying design choices that may reify social norms.

We focus on a case study on designing digital tools for democratic participation that are more inclusive to underrepresented groups of adolescents in the Netherlands. We use the case to illustrate how ethics-focused methods require a type of reflection that may not be conveyed easily in design education. We feel, however, that it can be scaffolded through a playing field analysis, which encourages students to identify tensions between playing fields of design: technology, humans, organizations, society, and design. This approach may represent a step towards acknowledging these tensions and recognizing the ethical consequences of practical design choices.

The past two decades witnessed extensive design research on addressing complex societal issues, exploring and developing novel design tools, methods, and approaches in this pursuit. This was parallel to the wider adoption of design thinking due to its unique potential to creatively explore, distil, and develop responses to complex challenges, which led to its adoption in many other disciplines. As such, design is becoming an increasingly more interdisciplinary endeavour incorporating the multitude of perspectives. However, the critical link between novel research and practical application in addressing these issues is often missing, leading to a gap where critical perspectives fail to translate into actionable practices for future designers. The research and education on design management fell behind in exploring and addressing the implications of this complexity in organisational contexts, which only hinders the potential of design practices.

Realising this crucial gap, this paper will present the development, implementation and implications of a new design management course structure. The course was delivered at two universities with radically different approaches to design:

a. Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Architecture, [Technical University 1, Country], as a final year course,

b. School of Design, Institute for the Contemporary Arts, [University 2, Country], as a second-year course.

The course was delivered for two years at each university (four years in total), providing robust data and insights into its delivery and student learning. The course structure is as follows:

1. 'Design Management Basics' part covers the foundational principles of design management, providing students with a solid understanding of the field.

2. 'New Concerns in Design Management' part addresses contemporary issues such as environmental sustainability, collaboration, and the evolving roles of designers, as well as the gendered aspects of designing.

3. 'The Big Picture' part introduces models of innovation and transitions, helping students understand the broader context of design management.

At [University 1], the course focused on depicting students' unique product design processes over two years. This approach allowed students to apply design management principles for devising projects and fostering a deeper yet nuanced and reflexive understanding of the subject. Students developed the capacity to embed sustainability and circular economy principles throughout the product design process, manage collaborations in terms of disciplinarity and user participation, and apply a gender lens in line with policy-level concerns. At [University 2], the course took an inquiry-based approach, encouraging students to investigate and address real-world design management challenges in different design sub-disciplines according to their career aspirations, such as service design and AR/VR design. The course was able to equip future designers with the skills, knowledge and critical lenses necessary to translate critical perspectives into practical action and to create social and environmental values not only for organisations but also for society and the environment. This new course structure not only enhances students' understanding of design management but also prepares them to tackle complex societal issues through innovative and sustainable design practices as design managers or designer-entrepreneurs.

A majority of design students often face challenges in developing empathy and navigating barriers such as language, age, gender, emotional, hierarchical, neurological, cultural, socio-economic, socio-emotional and educational. In an increasingly globalized world, designers are expected to create products and services that address these diverse user needs across broad spectrums of social, cultural, and physical contexts. However, many traditional design education methods primarily emphasize on technical skills and individualistic approaches, overlooking the importance of empathy and socio-emotional competencies. These gaps hinder students' ability to approach design inclusively, impacting both their projects and everyday interactions. This study investigates the impact of collaborative, participatory design education practices by examining how play-based learning can foster empathy and bridge socio-emotional divides. Through experiential, multi-sensory activities, students will engage in inclusive learning methods that equip them with essential skills and tools to design for diverse communities. By exploring how play can overcome social, emotional, and physical barriers, the study assesses how participatory teaching methods can prepare design students for more inclusive design practices. The study recommends the development of educational strategies that integrate play as a core teaching method, emphasizing empathy, inclusivity, and socio-emotional learning within design curricula. Such an initiative will prepare future designers to create solutions that are not only technically proficient but also socially considerate and inclusive.

This article describes how the authors applied Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) methodologies obtained in a teacher training to a 3rd year, Project Based Learning (PBL) course in the Industrial Design Engineering (IDE) degree at Elisava. The Crossover Project course presents students with a sustainability challenge that they address in groups (3-5 students), providing mentoring by two Elisava tutors and one external expert in the field of the challenge addressed. This paper focuses on the experiences of tutoring two of the four class groups from the course. In 2024, there were 3 and 5 student groups in each of the two class groups, obtaining results that show the integration of sustainability competencies even though these competencies were not made explicit to the students.

Reviewing the course results, it is possible to understand that Systems, Future, and Strategic Thinking competencies are intrinsic to the design process, even if they are not always framed explicitly to students. It is also clear that a six-week course duration is not enough to achieve full implementation of project solutions.

In recent years, design workshops have gained attention as a means for driving innovation and solving social issues. Particularly in initiatives aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), workshops that leverage design thinking have proven effective in garnering collaboration from a broad range of stakeholders. Typically, design workshops require participants to create ideas that can be propelled toward social implementation. However, there is a lack of knowledge on how leadership styles affect the workshop process and subsequent social implementation activities. Team leaders play a crucial role in unifying the team and promoting collaboration with communities and stakeholders. Understanding how this leadership influences social implementation and identifying the common characteristics of successful leaders are important, but these factors have not been sufficiently examined as contributors to successful social implementation.

In response, this study seeks to address these challenges by examining the impact of team leaders on social implementation and proposing a more effective workshop management method. Using a Participatory Research approach, this study will use participatory design workshops as case studies, focusing on the relationship between workshop management and social implementation and clarifying how the role of team leaders enhances the likelihood of social implementation. Specifically, the research will: (1) review participatory design workshops conducted from 2012 to 2024 from the perspective of workshop organizers, analyze recorded data to identify shifts in factors related to social implementation through the lens of team leadership over the past 13 years; (2) interview team leaders who achieved social implementation to clarify motivations and specific post-workshop activities, make comparisons with the teams that did not achieve social implementation to extract distinguishing factors and contributors; (3) examine the relationship between team leaders, community resources, challenges, and opportunities to identify success factors for social implementation; and (4) analyze the results to propose a workshop management method that enhances the potential for social implementation.

Close collaboration between team leaders and communities to generate feasible solutions has been identified as a key factor in increasing the likelihood of social implementation. Based on these findings, this study proposes a workshop management method based on collaboration with local communities. This method will enable workshop participants to explore solutions that are adapted to the needs of the community, thus taking concrete steps toward a sustainable society. The methodology proposed in this study is expected to be useful for producing effective outcomes in design workshops, offering practical value for addressing social challenges through design workshops.

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.

Product engineers need creativity to come up with solutions that have high innovative potential. Today product development often takes place in these distributed settings, making tasks that involve creativity more critical. With the distributed settings come oftentimes also intercultural teams, since talent is recruited from all over the world. To support such intercultural distributed product development teams with their creative tasks, the Cultural Synergy Spectrum (CSS) method has been designed. This contribution aims at validation the method’s support performance and applicability through application in an intercultural team in a live-lab environment. Three teams composed of engineers from different fields in an international university program worked on solving the practice problem.

The traditional ideation techniques used in complex engineering design challenges have been practiced for a long time. However, with the advent of generative AI, numerous supporting tools have emerged, some of which attempt to mimic cognitive processes. To explore how AI tools can be integrated into the early design phase, an ideation bootcamp was set up. This bootcamp examined the input values from a human collaborative technique known as “Brainwriting” and two forms of AI tools: one focused on text and the other on visuals. Designed to equip students with a better understanding of how to utilise and benefit from AI-powered design tools, the activity showcased the significant potential of merging human creativity with machine intelligence. Participants, 22 fifth year engineering design students, engaged in a multifaceted ideation process, leveraging insights from the Brainwriting activity using paper and pen before moving on to test the AI-powered tools, Copilot (text) and Vizcom (visuals). While the Brainwriting method encouraged collective brainstorming and idea generation, Copilot provided detailed feedback and suggestions for refinement, enhancing the quality and direction of the ideas. Meanwhile, Vizcom offered visual representations of these early phase ideas, promoting rapid prototyping and iterative exploration, some visualised concepts being quite out-of-the-box.

Digital Fabrication environments, such as FabLabs or Makerspaces, are dynamic environments that provide hands-on, collaborative work among individuals with diverse roles. Quality teamwork is essential for successful prototype development. Teamwork quality refers to how effectively a team collaborates, including aspects such as Communication, Coordination, Mutual Support, Effort, Cohesion, and Balance of Member Contribution. Teamwork with high-quality can foster shared understanding, effective problem-solving, and synergy among team members. This is essential for achieving the innovation and productivity goals of makerspaces.

While teamwork quality is recognised as critical for effective collaboration, only limited research investigated how different roles affect perceptions of teamwork quality in FabLabs, where cross-functional collaboration takes place. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating how specific team roles—namely Manager, Designer, Programmer, and Prototyper, influence perceptions of teamwork quality, team member's success, and team performance in designing and building prototypes in FabLabs.

To achieve this, the study explores teamwork quality from a role-specific perspective. It provides a deeper understanding of how distinct roles within FabLabs contribute to collaborative efforts and influence team outcomes.

This study analyses data collected from 76 students enrolled in a Digital Fabrication course. The students were divided into 19 groups, each student selecting one of four designated roles based on their preferences. In the mid-term of the course, the students were asked to complete an online questionnaire about their selected roles and teamwork quality. The research investigates three main questions: (1) How do perceptions of teamwork quality dimensions differ by role? (2) What is the relationship between teamwork quality and team outcomes, such as success and performance? (3) Which dimensions of teamwork quality are the most effective predictors of positive team outcomes in FabLabs?

To address these questions, the study performed a series of statistical tests. One-way ANOVA was used to determine role-based differences in mean scores for teamwork quality, which indicated that Designers, due to the nature of their role, reported slightly higher levels of Communication and Coordination than other roles. However, there were no significant differences between individual roles across teamwork dimensions, indicating equal contribution to the overall team’s success. Pearson correlation analysis revealed a strong correlation between teamwork quality, team member success, and team performance, which were statistically significant. Further, multiple regression analyses found that Mutual Support was the significant predictor for both Team Member’s Success and Team Performance across all roles. Teamwork dimensions, such as Cohesion and Effort, also contributed meaningfully to team members’ success and performance, reflecting the distinct teamwork needs associated with various functional roles.

These findings are valuable for makerspace leaders, educators, and facilitators, as they emphasise the importance of role-specific interventions to promote a cohesive and productive team atmosphere. The results also have practical implications for design education, suggesting that integrating role-aware teamwork training into design education could better prepare students for collaborative work in makerspaces. By addressing role-based teamwork needs, this research offers practical insights into optimising collaboration, innovation, and satisfaction, making makerspaces more effective for individual and collective success.

This paper investigates and reviews innovative techniques and tools to teach different design approaches to engineering students, allowing them to compare and critique methodology, while enhancing knowledge and skills. The paper reviews several years of feedback and development on authentic project-led approaches to teaching user-centred design, systematic design and social innovation to second year engineering students; as a means to provide core knowledge and skills required for different industries. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how enhance the relevance and authenticity of the learning within this approach-and to develop and master such design skills and knowledge into more advanced modules as part of a programme narrative.

STEM-based learning is widely recognized globally as an effective approach for fostering interdisciplinary skills and preparing students for complex, real-world challenges. Taiwan’s technology education system has increasingly incorporated STEM principles, especially within secondary technology courses, where it is viewed as a strategy that fosters meaningful learning outcomes. This approach actively engages students in engineering and design projects, encouraging the integration and application of interdisciplinary knowledge in practical contexts. STEM instruction not only strengthens students' theoretical foundations but also enhances their hands-on skills and creative thinking. By applying learned concepts to solve practical problems, students validate their knowledge, building skills and resilience that better prepare them for careers in science, technology, and engineering fields.

However, STEM teaching in Taiwan relies heavily on technology teachers, who are responsible for preparing content that spans multiple disciplines, such as science, engineering, and mathematics. This cross-disciplinary workload places a significant burden on lesson planning and preparation, making it challenging for teachers to maintain high instructional quality and effectiveness over time. Such pressures may lead some educators to discontinue STEM teaching altogether or struggle to sustain its benefits. In recent years, advancements in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) have encouraged teachers to explore this technology’s potential in educational settings. Many teachers have begun incorporating GenAI tools, especially for lesson planning and curriculum design, aiming to ease preparation demands and reduce the time required. Despite these advancements, most educators currently limit their use of GenAI to basic tasks such as course planning and ideation, rather than fully utilizing its capabilities for more advanced instructional needs, including assessing student performance.

This study employs a quantitative research approach, using a survey to investigate how technology teachers across Taiwan utilize GenAI in STEM teaching and to identify the primary sources from which they learn about this technology. Survey responses were gathered from 67 active technology teachers from various regions across Taiwan, all of whom teach students aged 13 to 15. This study addresses two main questions: How do technology teachers integrate GenAI within STEM education, and what are the primary sources through which they gain knowledge of GenAI?

Key findings reveal that (1) 44% of Taiwan’s technology teachers use GenAI primarily for lesson planning and creative content generation, while only 8% apply it to assess student performance; (2) Teachers primarily acquire knowledge of GenAI through Professional Development courses and workshops organized by universities, Educational Technology Conferences and Exhibitions, and Online Learning Platforms; and (3) Online Learning Platforms play an especially significant role in supporting teachers’ use of GenAI for evaluating student performance. Based on these findings, this study suggests that strengthening teachers' engagement with GenAI through online platforms could improve their ability to apply it effectively in student performance evaluation. These insights underscore the importance of providing targeted AI-driven tools to support a broad range of instructional tasks in STEM teaching, offering valuable contributions to advancing design education and engineering pedagogy.

This paper explores how Generative Design (GD), Additive Manufacturing (AM), and multi-stakeholder design approaches can inform engineering education for assistive technology innovation. Drawing on two research projects DIGICLAP and PREMIER, it analyses how these methods support the development of adaptive, personalised, and user-centred devices. The study identifies critical gaps in current curricula, particularly in co-design practice, Product–Service System (PSS) thinking, and the application of feedback-driven design. Based on these insights, it proposes targeted educational strategies that integrate GD, AM, and stakeholder collaboration into project-based and interdisciplinary learning environments. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to align engineering education with the complex, evolving demands of human-centred assistive device design.

Sustainable urban mobility is crucial for fostering environmentally friendly, economically viable, and socially inclusive cities. The transportation sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, making it imperative to develop sustainable mobility solutions that minimize environmental impact while meeting the needs of urban residents.

Smart mobility solutions and digital platforms are critical tools in the transition toward sustainable urban environments. For instance, mobile applications can encourage citizens to choose public transportation or active modes of transportation like walking and cycling. Services like BlaBlaCar promote car-pooling by providing a trustworthy, user-friendly service. Over the past two decades, digital interventions aimed at reducing the ecological footprint of mobility practices have proliferated globally. Digital “shared mobility” and emerging, more sophisticated “mobility-as-a-service” platforms which integrate multiple services into a single portal, have become prominent in reworking everyday urban transport in cities.

As these technologies become part of urban life, designing seamless interactions with them is essential for smoother sustainability transitions. Equipping future designers with the tools to address complex urban mobility challenges is crucial to pave the way for cities prioritizing sustainability and inclusivity in their transportation systems.

This paper presents a User Experience course designed to equip students with skills and insights to create innovative digital solutions that enhance urban mobility while promoting sustainability. Focused on a metropolitan city in Eastern Europe, the course explored the intersection of design education and sustainable transportation, emphasizing the critical role of digital platforms in reshaping urban mobility.

The course followed a project-based learning approach and adopted design thinking methodology. Students were introduced to key concepts related to sustainability, urban mobility and the latest digital technologies facilitating sustainable mobility systems. Through exploratory user research, discussions and collaborative brainstorming, they identified specific mobility issues in the city, laying the groundwork for their projects. They developed interactive prototypes of their solutions to gather feedback from prospective users.

In this paper, we present the course design and structure, along with two standout projects that exemplify innovative thinking and practical application of sustainable urban mobility solutions. The first project focused on developing a digital platform offering personalized route planning based on users input such as regular routes they used, preferred transportation mediums, priorities (comfort vs. time) and suggestions from friends and family. This project aimed to provide a trustworthy and personalized route planning experience in a city with diverse mobility options. The second project targeted short-distance taxi usage, addressing commuters’ tendency to opt for taxis instead of walking, cycling, or ridesharing for short distances. The students developed a mobile app, allowing users to see ‘other’ transportation options while calling for a taxi. By comparing different transportation options based on pre-selected criteria such as price and time, students aimed to discourage taxi usage.

The presentation of the course design, selected projects and our reflections on the design process and the outcomes can inspire other design educators in planning and executing project-based design courses that empower students to become innovative problem solvers capable of contributing to more sustainable and resilient urban environments.

Contemporary websites typically follow a classic modern design philosophy: precise, highly structured, cold, and rational. This study examines how basic website design elements evoke emotions in users. Combinations of colour, brightness value, and icon shape were used to create twenty distinct iterations of web loading pages. Participants consisted of twenty undergraduate students from XYZ University. To analyse the participants’ emotional reactions to the stimulus, their pupil diameter measurements were taken using Tobii eye-tracking glasses, and they self-reported their emotional responses to each loading page verbally. The results showed that, on average, blue and green colours were associated with positive emotions, while red and yellow colours were more associated with negative emotions. The black and grey colours showed neutral emotional responses. The lighter brightness values of each colour ranked more positively on average than its darker counterpart. Icon shape differences had little impact on emotional responses. Pupil dilation changes show the blue and green pages have greater arousal than the yellow and red pages. This study provides evidence that web design elements, particularly colour and brightness value, significantly influence users’ emotional responses. As digital web design continues to evolve, studies similar to this could help educators and companies re-evaluate their traditional perceptions of web colour and icon shape decisions.

Engineering education research is widely considered to take positivistic approaches, focussing on objective and observable facts and quantitative data. This grants both authors and readers of papers the reassurance that the evidence presented is sound as it approximates the methods they are familiar with in their technical research. However, evidence-based scholarship, where the best evidence is always considered to be consensus and correlation within a large data set, inherently focuses the voice of the majority, often ignoring outliers. This can be considered contrary to being truly human centred in our design approaches, as we cannot only design for, and support, the needs of the majority. Human centred engineering design should be inclusive and equitable and therefore we must also seek and empower minorities in our processes.

Historically, engineering has been dominated by affluent, able-bodied white men, but efforts have been made over the last few decades to diversify. Most of these efforts though have been focussed solely on getting more women into engineering, thus creating a majority group within the minorities, and not addressing other aspects of marginalisation. Furthermore, little work has been done within engineering and design education to address the impacts of intersectionality, with most looking only at how a single interpretation of one aspect of identity impacts success and inclusion.

Interacting with a physical product is a continuous process where both good and bad behaviours co-exist and constitute the interaction. In Behavioural Design (BD), bad behaviours are also termed problematic behaviours (PBs). Correspondingly, good behaviours are termed non-problematic behaviours (N-PBs) in this paper.

Designers focusing on BD have developed various methods to change PBs but neglected discussion on the functionality of co-existing N-PBs in a target context. This study explores the role of N-PBs in the domain of physical product-related behaviour design (PrBD). Through interdisciplinary discussion of the role of N-PBs, we put forward a hypothesis that N-PBs could serve as references to assist users in rationalising and understanding the changed structures in the target context.

Accordingly, we conducted a tweezer-chopstick experiment with 16 university students, through which we found that, first, N-PBs, as well as corresponding physical structures, not only help users make sense of a redesigned product but also influence, even determine, their acceptance towards the product. Second, users preferred to choose a redesigned product that retained more elements in relation to its original shape.

The integration of real-world case studies into engineering design education enhances students’ ability to develop innovative, human-centred solutions for complex challenges. This paper explores a mechanical engineering undergraduate final year project as a case study for fostering human-centred thinking in engineering and product design curricula. The project focused on designing pharmaceutical packaging tailored to the needs of elderly users, addressing barriers such as limited dexterity, vision impairments, and safety concerns. By employing a rigorous human-centred design process that included user research, prototyping, and iterative testing, the study delivered a packaging solution that balances usability and safety. The importance of designing for diverse user groups, particularly vulnerable populations such as older people, has been emphasised, along with meeting regulatory and practical constraints. Using this project as a case study, educators can introduce students to the challenges of developing human-centred products that evoke a positive user experience in a healthcare context, stressing empathy and ethical considerations. This paper highlights how such projects effectively bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and real-world applications, fostering a mindset of empathy and inclusivity in future engineers. Ultimately, this approach can aid in preparing students to create meaningful innovations that improve the quality of life for diverse populations in various industries.

This article delves into the development path of a systems engineer's thinking, focusing on the transition from abstract ideas to concrete tasks and actions through the structured application of Systems Engineering (SE). It underscores that cultivating a systems engineering mindset is a long and demanding process, requiring substantial investments of time, resources, and commitment from both individuals and institutions. The journey to becoming a proficient systems engineer extends far beyond completing a few courses; it necessitates comprehensive education and sustained practice to develop the advanced thinking and technical skills essential for success in the engineering field.

The article emphasizes the importance of systems thinking and the integration of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) into contemporary project lifecycles. It identifies the critical educational challenges of SE, particularly in bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application in schools and universities. A detailed analysis of the systems engineer's learning path highlights the vital interplay between theoretical understanding, hands-on experience, and collaborative problem-solving. Practical examples, including university programs, illustrate the significant resources and interdisciplinary strategies required to shape capable professionals. Student feedback further reinforces the need for adaptive, practice-focused learning methods to address real-world challenges effectively.

This paper applies human-centred design principles to engineering education by investigating the relationships between student academic performance, online engagement metrics, and assessment strategies. By analysing datasets from three academic years (2021-2023), the study aims to provide actionable insights to enhance learning experiences and inform curriculum design as an educational product-service system. Key findings reveal that higher online engagement strongly correlates with better academic performance, with different patterns emerging across various levels of study and assessment types. Interestingly, postgraduate students achieve higher marks with lower engagement levels, suggesting more efficient learning strategies. The findings demonstrate how data analytics can inform the design of more responsive educational experiences that adapt to diverse student needs and engagement patterns—a core principle of human-centred design in engineering and design education.

Academia is challenged with learning and work in extended reality. This paper presents a pilot study, where a US university design class and an international university design class collaborated in a web-based 3D digital outdoor environment and then a web-based 2D digital outdoor environment with screen-based spatial proximity cues to provide students with informal design method learning and interaction. The spaces reflected spatial metaphors for these interactions to specifically support small groups. Students created avatars based on personas, took creative personal inventories, created, presented and discussed digital ID boards in small groups. Students were introduced to evaluation assessments such as the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), an Immersive Tendencies Questionaire (ITQ), a workshop questionnaire, and a reflection assignment and class discussion. Findings presented are limited to the US class feedback. New foundations for future design learning and work are considered for these atmospheric mediated environments.

Like the definition of product design, the hosting of product design degree programmes tends to fall into two categories: art and engineering; Each having their own foci and educational approaches. Some faculties and departments, typically residing in the engineering camp, offer design degrees that provide students with a space to work in a semi-social environment, some even venturing to refer to those spaces as “studios”. Few offer a true “studio” environment, a dedicated space for each student to customise and work in. Regardless of the reason for not providing a studio for students, be it a limitation of size of cohorts, available space or necessary funds, there are greater implications on the student experience than purely the lack of physical space.

This paper presents the Design Director Approach to product design engineering education as a set of tenents that design educators can adopt in their practice. The Design Director Approach can introduce more student engagement opportunities, while embodying a mix of supervisory and coaching approaches, as well as using the psychological perspectives from Transactional Analysis to provide an industry-like interaction with students, providing further benefit and value to their learning experience.

Nature has long inspired innovation in design by offering insights into sustainable and meaningful structures and processes. This research explores how integrating computational design tools with biological processes by mimicking the silk-spinning behaviour of Bombyx mori silkworms can inform product design renderings. When placed on flat surfaces, silkworms produce intricate, non-woven, flat silk tapestries that deviate from their natural cocoon structures. Phase 1 of this study involved raising silkworms and observing their silk-spinning behaviours under controlled conditions. These observations informed Phase 2, where computational tools, specifically Houdini software, were employed to simulate the natural flat spinning patterns of the silkworms to create a geometry node for application on rendered product design surfaces. Phase 3 applied the node on a rendered Isamu Noguchi lamp. Results include successfully utilizing silkworms to develop a flat woven silk sheet, creating a geometry node in Houdini, and applying the pattern algorithm in a computer rendering as the shade of a Noguchi-style lamp. This study demonstrates how biologically inspired patterns inform product development and presents a novel framework for product aesthetics. The paper provides photographs and renderings for each of the phases.

In an era of growing environmental challenges, design and engineering education must integrate sustainability not only as a theoretical concept but as a hands-on practice. This research explores how the incorporation of recovered, recycled, and upcycled materials, along with circular strategies (R’s), in academic projects can enhance environmental awareness among students in creative and engineering disciplines. Through a mixed-methods study involving surveys, interviews, and case studies across diverse programs in higher education, we examine the effects of using these materials on students' understanding of sustainability, resource conservation, and circular economy principles. Preliminary findings suggest that both design and engineering students engaging with repurposed materials and circular strategies gain a deeper appreciation for environment, material lifecycles, and sustainability, and are more likely to adopt sustainable practices in their respective fields. This paper highlights the transformative role that material choices and circular strategies in academic projects can play in cultivating a sustainability mindset, encouraging innovation in design processes, and promoting ethical responsibility among future designers and engineers.

This paper explores skeuomorphism in Extended Reality (XR) interfaces, focusing on its potential to enhance accessibility and promote physical engagement, particularly among older adults. By emulating real-world objects and interactions, skeuomorphic design reduces cognitive load, making digital interfaces more intuitive and accessible to a broad range of users. While flat design, valued for its simplicity, often lacks the intuitive cues necessary for navigating complex technologies, skeuomorphism offers an alternative that feels familiar and user-friendly.

In this study, participants were asked to draw associations with common digital functions like messaging and video playback. These associations provided insights into their mental models, which informed the development of skeuomorphic XR interface elements. User testing demonstrated the advantages of these designs when integrated with XR features such as hand tracking and room mapping. These elements not only improved interaction quality but also enhanced user comfort and ease of use, particularly in home settings where familiar interactions are essential.

The findings reveal a significant gap in current XR design: its limited accessibility for non-digital natives, such as older adults, who often struggle with traditional digital interfaces. By leveraging physical metaphors, skeuomorphic design can bridge this gap, making XR environments more engaging and effective for users with varying digital literacy levels. This study highlights the potential of skeuomorphic principles to expand XR usability and suggests that thoughtful design can make these technologies more approachable for all, ultimately supporting broader adoption and promoting well-being through accessible digital experiences.

Inclusive design education is a fundamental issue to be worked on with students from health-related courses to respect the society diverse. By integrating inclusive design into educational practices, health institutions can foster the development and mobilize essential competencies that empower students to create more equitable and accessible products and services in health systems.

Despite the recognition of inclusive design’s importance, there is still a lack of studies that consider it into health-related higher education. Current curricula from health-related courses often fail to consider inclusive design practices in their subjects. It’s clear that health students would benefit from inclusive design competencies to work with diverse Brazilian populations.

So, this study aims to explore how inclusive design education practices can mobilize students’ competencies in health-related higher education. Also, we intend to identify strategies that foster competencies in inclusive design, preparing students to be ethical and respectful people, dealing with the diverse Brazilian populations they will interact as future health professionals.

The study employs a qualitative approach, gathering insights from experiences and perceptions of educators, researchers, and students in health-related fields. These perspectives could provide a better understanding of how inclusive design is currently taught and identify opportunities for enhancing its integration in the development of student competencies.

Human-centered design (HCD) implies that its experts disentangle complexity and the unknown through inquiry, participation, experience, and continuous prototyping to achieve better scenarios and solutions. This paper narrates design education experiments in a subject called Human Centred Design Research Methods that test the delivery of design curriculum as a pre-thought finished product with a systemic product service approach where end-users, in this case, students, join in a practice-based model of learning co-creation. Our large cohort is formed mainly by first-year first-semester undergraduate students from three courses in architecture, industrial design, and design and technology. The subject also attracts undergraduates from engineering, construction management, and master’s level, and undergraduates from other faculties like business, humanities, and science. The project for the semester is a post-occupational review of the same building where we run our classes; a new state-of-the-art vertical campus named the Engineering Innovation Hub (EIH). It is said the building is the most technologically advanced in the west of our city. Once a project is finished and launched to the public, it is normal to measure to what level architectural, design, and engineering outcomes meet occupants’ expectations. Yet, no end-users were consulted before or after the design and construction of the building. The semester is divided into three assessments that align with Dreyfus's model of skill acquisition.

The increasing complexity of intelligent mechatronic products and their digital interconnectivity lead to new challenges in product development processes. In addition, considering social and ecological aspects in product development is becoming increasingly important to achieve global sustainability goals. This requires increased interdisciplinary cooperation. The theoretical teaching of these technological and methodological processes and interrelationships is often currently still very abstract in engineering education. It requires a high degree of imagination, which can only be assumed to a limited extent, particularly for young first-year students. To better convey this basic understanding, a multi-day teaching format was developed for use at the school/university interface, in which prospective students learn how interdisciplinary, collaborative engineering can be implemented in practice using the example of concrete development of a simple mechatronic and data communicating product. The assignment covers all key phases of product development, from requirements analysis, system design and implementation to verification and validation. This teaching offer aims to sensitise prospective students to the current topics of the product development process of intelligent mechatronic systems and the associated social and ecological sustainability issues and to familiarise them with the future challenges of systems engineering at an early stage. By highlighting practical and socially relevant fields of application, the aim is to sustainably promote interest in studying engineering by demonstrating how engineering themes relate to students' lives or the real world.

Strategic design education faces significant challenges in adapting to the complexities of an increasingly dynamic world. Key among these is the integration of systems thinking, entrepreneurial skills, and innovative practices to prepare students for diverse career paths and enable them to engage with real-world projects introduced by enterprises. This aligns with educational trends emphasizing a "problem-finding" mindset and project-based learning models that empower students to navigate uncertainty, address global challenges, and co-create solutions with diverse stakeholders. By bridging creative, scientific, and humanistic disciplines, design education can train a new generation of designers to become "transformational partners" for organizations and social systems working in a “fourth order design” environment

This paper examines the “D+” Strategic Design undergraduate course at (*institution name*) as an educational experiment. The course was based on the “Design Plus” (D+) framework, where strategic design was paired with four key concepts: Value, Innovation, Foresight, and Humanity. Students explored models, theories, and practical tools at the intersection of design, management, systems thinking, and humanistic culture. A key component involved a real-world challenge presented by a multinational manufacturing enterprise. This task emphasized intangible assets, such as organizational culture and brand equity, steering students from product-oriented solutions to systemic approaches to value creation. This circular exploration—from value to humanity and back—encouraged students to adopt transformative perspectives, equipping them to work within and strategically on organizations, addressing contemporary challenges with innovative contributions.

As the world continues to take more responsibility and confront a diverse range of sustainability challenges, including zero waste, dematerialization, resource efficiency, zero emissions, and social equity, designers and engineers are being called to action. As such educators need to adapt and integrate sustainable values/processes into the curriculum. With the worlds finite resources strained by population growth and lifestyle changes, minimizing impact is crucial, therefore this has driven designers to focus on designing sustainable products and consider the entire product life cycle. This paper builds on a previous case study where first-year BSc Product Design students at [Anonymised University] acted as design consultants during a “Sustainability Week” (SW), engaging with local communities/businesses. Initially, the focus was on integrating sustainability teaching within the product design curriculum for specific outcomes, however our latest case study focuses on students working as design consultants for larger organisations/public sector institutions. Design decisions often exacerbate social inequalities, environmental degradation, and economic disparities; therefore, student groups were challenged to identify problems related to sustainable design problems on [Anonymised University] city campus. Students addressed issues related to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s), defining their design challenges and proposing solutions to enhance [Anonymised University] sustainability/carbon footprint. The ongoing integration of SW has improved student knowledge in sustainable product development and systems design. Taught content focused on sustainability themes, promoting knowledge acquisition, skills development, and positive attitudes towards global issues. A pre/post-Sustainability Week survey showed significant improvements in students’ sustainability knowledge, competencies, and skills.

This work addresses a gap in design education by providing a tailored tool—a "canvas"—to facilitate the practical and ethical integration of generative AI tools into the design process. It brings a human-centered approach to preparing design students for real-world encounters with AI. It’s especially useful for design educators and students who want to prepare for real-world challenges involving AI.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the changes in foundational studies of Japanese undergraduate industrial design education under the influence of technological advancements.

Some scholars believe that design acts as a bridge between technology and human needs, and that human-centered design can make technology more emotionally and culturally meaningful. Research on design education mainly focuses on its history and current state, with limited discussion on the future trends of design education. With the continuous development of artificial intelligence, the impact of technology on design education is a topic worth exploring. In industrial design education, research is relatively limited, and the existing studies often focus on a single institution. However, industrial design education in Japanese universities is diverse, and the geographic and cultural limitations of a single sample may lead to the generalizability of conclusions. Therefore, such studies cannot provide an effective reference for forecasting the development of Japanese undergraduate industrial design education in the intelligent era.To be able to forecast the future needs, it is necessary to clarify the changes and patterns of industrial design education under the influence of technological development. With the advent of the intelligent era, how industrial design education will evolve is a topic worth exploring.

Japanese design has gone through several phases, including functionalist design, commercialist design, and a shift from designing "objects" to designing "experiences" that address social, cultural, and ecological needs.

With the rapid advancement of AI in design, researchers have proposed that generative AI can enhance human creativity in design, particularly through AI-generated images as stimuli. To explore this, we conducted an exercise in a creative design course. The exercise began with an introduction to creative methods, followed by group ideation using a collaborative sketching method. Each participant then received an AI-generated image stimulus tailored to the design task. Finally, participants developed their best ideas and reflected on the process. The reflections were analyzed alongside evaluations of the final ideas by external evaluators, who assessed the novelty and usefulness of the 18 best ideas and determined their sources of inspiration: group collaboration, the AI-generated image, both, or neither.

Results revealed that participants generally viewed the AI-generated image stimuli as unhelpful or irrelevant for ideation. Evaluators found that group collaboration significantly contributed to the best ideas, while AI-generated stimuli played a minimal role. These findings underscore the critical role of human interaction in collaborative ideation and suggest that AI tools, while promising, require further refinement to support creativity in group settings effectively.

As advancements in language model-powered text-to-image AI platforms accelerate, individuals can increasingly generate high-fidelity visual content more efficiently, regardless of background. These platforms are powerful tools for rapidly iterating and visualizing packaging design concepts. This study assesses whether AI-generated milk package designs, steered by academic packaging research, will produce packaging outcomes that perform equal to or better than human-designed outcomes with minimal designer input.

For this study, researchers curated, summarized, and combined leading academic articles on packaging design into textual AI-prompts. The textual prompts were input into the platform RunDiffusion to generate visual milk packaging designs. The images created by the platform were reviewed by 48 human participants and compared to existing, human-made milk packaging designs to determine which designs perform better according to metrics used in a previously published study at E&PDE ‘23.

The survey results indicate that the human designs slightly outperformed the AI designs in purchase likelihood and most other categories when including all survey participants. However, when non-milk users (those who rarely or never drink milk) were excluded from the results, the AI designs slightly outperformed the human designs regarding purchase likelihood. This outcome suggests that AI platforms can efficiently produce packaging design outcomes that can compete with human designs. Further, it is important that design educators understand the implications of these results, suggesting that AI platforms will increasingly be used in design workflows and academic training.

ABSTRACT:

This article explores interactions on professional social media like Slack and Teams and their consequences of use in educational and professional settings and further how they shape designers’ understanding of the concept of knowledge and in extension democratic processes. The main object of this study is how communication functions, rather than its content. We emphasize how such communication functioning informs service design practices. To investigate these mechanisms, we use theories from communication in sports, play, and games, as well as conversation- and systems theory. The effects of the conversations on professional media are discussed in relation to knowing and democratic mechanisms and change. Finally, we suggest aspects to consider when planning, facilitating, and analyzing communication in design processes in relation to democracy.

The increasing demand for individualised and adaptive prosthetic solutions required to cater for the ever-evolving amputee needs emphasises the importance of intelligent, human-centred Product-Service Systems (PSS) that help amputees throughout their prosthesis life cycle. This paper therefore contributes a novel framework for the human-centred design of smart prostheses, developed to improve the management of prosthesis product development while catering for evolving amputee needs. Our ongoing research interactions with prosthetists (the device designers) and other healthcare professionals, such as physiotherapists, have revealed that this PSS framework also functions as an educational tool, enabling the exploration of 'what if' scenarios that support learning and professional development for complex prosthesis design and aftercare challenges. Our PSS framework, adProLiSS, is based on an AI-driven ontological model of consequences arising by the prosthesis meeting different life cycle stakeholders (e.g. amputees, prosthetists, physios, service technicians). This model provides valuable information feedback to support design and re-design decision making, from initial prosthesis design to long-term aftercare.

Public services should be available and accessible to all citizens, yet marginalized categories such as Disabled and vulnerable people are not always considered during the design process and are often faced with challenges and barriers.

Through a living lab, this research provides a didactical framework to foster empathy and to design innovative smart assistive technologies for Disabled people to support their interaction with public services, overcoming barriers and empowering them. [1]

The inequitable allocation of resources in public services demands a rebalance in the attention economy[2], where marginalized groups rarely receive much of it [3]. On the other hand, assistive technologies are mainly individual devices that might not be accessible to everyone, for lack of economic resources or availability. With this didactic framework, participants will learn to design devices to cater to these necessities.

The research explores Human-centered design to bring innovation in Inclusive design, by drawing on social sciences and computer science. Qualitative methods, such as ethnographic tools and embodied methods, were used to analyse public services and empathise with Disabled people. Conversely, the data was systematised through quantitative analysis.

It is common to have post-graduate programs that focus on sustainability. The most common lens to looking at sustainability is through a life cycle assessment (LCA) perspective and assessing the impact of the use of different materials and manufacturing processes in the overall footprint of products, or the broader ESG approach where environmental, social and governance are intertwined. Engineering programs tend to focus on a rather more technical approach of life cycle assessment. Because of the details necessary for an LCA, the analyses are based on existing products, where all the information on materials and manufacturing is readily available. The Master of Science in Technology and Design in Sustainable Product Design (MTD-SPD) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) encompasses a course on Design for Sustainability where the usual aspects related to LCA are dealt with. However, two important aspects of product design with a significant impact on the environment are seldom considered: product architecture and product assembly. The MTD-SPD focuses on these aspects as well, to bring a fresh perspective into the discussion about sustainable development, deeply rooted in engineering.

The focus for this paper is on physical sketch modelling, and in particular 3D mock-ups, as tangible and experiential representations of product form and function. Although physical sketch modelling is not a new practice, there is a danger that it may become marginalized as digital modelling tools become ever more ubiquitous and favoured in student design processes. The paper puts forward a timely reappraisal of the relevance and value of physical sketch modelling in the digital design era. Definitions of product form and function are provided and then linked to general principles of modelling and sketching in design. Cognitive modelling and externalized modelling in media are introduced as a theoretical grounding for physical sketch modelmaking, followed by a review of the materials and resources typically required. Tensions between digital and physical form creation approaches are discussed. The main comprises a design studio project, where undergraduate industrial design students (n=85) worked in teams to design sustainable take-away food packing and serving solutions. Students were required to develop and communicate product form and function ideas via 3D mock-ups. An analysis of the outcomes established five key areas where 3D mock-ups have advantages over computer aided design (CAD): human factors, form definition and styling, usage scenarios, materialization, and design communication. The paper highlights the importance of retaining physical sketch modelling as a complementary approach, emphasizing its benefits in developing product forms, improving spatial reasoning, and enhancing early-stage design development.

Emerging technologies have become the engine that accelerates student learning in higher education, combined with educational innovations based on gamification and an attractive story behind the learning of concepts that are difficult to explain and usually tedious for students. Students are achieving excellent results in the teaching-learning process, which is reflected in the development of skills by the students. This work continues research presented at E&PDE 24 based on AR and VR lessons for engineering students' learning. Below, we present the deployment in different training units at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, the University of Seville, and the Mälardalen University.

In this research, we present a systemic vision of the deployment of a global classroom in the classroom, which is the interaction at a certain moment in class with students and teachers from other universities to develop common competencies through the solution of an academic challenge.

The design of experiments and design thinking is applied to prepare the deployment of the activity in class and measure the effect on students through three variables: engagement, development of competencies, and learning.

Design Jams are intensive, collaborative workshops where students tackle real-world challenges within a limited timeframe. These events foster rapid ideation, teamwork, and hands-on problem-solving, often with a focus on practical solutions and diverse perspectives. By viewing universities as incubators of innovation and creativity rather than merely centres for knowledge (re-)production, we explore innovative methods to enhance student creativity in higher education. This paper elaborates on the use of Design Jams as one example of such innovative educational methods. In our Design Jam, we employed creative tools to collaboratively address future challenges, focusing on creating scenarios for the planned neighbourhood Nyhavna, with young residents at the centre. The event served as a platform for discussion, perspective-sharing, and co-creating diverse visions of the future through expert presentations, hands-on activities, and group presentations, drawing approximately 90 participants including students, professionals from Trondheim Municipality, and representatives from local neighbourhoods and associations. We share experiences and lessons learned from running the Design Jam both as both an integral part of two design courses and as a standalone event with its own value. This work aims to inspire others involved in collaborative design education practices that foster creativity through multi-perspective processes and innovative teaching methods.

Child drowning is a major issue in Bangladesh, with over 14,000 children dying annually, primarily in rural areas with numerous bodies of water. Seasonal flooding exacerbates the risk, especially for children under five who often lack close adult supervision. The Sonamoni project, funded by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), aims to develop culturally sensitive, sustainable solutions to prevent child drowning. This multidisciplinary initiative is led by Bournemouth University (BU) and the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB), in collaboration with the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE), the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the University of Southampton (UoS), and Design Without Borders, Uganda (DWB).

The project included an ideation workshop inspired by the design process curriculum for Level 4 engineering students at the University of Southampton. This workshop engaged drowning prevention practitioners, researchers and designers to generate and evaluate intervention concepts using tools like the “Crazy 8” ideation technique and lean principles. Challenges such as cultural and language barriers and non-formal educational backgrounds were addressed through flexible facilitation methods and iterative testing.

Several promising intervention prototypes emerged from the workshop and are being piloted in northern and southern Bangladesh. The project highlights the potential of educational ideation frameworks to tackle real-world public health crises and suggests broader applications for similar global health challenges. Future efforts will focus on refining workshop materials and scaling successful interventions.

Each year, the Graduation Projects of our fourth-year industrial design students address a wide range of design challenges, demonstrating the significant value of industrial design in creating innovative products, services, and systems. These projects, with commercial relevance to current or future markets, are supported by external advisors from diverse sectors, such as electronics, healthcare, transportation, and defense. This collaborative approach reflects the multi- and trans-disciplinary nature of complex design challenges. For three consecutive years, we introduced a semester theme to unify the projects and encourage creative thinking across sectors. One such theme, “Connection-Connectivity-Connectedness,” focused on designing products, systems, and services that foster emotional, psychological, social, cognitive, physical, and environmental bonds. This approach allowed students to engage with a broad range of perspectives while exploring innovative solutions. Although the design studio instructors, having since moved on to another course, are no longer involved in the Graduation Projects studio, the practice of setting a theme has been maintained. This paper explores the studio activities that supported the theme development in students’ projects, culminating in an analysis of how the theme manifested in the final outcomes. It also reflects on the benefits of using a unifying theme to guide student design work and foster interdisciplinary collaboration. The paper concludes with the insight that themes, when applied to projects involving diverse sectors, can encourage fresh insights and innovative approaches, prompting companies to look at a design brief from new angles and reach innovative solutions.

Aim: In design education, ethical challenges often arise when design research involves recruiting stakeholders for primary research. This leads to project delays due to increased approval times, suitability of research topics, qualifications of the researcher, or additional ethics committee approvals. As such, many undergraduate design projects may not be compliant with university ethics procedures. Therefore, this study proposes a framework that assists design researchers in identifying suitable alternatives to engaging stakeholders, especially those considered vulnerable, thereby keeping their research within less complicated ethical boundaries.

Methods: Publicly available ethics committee protocols from European academic institutions were reviewed to assess frequency of REC meeting, project information required, and participant recruitment information. Ethics applications from a science and engineering ethics committee, and their feedback were reviewed for instances of participant recruitment. Recently graduated product designers were interviewed to understand their stakeholder requirements and ethical considerations, and potential workaround they employed when engaging with design projects at an academic level.

Results: A co-design research model was developed to prompt researchers to identify alternatives to higher-risk stakeholders at two milestone stages of the design process: research and design validation. Criteria for identifying potential surrogate participants is also suggested. This model can be used to prompt design researchers to recruit suitable surrogate participants based on the type of project.

Conclusions: There is a need for a more streamlined ethics approval process for design research, especially at undergraduate level with tight deadlines. The proposed model enhances clarity in the design research process, maintaining research integrity and improving ethical compliance while minimising time costs. By proactively identifying surrogate participants, researchers can reduce future ethical complexities, although this may involve a trade-off between research depth and participant suitability.

This paper draws on a body of research undertaken by the author to determine how effective a student-centred flipped classroom intervention can be when used as the framework to enhance and transform student learning and professional identity formation through reflective practice. This research examines student experience of a professional practice module on the BSc. Product Design at TU Dublin. The motivation for the development of the structure of the module was to improve student engagement and learning through creating a student-centred experience that enabled students to optimise their learning opportunity while meeting the educational outcomes. The module was designed to be student centred in terms of their own learning enabling strong feedback for co-creation of this experience. This paper also presents some insights into the way this format can be used to enable a type of discourse that can assist students/graduates in forming values around ethics and responsibility within the profession but also as citizens.

Identifying design opportunities through a human-centered approach requires immersive contextual research—an essential process that can yield insights into stakeholder needs during the critical front-end phase of design. This paper presents a structured and rigorous framework for translating observational data into actionable design insights and opportunity spaces, a process relevant to both professional and student design researchers.

The research team conducted over one hundred hours of observational shadowing within the postnatal unit of a university teaching hospital. Four design researchers collected hand-written notes, which were then transcribed, reviewed for accuracy, and synthesized into detailed vignettes. These vignettes were further coded and clustered into themes and sub-themes, revealing a rich landscape of early-stage challenges and opportunities.

Developing vignettes is a method which offers several key benefits. First, it provides a credible, stakeholder-validated process for translating qualitative data into design insights. Second, the vignette format serves as an effective synthesis tool, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration and ensuring that sensitive healthcare content is protected and accurately represented.

Finally, this framework demonstrates potential for educational applications, as design students can practice navigating complex observational research and communicating opportunity-focused, evidence-based design decisions.

By sharing this methodology, the researchers hope to bring greater rigor to early-phase design research practices, while also equipping the next generation of designers with versatile tools for transforming observations into impactful catalysts for innovation. This work underscores the value of user-centered design approaches, particularly within sensitive, high-stakes domains like healthcare.

Despite the recent interest in utilizing More-Than-Human Design (MTHD) in design research, education, and practice, its integration into design curricula remains limited. This is because MTHD requires design students to engage with multiple stakeholders during the design process, explore relationships among them, including those of humans and nonhumans, and represent these relations and more-than-human users. This paper addresses this challenge by introducing a categorization for more-than-human (MTH) representation tools and providing recommendations for integrating the MTHD approach into design education and practice, particularly supporting decision-making in preparing MTH user representations.

The field of Design for Women’s Health (DfWH) has gained momentum with the rise of FemTech, a sector dedicated to addressing women’s healthcare needs. From fertility trackers to menopause management tools, FemTech is expanding rapidly. However, many of these products face criticism for lacking scientific validation or failing to meet real healthcare needs, prompting deeper discussion on their actual impact on women’s health outcomes.

In design education, student interest in women’s health projects is increasing, reflecting a broader shift toward gender equity in healthcare. However, these projects present challenges, including limited access to comprehensive research, difficulties in reaching affected women, and ethical and wellbeing concerns when addressing sensitive health topics. Additionally, constraints in real-world testing and prototyping hinder product refinement and validation.

This paper proposes a model for integrating women’s health projects into design education by emphasising interdisciplinary collaboration, specialised resources, and alternative testing methods. Partnering with healthcare professionals and researchers can provide students with valuable insights and access to gender-specific data. When real-world testing is not feasible, virtual simulations and indirect user testing can serve as effective alternatives.

With the right support, students can navigate the complexities of designing for women’s health. By fostering collaboration, providing tailored resources, and encouraging creative problem-solving, this research posits that design educators can empower students to develop innovative, meaningful, and scientifically sound solutions for women’s healthcare.

The rapid evolution of CAD technologies and their integration with product lifecycle management (PLM) systems poses significant challenges for experienced designers. Transitioning to new software often requires relearning workflows and adopting unfamiliar functionality, which can lead to productivity disruptions and frustration. To address this, the company ARTECH GmbH proposes an innovative e-learning course tailored for experienced designers, specifically designed to foster their mastery of new systems.

This paper explores the development and deployment of a training course designed to balance technical training with empathy for users' professional expertise and learning styles. The course uses human-centred methods to address the unique needs of experienced designers, recognizing their existing skills and emphasizing adaptive strategies rather than rote learning. Core training components include self-paced modules, interactive tutorials, and project-based learning, all aligned with real-world design challenges integrated with PLM systems.

A key focus of the course is the integration of the user experience throughout the lifecycle of products and services. Designers will be guided to understand how new CAD tools affect collaboration, prototyping and the eventual lifecycle management of designs. By simulating multi-user, multi-modal scenarios, the course promotes collaborative design thinking and enhances designers' ability to consider multiple perspectives and criteria in their workflows.

I

Sketching is seen as a fundamental element of a design process which allows ambiguity to be maintained and facilitates the perception of new possibilities, re-interpretation and synthesis. Often it is crucial for exploring human aspects of design. At the same time contemporary engineering design education approaches typically do not include sketching explicitly and there are reports of students’ reluctance to sketch. To explore this contradiction interviews were conducted with three experienced engineering design professionals, focusing on how they used sketching while designing and compared them to student’s sketching practices, identified though sketch output analysis. Results show that sketching is still a part of the design processes of professionals, which is sometimes used in creative ways with computer aided design but is used less habitually in students’ work. This paper discusses potential reasons behind this and potential ways to reintroduce sketching to engineering education.

Reflection enables individuals to derive meaning from experiences. It is deeply ingrained in an empathic interaction that fosters a nuanced understanding of varied perspectives. While empathy is recognised as a transformative tool in design education, a limited number of studies explore students' empathy development. By leveraging Virtual Reality (VR) capabilities, including perspective-taking and emotion elicitation, combined with the innate human capacity for reflection, this research investigates a structured approach through a qualitative study to enhance design students’ empathy and integrate it into design education. Driven by the need for human-centred design (HCD) practices to foster more-than-human perspectives, participants were invited to step into the world of a tree using VR, followed by a self-reflective writing activity in which they recalled their thoughts and emotions during the virtual experience. This research introduces a novel method for eliciting augmented empathic experiences by heightening design students’ awareness of a unique perspective and deepening their insight into their personal experience. The method facilitates long-term evaluation of empathy responses, providing opportunities for sustained empathy development. By broadening students' understanding of diverse perspectives, this study lays the foundation for a new generation of human-centred design solutions that embed inclusive, social, and ecological values within design education.

The future in industry and academia collaborative models for fostering smart products and living areas will be more and more triggered by the human being and involving the user within digital tools. Integrating children as creator means an advanced step in the nearby future, not only from the economical point of view, because of the ‘war for fighting for talents around the world’, but also for profiting by the human centred, more emotional and sociological point of view for resilient living models. This scoping paper is showing – with the naïve beneficial view by children and their beloved digital creating items within immersive hybrid design spaces – that playing in design as experimenting (transgenerational) design could be more than one resilient factor for holding on humanities for STEM. Hybrid design education by children centred mixed media design spaces will have an impetus on participatory design that means integrative designing in more than one level. At the same time all participants will have an educational benefit by cooperation of human beings with AI design(ed) experiences memory.

Understanding human-centred design and developing products for diverse populations are crucial skills for product designers to develop. Many UK undergraduate product design students come from diverse backgrounds acquiring varying qualifications at school/college level which are usually further supplemented by Non-Exam Assessments (NEAs). These preparatory courses provide practical skills and theoretical knowledge but often overlook human-centred design and effective ideation/iteration. First-year students typically have limited experience designing for broader populations, usually designing products for themselves or family members. Early undergraduate education must therefore emphasize researching and designing for diverse population groups by connecting research activities to iterative design processes for continual improvement. This involves considering varying factors such as aesthetics, ergonomics, usability, manufacturability, cost, etc. This paper presents a case study on first-year BSc Product Design (BSc PD) students at [Anonymised University] that engage in two projects in the first 10 weeks of their undergraduate education. The first project involves redesigning a power tool using an iterative design process. Students choose one of three preset user personas and select a power tool (electric screwdriver, detail sander, or jigsaw) to redesign using a human-centred approach. The second project is a cardboard lighting project where students design a light for a home based on a user persona they formulate but are required to focus on diverse living populations. Key findings highlight how the quality of student outputs improve when they develop an understanding of product sectors while empathizing with users and identifying their needs using human centred design (HCD) and varying research methods.

Saudi Arabia's design ecosystem has expanded rapidly with many early career designers starting their own studios and companies. Despite their creativity and technical expertise, these early career designers face a number of challenges in developing their businesses. This paper, part of larger PhD project, explores the key challenges early career designers face across various geographical regions of Saudi Arabia (i.e., Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, Jazan, and Tabuk/Yanbu) in the development of their design start-up company. The paper focuses on the skills and knowledge required for effective design start-ups in Saudi Arabia, including marketing, business development, and client relationships. While conventional design education often prioritises technical skills, many “soft” skills needed to run a successful design firm are potentially overlooked. This research aims to address this gap by examining the major challenges faced by designers in the Saudi Arabia design ecosystem whilst identifying the key skills needed to flourish. The main objective of this research is to examine what early career designers believe are the essential skills for developing a successful design business. To gather insights, the research conducted semi-structured interviews with novice designers in five cities across Saudi Arabia. Participants were asked about the skills and knowledge they felt were necessary for business growth, specifically focusing on the question, "What knowledge/ skills do you need to achieve a successful business?" A thematical analysis of the data identified common trends across different regions and different design disciplines.

Much of what surrounds us today has been designed – the furniture we use, the clothes we wear, the systems we interact with, and even most of the food we eat. While design enables considerable progress, it has inevitably also led to the exploitation of resources, overconsumption, pollution, and destruction. Designers play a vital role in shaping the future and must assume responsibility for the impact their work has on the world. Transitioning from a throw-away to a circular consumer culture presents a promising way towards a more sustainable future. However, for this transition to occur, circularity needs to be integrated early into the design process – not only as an afterthought. Therefore, designers need to develop mindsets that allow them to apply circular principles in their everyday practice. When equipped with such knowledge they can better contribute to a more sustainable future by reducing the destructive impact humans have on the planet.

Prior work has focused on developing methods and tools that foster circular mindsets in designers. The Circular Strategies Wheel, a framework that has been developed in collaboration with Danish Design Center (DDC), is such a tool. This framework leverages three lifecycle stages of products and materials: 1) The start of life phase, 2) The product life/use phase and 3) The end-of-life phase. However, like many others, this tool requires facilitation and is not easily scaled when targeting designers, creatives, and makers in large communities. Thus, in this study, we investigate different methods to disseminate circular strategies among designers, supporting their work of transitioning towards a more circular practice, and thereby influencing their design approaches in a scalable manner.

We hypothesized that self-guided design journals are a viable alternative to facilitated workshops for distributing circular strategies among designers in makerspaces and fab labs. To test this hypothesis, participants in this study were introduced to 18 circular strategies through either a facilitated workshop or a self-guided design journal. After leveraging these strategies in a design project of their own choice, participants were asked to self-assess their knowledge. Analysis of the findings showed no significant differences between the self-guided design journals and the facilitated workshops, suggesting that both methods are similarly motivating and suitable to help foster circular mindsets among designers in makerspaces and fab labs. This insight is encouraging as it suggests fewer resources might be needed to foster mindsets. However, the workshop significantly increased participants’ self-assessed knowledge about circular economy as well as their level of confidence in their own ability to apply circular strategies in their future design practice, suggesting that facilitated learning still offers additional benefits.

The design of products explicitly for shared usage remains underexplored, and design methodologies have not been altered to today's rapid societal changes.

A world facing challenges such as environmental pollution, social inequality, resource scarcity, changing regulations and consumer behaviour is in growing need for innovative solutions. Sharing goods can be one of those venues that lead to a more sustainable future. This understanding, combined with technological advancements, has in recent years, contributed to its rapid expansion. Research has primarily examined its advantages, and disadvantages, often focussed on its economic and ecological implications, but its design methods have been underexplored.

In most cases, products in sharing initiatives are not designed for shared use. Most recent developments are currently found in mobility, e.g., Uber, Poppy, and Lime, though still facing challenges around sustainability, vandalism, and its social impacts on their contexts. Products are designed and then shared, often without considering their adaptability and inclusiveness within diverse communities of sharing systems. There has been little to no development of methods for creating physical products specifically with sharing in mind.

This research proposes a methodology for designing physical products specifically intended for shared use with the research question 'How can we design for sharing' emphasizing adaptability, product-service system, community-centred, psychological ownership, etc. By bridging the gap in current design practices, this approach aims to reshape how products are conceptualized for circular, shared, and durable economies.

As product design education evolves, the focus has shifted from creating tangible objects to delivering comprehensive product-service systems. Achieving a truly human-centred approach in student practice requires rethinking how we educate future designers and engineers. This paper examines the development of a European Low-Tech Hackathon, where students worked within a specific context of human and technological constraints. The Hackathon challenged participants to create solutions with a minimal technological footprint, aligning with sustainability principles and the core values of Low-Tech. It offers a unique lens through which to explore how technological education must adapt to contemporary demands for product and service innovation.

The Hackathon’s outputs were primarily service-based product concepts, each featuring a notable physical touchpoint that responded directly to the local community’s needs. The Hackathon approach demonstrates how inclusive design practices can be integrated into educational models to build an understanding of inclusivity and user-centredness. As “outsiders” to the community where the Hackathon was held, the students worked in multilingual, multicultural and multidisciplinary teams, adding complexity to their process. This outsider status highlighted the need for deep engagement with unfamiliar environments, prompting participants to question assumptions about resources, needs, and requirements. Ultimately, they developed solutions rooted in the specific human, social, and environmental contexts they encountered, using the lowest and most appropriate level of technology necessary to meet those needs.

In addition, this paper explores the relationship between “dumb objects”—simple, non-technologically intense items—and smart systems. While much of contemporary design education focuses on the complexity of smart, interconnected products, the Low-Tech Hackathon presented a counter-narrative, showing that simple, accessible technologies can effectively solve complex problems, especially in underserved or resource-constrained communities. This reinforces the principle of appropriateness in design: choosing solutions that fit the context rather than defaulting to high-tech approaches. The action of choosing the appropriate technology to respond to specific needs carries a reflection process directly related to the role of technology in our lives and the need to develop educational frameworks that encourage techno-diversity.

This Hackathon format illustrates a streamlined educational approach that empowers students to tackle real-world challenges without overwhelming them with the complexities of high technology. By prioritising simplified, context-appropriate solutions, the Hackathon allows students to engage with ecological, human-centred, practical challenges in a manageable framework. Through this experience, students are encouraged to critically assess their assumptions about resources and technology, preparing them to engage with both the practical and ethical dimensions of design.

In advocating for hackathon-style learning experiences, this paper highlights the potential of such approaches to foster empathetic and ecologically focussed, human-centred design thinking. These experiences can drive a shift away from techno-solutionist interventions, guiding students toward contextually appropriate, sustainable, and human-driven outcomes. By embedding this model within design curricula, we can create a more inclusive, transdisciplinary, and responsive design education that meets the global challenges facing the next generation of designers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been embraced in design education and practice communities, and there is now an interest in creating learning experiences which are informed by this new paradigm. Encouraged by institutional support for principled “continuous improvement” and “innovation” which could appropriately integrate AI for teaching, learning and assessment, we explored Vizcom, an AI tool that enhances sketch-based image generation and integrates with CAD and digital workflows. We wanted to understand the patterns of transition between students’ past design and AI experiences into Vizcom. Our interventions took place in two Product Design modules (classes) —one undergraduate (UG) and one postgraduate (PG) —both focused on transitioning from sketches through to CAD or physical models. Vizcom was introduced in computer lab sessions, offering students exposure to emerging digital tools, and they were asked to then complete tasks related to thir project work. Analysis reviewed student outputs from the dedicated Vizcom, sessions, their exhibition work (from UG intervention 1) and a survey of particpants of intervention 2. Results showed that it was different for students to move beyond superficial experiences within short timescales, and relatively few (10/50) carried it through inot their project work. Of those that did, there was evidence of integration of the tool. The survey may suggest those students less confident about their rendering skills were more likely to be impressed by vizcom, and that there was a correlation between positive perception of vizcom and agreement that it should be used in educational settings.

Through exploration of the literature on design project assessment themes, five dimensions were defined and presented as ‘lenses’ to help explore the challenges and variance in design project assessment. These were: Assessing Output v Process; Summative v Formative; Teacher-led v Student-led; Assessment of Learning v Assessment for/as Learning; and Individual v Team Assessment. These dimensions provide key considerations for design educators when re-designing existing or developing new modules and courses. Using the Lotus Blossom method, educators participated in sharing their insights on the dimensions, which then formed the basis of a workshop at the Design 2024 Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Findings showed the variance in educational outcomes desired by industry project partners versus those emphasised in academia: industry project partners often value demonstrable technical proficiency and client-focused deliverables over process nuances (i.e. project knowledge); whilst most educators place higher importance on the iterative nature of design processes as a learning tool for students (i.e. process skills). Based on insights from the workshop, a framework was then developed as a means to review and potentially adjust assessment by adopting an emphasis on design knowledge, skills and products. It can also be used as an iterative feedback mechanism to balance industry expectations and educational goals to support more effective preparation pathways for students transitioning into professional practice and guide effective instructional assessment design.

There are many challenges when it comes to assessment in design education and technical study programs. Some of these challenges come from reduced public funding and increased marketisation (Bretag et al., 2019), the rise in new technologies that impact the student’s way of responding to assignments (Cotton et al., 2023), and students’ demand for fair assessment (Sambell et al.,1997).

To address these challenges, we aimed to assist educators in creating and innovating assessment methods. We developed an assessment framework and a physical tool, drawing on the work of Topping (1998), Pittaway & Edwards (2012), Wenninger (2019), and Babatunde et al. (2021). While the framework is still in progress, the tool has undergone numerous iterations and successful prototype trials.

The development of this tool began in the spring of 2023, following the method outlined by Spinuzzi (2005). Over a hundred international educators have tested various prototypes.

Our development process included the following steps:

1) Idea generation

2) Development of dimensions for assessments

3) Testing on users (educators)

4) Revision and implementation of feedback of the tool

5) Testing on more users (educators)

6) Prototyping

Understanding the nuances of informal design techniques is not merely an academic exercise, but a practical necessity for designers seeking to excel in their craft. Informal techniques encourage designers to propose any and all potential solutions that come to mind, utilising their given knowledge and intuition, with a focus on idea quantity and diversity. In this paper, the outcomes of a research investigation employing brainwalking as an informal ideation technique are shared. Students revealed evidence for enhanced creative outcomes of teamwork. Key issues are discussed including evidence for the effectiveness or shortcomings of existing informal design techniques, identification if informal design technique that could be better suited to certain design tasks when working in a group, and if informal techniques are capable of enabling better creative results than comparative formal ones.

The main goal of a Master’s or PhD student is to obtain their graduate degree, which is dependent on the successful progress of their research. In the context of biotechnology, the design of graduate projects can be conceptualized as an engineering product. The present work explores the integration of project management frameworks into the design and execution of graduate research projects, emphasizing their potential to enhance productivity and innovation.

Effective project design in graduate studies requires a systematic approach that mirrors engineering principles. Students are encouraged to formulate their research questions and objectives clearly, akin to defining product specifications in engineering.

Using Project management tools, Soft systems, and Agile methodologies, can significantly streamline the research process, unfortunately most if not all graduate students in Tecnologicos de Monterrey Campus Queretaro don't utilize them during their research project.

Employing this integrated project management framework can help structure pathways toward achieving successful research outcomes and enhance their research effectiveness and contribute meaningfully to advancements in biotechnology.

Design has only recently begun to be acknowledged as a discipline and an academic area of inquiry. It owes this recognition, in part, to the perseverance of a community of scholars in articulating the design process by developing systematic design methodologies. Nevertheless, despite the several amounts of design process representations, we observed a lack of confidence among industrial design students in understanding and applying a structured design methodology when approaching mid-complexity product design projects. Dealing with complexity and making well-founded and justified design decisions often represent a challenge for novice designers. Hence, this paper aims to strengthen the coherence of the educational framework and ensure the learning outcomes of two sequential product design studio courses in the MSc in Design & Engineering program—Product Development Design Studio (PDDS) in the first year and Final Project Work (FPW) in the second year—are achieved. In both courses, the teaching staff experimented with different visualizations of the design process proposed in the course, with the aim of empowering design students by enhancing their awareness of the design process, design decision-making and fostering key competencies to face real-world challenges.

This study was conducted during the first semester of the 2024-25 academic year, when the authors, as part of the two different teaching staff, proposed a visual framing of the design process in their course. These visual representations were developed independently for each course and consistently with the proposed project pathway within it.

This technical paper discusses a collaborative research project involving three Brazilian universities and a company specializing in the manufacture of lifting and transport equipment. The company, with a long-standing presence in this specific market, was facing durability issues in one of its key products. In response, the company's management sought academic support to address the fatigue durability problem. Under the guidance of four professors from 3 different academic institutions (Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria and Centro Universitário FEI) a Mechanical Engineering student from the latter institution was selected to participate in the research project. In an effort to solve the issue, concepts from Design Methodology, Machine Elements, Solid Mechanics, and the Finite Element Method were applied. These tools provided the foundation for diagnosing and eliminating the root causes of the durability problem. CAD and CAE software were employed for modelling, analysis, and structural optimization, leading to an effective solution that met the company's needs. Once the solution was implemented by the equipment manufacturer, as a secondary effect and a way to reinforce the learning experience for Mechanical Engineering students, the solved problem was integrated into the exercise list of the Machine Elements course. Students were then challenged to solve the problem and encouraged to fabricate scaled prototypes using additive manufacturing techniques, such as 3D printing. This approach enabled a deeper understanding of design concepts, enhancing spatial awareness and comprehension of three-dimensional vector phenomena, while promoting problem-based learning and the practical application of theoretical knowledge.

In an era defined by rapid technological advancement and complex global challenges, design education must evolve to equip students with the critical, creative, and anticipatory skills needed to shape sustainable futures. This paper presents Design Futureverse, an innovative didactic experiment integrating Virtual Reality (VR) and Spatial social platform to enhance design students' creative potential and promote a hybrid learning methodology. Design Futureverse creates interactive virtual environments where students explore speculative futures, collaborate on design projects, and develop future-oriented mindsets. The project operates on three levels: individual, team, and process, offering personalized learning experiences, fostering teamwork, and enhancing storytelling and communication through immersive speculative environments. This study examines the potential of VR to bridge the gap between abstract design concepts and tangible experiences, demonstrating how immersive technologies and hybrid didactics can transform design education. The findings suggest that while VR can significantly enhance engagement and creative thinking, challenges related to workload and balancing physical and virtual components remain. Design Futureverse offers a promising model for the future of educational methodologies, contributing to a deeper understanding of how VR and hybrid learning can prepare the next generation of designers to navigate and shape uncertain futures.

Industry 5.0 is disrupting industrial design and forcing it to rethink its methodologies and workflows from ideation to conceptualisation, design, development and production. Because of this new Industrial Revolution stage, leading thinkers say that designers need once more to adapt or disappear by transitioning from using technology as a tool to collaborating with it since technology has become intelligent. Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its applications (e.g., Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Vizcom) put the role of industrial designers under review, from designer-makers to designer-curators. Today, GenAI can make countless instantaneous images. Before, it took many hours to produce each one. Industrial design fields that rely on freehand representation, such as product and transportation design, stand to be most disrupted. The authors partnered with a leading GenAI company to explore if high proficiency in two-dimensional (2D) sketching and rendering still constitutes an advantage in transportation design. A mini-mobility challenge was proposed. The participants were divided into two groups: untrained students and trained experts with transportation design sketching and rendering skills. Participants used auto-ethnography to record their journey and reflect on their experience and process. An expert panel compared the results and evaluated the proficiency of 2D freehand sketches against alternatives provided by GenAI intervention. The researchers and experts observed tipping points for the changes in roles of designer-makers to designer-curators who also oversee and collaborate with artificial intelligence. Research outcomes offer recommendations of good practices for GenAI use and ways to update design education curricula to equip future professionals in the field.

In this work, we extended the STEAM x D (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics, and D = Design Thinking) framework to international student transdisciplinary product design training (e.g., outside conventional classroom context). The student training was carried out through an international institutional collaboration between universities in Vietnam and Singapore, termed the Freshmore Asean Co-curriculum Trip (FACT) developed for first-year students at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). In the collaboration with Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV), 30 first-year SUTD students and 18 second-, and third-year FUV students participated in a 5-day product design programme with emphasis on sustainability of the textile industry (e.g., clothing re-use and shoe design and fabrication). In the programme, the double diamond design thinking framework (Discovery, Define, Develop, Deliver) was applied while students received “just-in-time” training in various disciplines, such as the socio-cultural-historical context, Micro-design innovation, sight visits, sustainable design, idea generation, prototyping, and communication. At the end of the 5-day programme, student teams of 4-5 students showcased their prototypes/ideas to a panel of expert judges from academia and industry to receive prompt feedback. In general, some prototypes raised the interest of involved and third parties due to their creative solutions, while the programme student survey feedback showed high levels of student engagement, enhanced awareness of Design Thinking, Sustainable Design, Transdisciplinary Design, and the Socio-historical-cultural context when addressing real-life problems. Overall, the participating students found the 5-day international product design programme a useful, enriching, and unique design experience.

Access to clean water has been raised by the UN as one of the greatest challenges of humanity, located in SDG number 4. This situation is a reality in many places, where highly extreme conditions are faced, long drought seasons followed by intense storms that overflow and destroy cities, Monterrey, Mexico, has lived this for decades, however the situation worsened due to factors such as mismanagement by the government, abuse by private companies and lack of water care culture of citizens.

Also, there is a strong need to develop professionals who can address complex projects through design methodologies and who are able to propose and develop innovative solutions, focused on the needs of people and considering the impact of such solutions on biodiversity by creating sustainable projects with high social impact. The students used the human-centered design (HCD) to integrate affected communities in the design process.

This article examines the results of projects carried out between 2021 and 2024, all of which address challenges related to water. The projects were developed by students in their fourth semester of bachelor’s degree in design at Tecnologico de Monterrey.

The main aspects analyzed were water use, management and recycling, prevention of water pollution, rainwater collection, quality monitoring, types of users, as well as commercial feasibility and user experience.

This article discusses key lessons learned and provides a framework for future projects that seek to address water supply issues through a human-centered approach.

Sustainability is becoming a fundamental consideration in engineering and product design, requiring approaches that minimise environmental impact. Environmental profiling offers a structured method for evaluating site-specific biomarkers to support data-driven, non-intrusive design interventions. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of environmental profiling in sustainable design and to propose a structured framework for co-designing with nature. Insights from case studies present the effects of integrating remote sensing into design interventions in conjunction with the dissemination of the created environmental profile and captured data through design and visualisation tools. Implications of applying the suggested workflow in various educational contexts, modes and curricula for fostering sustainability-driven design thinking are also provided.

The ‘Ten Golden Rules’ for promoting sustainability in product development offer a simple and practical method for integrating ecological principles into the development process. This method has proven particularly successful in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small development teams, as it provides easy-to-understand and cost-effective guidelines that can be implemented without extensive resources. In essence, the ‘Ten Golden Rules’ aim to minimise material consumption, avoid environmentally harmful substances, promote product longevity and improve reusability and recyclability.

In this contribution, an approach is developed to take up the perspective of the Ten Golden Rules and expand on them. In order to be able to use it as an up-to-date holistic project alignment tool. A central aspect of the further development of the method is the greater consideration of social sustainability. This extension ensures that not only ecological, but also ethical and social aspects of the value chain come into focus. This includes fair working conditions and transparency in the supply chain. The promotion of modularity and reparability is also increasingly seen as an important step forward in extending the service life of products and minimising waste.

This paper presents the Circular Economies in Design Workshops project, an initiative focused on transforming plastic waste into educational resources to advance sustainability within the university and help align with broader EU sustainability goals. Through hands-on processes like desktop injection moulding, students repurpose plastic waste into tools and components for educational purposes whilst also promoting sustainable practices in design workshops. The paper will discuss the project’s objectives, methods, and student involvement and consider the broader implications for sustainability, education and student-championed institutional change.

Ireland ranks among the EU’s highest offenders for unrecycled plastic waste. Of the 53.1 million tons of plastic waste produced, only 38% is estimated to be recycled (Eurostat, 2022). Within the university, workshops for design and engineering activities currently lack facilities for recycling waste plastic. This, combined with constrained budgets and the rising cost of materials, creates significant challenges to student engagement and the adoption of sustainable practices.

The Circular Economies in Design Workshops project aims to reduce the waste generated from plastic-based activities in the workshops by repurposing the waste stream to create project components and educational tools, benefiting students and staff.

The project employs active, experiential learning to instil industry-relevant recycling skills in students and staff. It seeks to actively engage students in waste management in these spaces by transforming plastic waste into a usable material stream, fostering a culture of environmental responsibility within the university. This project also seeks to provide students with a practical understanding of how plastic can be repurposed within their projects. This will be achieved through manufacturing methods such as Injection moulding and FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) 3D Printing whilst also learning the practical requirements of part design for injection moulding and mould tool design.

This approach is expected to reduce plastic waste by 50% within workshop environments, promoting a shift in student attitudes towards recycling and resource management. In the near future, other modules and courses will likely participate and help reach our TU-Dublin sustainability goals. Participation from external organisations is also expected. This project will act as a pillar to support the foundational work of two projects within organisations external to the university.

The project aims to inspire other universities and organisations to adopt similar practices by aligning with EU sustainability targets, setting a precedent for integrating circular economy models into educational spaces. The design workshops represent only a portion of the university’s overall waste plastic output, underscoring the potential for broader implementation across a wider range of lab and workshop facilities and a greater potential to improve the waste profile of the institution.

The purpose of this paper is 1) to demonstrate how knowledge transfer between academia and industry takes place in a collaborative and workshop-based process and 2) to discuss how that process contributes to industrial operationalization of research-based knowledge. This research is conducted within Project Y (2023-2026), which focuses on development and testing of recycled textiles made of feedstock from post-consumer textile waste. This paper is centred on the development of a material-driven design model for clothing and textiles. In Project Y 13 partners from academia and industry within textile recycling, weaving and knitting manufacturing as well as fashion, workwear and interior design experiment with material driven design to investigate, evaluate and eventually put recycled materials into use. In the period October 2023 to October 2024, six workshops were executed. Each workshop led to a new variation of the material driven design model, aiming to develop a material-driven design process that is operational in the industrial processes of apparel and textiles. The workshops were all based on co-creation between academic and industrial partners, all representing a variety of different fields within their professions. We finalize the paper discussing the benefits of co-creation between academia and industry and how it leads to mutual understanding and open spaces of opportunity.

Prototyping is fundamental to the design process, whether as a highly exploratory process in concept generation, as a communication tool with stakeholders and team members, or to refine a final concept. However, educators still perpetuate the use of permanent materials to make temporary artefacts. To understand this contradiction, reveal prototyping impact and student’s perception of their process, a study was conducted across two undergraduate industrial design courses at Syracuse University which centred on circular economy and fast-track life cycle assessment implementation. In the first course, students produced ‘looks like’ prototypes of redesigned electronics for the circular economy. They were encouraged, not required, to use materials that could enter the recycling stream and to document their material flows: what was embodied in the prototype and what was wasted. A self-reflection on their prototyping process and impact on course content of their future practice was captured. In the second course, students produced groups of three replica prototypes differing only in material (e.g. cardboard, Bristol paper, foamboard) or production techniques (e.g. 3DP, CNC) for life cycle assessment (LCA).

Results indicated that providing students with knowledge on the environmental impacts of common prototyping material gave them more data to choose when materials should be used in their process, or whether they should be avoided entirely. This work adds to the growing literature on the need to both formally and informally teach design and engineering students to think critically about their own process and contribution to our collective impact as an industry.

How designers conceptualize and translate forms is deeply personal, often influenced by their creative abilities, educational training, and experiences. While companies expect designers to generate multiple form alternatives of comparable quality, teaching this skill presents unique challenges, especially in a design environment increasingly dominated by digital randomness.

When novice students are tasked with translating abstract concepts into tangible forms, their initial outputs often reflect a limited understanding of form articulation, relying heavily on conventional or literal interpretations. This assignment bridges that gap by introducing a structured methodology that uses music as a non-physical inspiration. By drawing from two contrasting music pieces (e.g., classical and rock, meditative and metallic etc.), students are encouraged to explore the emotive, rhythmic, and structural patterns of sound. They translate these auditory stimuli into visual compositions, progressing from two-dimensional sketches to three-dimensional volumetric forms.

This pedagogical approach emphasizes the importance of exploring expression and intangible inspirations to create forms that are exclusive and contextually rich. The step-by-step process trains students to articulate differences in forms inspired by distinct auditory experiences while simultaneously broadening their design perspectives. The result is an expanded repertoire of form alternatives, showcasing variations in style and identity. Through this exercise, students develop an understanding of how abstract influences can drive a unique form language, equipping them with critical tools for professional practice.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence in manufacturing is increasingly shaping digital production and consumption models, enabling companies to optimize strategies and operations across the production-consumption continuum. In the context of textile manufacturing in Italy, this study examines AI capacity building within advanced craft-based enterprises. Specifically, it explores how design and engineering academics can facilitate the adoption of AI in the production and consumption systems of Tuscan Small and Medium Enterprises.

This research focuses on a preliminary workshop organized by the University of Pisa in collaboration with selected Tuscan textile manufacturers. The workshop aimed to introduce companies to the potential of AI in production processes, offering creative methods and simulations applicable to their organizational contexts. A key focus was the simulation of AI integration throughout the textile supply chain. To enhance the development of insights, the authors provided participants with a structured instructional model. Drawing on the double diamond framework as a reference design approach, the model incorporated methods traditionally employed in design thinking. By examining this initiative, the paper highlights the role of academia in fostering AI-driven innovation within traditional manufacturing sectors, demonstrating how structured Design methodologies can support SMEs in navigating digital transformation.

This study explores the integration of Generative AI tools in design education, specifically focusing on their impact on mastering creativity techniques. Through a series of structured activities and practical sessions, students were introduced to various GenAI tools and their applications in creative processes. The research aimed to assess changes in students' perceptions, confidence, and willingness to incorporate these tools into their creative workflows. Data was collected through surveys, revealing a significant positive shift in students' attitudes towards GenAI. The findings indicate that the use of GenAI tools not only enhances creativity by providing new perspectives and ideas but also improves efficiency and accessibility in design tasks. The study concludes that a gradual and guided introduction of GenAI tools in the curriculum can effectively reduce resistance and increase students' confidence in their ability to leverage these technologies to their creative processes. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the role of AI in education and provides practical insights for educators seeking to integrate GenAI tools into their teaching methodologies.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) is transforming professional design workflows, yet its affective impact on designers remains underexplored. This study investigates designers’ affective responses to genAI adoption in the design process, examining the associated underlying causes. Using a grounded theory approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with fourteen designers who regularly engage with genAI. The collected data were qualitatively analysed through thematic coding, and the results were visualised to identify patterns between affective responses and their triggers. This process revealed genAI evoking affective responses in designers on two levels: on the emotional level, reactive and driven by immediate experiences during AI interaction, and the feeling level, reflective and primarily shaped by broader concerns about genAI’s long-term impact on professional identity and practice. The findings highlight a tension between genAI practical adoption and designers’ professional uncertainty, underscoring the need for design education to address affective awareness alongside technical proficiency. This approach not only equips designers for more resilient and informed engagement with AI-integrated practices but also enhances their ability to anticipate and design for end users’ affective responses to AI-infused systems.

The increasing demand for human-centred design in engineering and product development has highlighted the need for educational systems to adapt and equip students with the necessary skills to create inclusive and user-focused products. This is particularly relevant in the context of designing smart wearable rehabilitation devices, which require a deep understanding of both technological innovation and user-specific needs. The study aims to address the competence gaps in product and design engineering curricula by focusing on the development of smart wearable rehabilitation devices. These devices are designed to cater to the unique requirements of individuals, particularly those with disabilities or specific challenges who require rehabilitation. The ethos of bespoke design is central to this approach, emphasising the importance of tailoring products to meet diverse user needs and thereby enhancing overall performance and accessibility. To achieve this, the study proposes a comprehensive methodology that identifies gaps in current engineering education related to the development of wearable rehabilitation devices. This methodology employs qualitative research methods across three stages. Initially, focus groups involving educators from three European countries are conducted to gather insights into existing educational practices and identify potential areas for improvement. The findings from these discussions inform the subsequent stage, which involves group interviews with students from the same regions. This approach ensures a holistic understanding of the educational landscape from both teaching and learning perspectives. The data collected through these stages is meticulously analysed to pinpoint specific competence gaps within product and design engineering curricula.

The rapid evolution of Industry 4.0 has highlighted the necessity for an educational transformation to bridge the gap between traditional curricula and the evolving demands of the labor market. Education 4.0 emerges as a paradigm shift, aiming to align learning methodologies with the competencies required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review using the PRISMA method to analyze various pedagogical approaches, including Blended Learning, Project-Based Learning, Serious Games, Problem-Based Learning, Immersive Learning, Simulation Learning and Learning Factories through the lens of Fisk’s principles of Education 4.0. The results show that these methods promote learner autonomy, project-centered learning, as well as spatiotemporal flexibility and the ability to choose tools and resources. However, significant gaps remain, particularly regarding the personalization of learning pathways, student involvement in curriculum design, and the development of data interpretation skills. Notably, no approach fully adheres to all principles, highlighting systemic limitations such as infrastructural disparities and the evolving role of educators as mentors. These findings highlight the need for a thorough reflection on the evolution of educational systems to precisely identify the pedagogical needs and requirements that should be integrated into a future specification document for the development of an educational model adapted to the challenges of Industry 4.0.

In a context where technology-driven approaches can often overshadow user needs, the necessity of shifting toward a more human-centered perspective has become increasingly apparent in education and industry. While technology-centric frameworks may prioritize innovation and functionality, they frequently overlook the essential human factors that ensure products and services are accessible, meaningful and relevant to diverse user groups. This paper introduces a three-stage User Experience (UX) process aimed at implementing Human-Centered Design (HCD) methods in the education of design students and the continuous training of managers in UX Management.

The proposed three-stage UX process emphasizes an iterative framework consisting of three key phases: Context, Concept and Implementation. The Context phase focuses on deep user research to understand user behaviors, motivations and mental models. The Concept phase involves the ideation and refinement of design solutions aligned with user goals and needs. The Implementation phase centers on usability testing, feedback-driven iteration and the final refinement of solutions. This structured approach equips both design students and professionals in continuing education to focus on the user needs and thereby creating successful solutions.

Drawing on the author’s experience teaching UX design to students and UX management to professionals, the paper demonstrates how this process fosters HCD thinking, promotes empathy and cultivates a collaborative mindset. Additionally, it underscores the growing demand for such an approach in contemporary industries, where user-centered design is increasingly recognized as a critical strategic asset.

Design for the Circular Economy often emphasizes business models and future visions, with less focus on practical application. Sustainability courses are generally seen as complex, poorly attended, and minimally integrated into design projects.

In 2022, a new course on Repair was introduced. This course aligns with repair and also with other R strategies like refurbishing, remanufacturing, and recycling. To engage students, the productive failure pedagogy was implemented in eight weekly workshops (3EC, one quarter). This method starts with an unsolvable exploratory problem, motivating students to learn the necessary knowledge. Workshops cover product architecture, disassembly documentation, part prioritization, legislation, directives, and human factors in repair design. The course, a master elective, has seen 25 to 50 students per run, working on client-based products to demonstrate improved circular economy fit.

This is the second IDE curriculum course using productive failure. Student evaluations (20 respondents) rated the course highly, with an overall grade of 8.5 out of 10 and a teaching, coaching, and feedback score of 4.68 out of 5. Students were highly engaged in making the circular economy actionable.

The paper will present the course, student outcomes, and learning experiences, focusing on the experiential learning aspect and the effects of productive failure on engineering courses.

At the Institute of Logistics Engineering at Graz University of Technology, the design, analysis, and optimization of material handling systems have traditionally been taught in separate courses distributed across multiple semesters throughout the curriculum. The courses can be divided into two categories: Logistics and Mechanical Engineering. Both cover fundamental principles as well as advanced topics. A problem is that the isolated structure limits interdisciplinary learning and systemic understanding of logistics and engineering challenges.

To meet the growing need for engineers with holistic, sustainable, and interdisciplinary systems thinking, a new integrated teaching concept has been developed. This paper presents its design and planned implementation. The approach is inspired by learning factories and aligned with Industry 5.0 principles, which emphasize human-centricity, resilience, and sustainability.

The learning factory represents a parcel hub as a virtual model. It serves as a central didactic tool across multiple courses, enabling students from various disciplines to analyse, design, and optimize processes and system components. The implementation will begin with a pilot phase, in which selected courses are integrated into a cohesive framework. Subsequent iterations will further refine the concept based on continuous evaluation and feedback.

This approach equips students with both theoretical and practical skills, fostering an integrated, systems-based perspective essential for sustainable and efficient design of material handling systems. By embedding real-world applications into the curriculum, this concept ensures that future logistics engineers are prepared to develop technical solutions that align with social and environmental responsibilities, reflected the human-centered vision of Industry 5.0.

In recent years, there has been an increased call for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to integrate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into their curricula. However, research on the implementation of ESD within engineering and design-based programmes remains limited. This paper is comprised of a literature review alongside an empirical study at the University of Strathclyde, assessing how undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within the Department of Design Manufacturing and Engineering Management (DMEM) align with relevant UNESCO’s core competencies, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Teaching and Learning Methods. The collaborative mapping exercise provides other HEIs insight into the implementation and execution of an ESD toolkit and will allow them to more effectively embed sustainable practice within design and engineering education.

Understanding that the products, spaces and services we design are part of a complex system is crucial for successful decision-making. The challenge to propose sustainable, adaptable, and responsible design solutions requires designers to have holistic comprehension of the system they are intervening. By analysing the relationships between its components and the internal and external factors that impact the system, designers can develop strategies to address both immediate needs and long-term implications.

This research explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to facilitate the understanding of complex systems and inform decision-making in design practice. AI’s capacity to process vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and simulate scenarios across different levels of abstraction allows students to comprehend system’s dynamics and optimize their design proposals.

The paper discusses a project implemented in an interior design course, with the educational ecosystem selected as a case study due to its inherent complexity, societal impact, and potential for transformation. The giga mapping technique was used as an inquiry and visualization tool. AI aided students to cluster and classify the gathered information, identify relationships and critical nodes, forecast potential outcomes and simulate emergent behaviours within the system. As a result, students not only gained a deeper understanding of the educational ecosystem, but also enhanced their digital literacy, systems thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. By challenging the status quo, they were empowered to explore new possibilities, and envision potential futures for the educational landscape.

This paper examines the understanding that current first year undergraduate product design students have of three key topics: intellectual property (IP); artificial intelligence (AI) technology in product design; and the intellectual property issues related to the use of AI technology. 62 students were asked 15 questions relating to these topics resulting in various findings.

This study underscores the need to deepen and broaden product design degree course curricula on IP and AI tool use, to meet the uptick in AI tool use in design practice to preserve an alignment with the expectations of accrediting bodies and students.

Storytelling is widely acknowledged as fundamental to design practice, playing a role in how designers communicate ideas, create user experiences, and engage with broader industry narratives. In spite of this, research that explores storytelling pedagogy is infrequent and fragmented and focuses on specific sub-disciplinary contexts, its broader implications for design education remain relatively underexplored. This gap poses the question: how can we integrate storytelling into design pedagogy to better prepare students for industry?

Design research has consistently suggested that designers need to be more transparent about the underpinning theory and models that support the application of storytelling. Two key rationales for this need have emerged: firstly, the shift in industry from a focus on product, to product experience, and secondly, the growing approach in industry that employs storytelling as strategy. These characteristics of industry call for a deeper exploration of storytelling in design practice, particularly in contexts where designers must mediate complex systems involving diverse stakeholders.

The author of this paper seeks to establish guiding principles for a storytelling design pedagogy, through a cross-case comparison of data from collaborative projects between their institution’s final year product design students and John Lewis and Partners. In total, forty-six projects were completed by students during this collaboration over five years, with each culminating in the verbal delivery of a story supported by visual presentation materials during design pitches. Of particular interest is the comparison between the projects selected vs. those unselected for publication.

We are usually focused on the product produced when evaluating students' work. As evaluators, we look at the academic language, the description and choice of methods, the depth of the literature review, and the work and originality the engineering students have put into the project. What if we take a more human-centred approach to the education we offer and explore the challenges students encounter in developing soft skills throughout their studies?

This study examines second-year and third-year students, and graduates from the University of Agder. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students choose their team members, their experiences on group work and how the universities should include teamwork in the curriculum. This study found that the majority of the students have experienced free riders, different levels of ambitions and skills, and disagreements between group members. Students prefer group members based on peers they have previously worked well with, friends, and classmates they perceive as competent. A suggestion for a fair assessment of students could be group work, but also with individual evaluation. To engage all group members from the start, a sprint at the beginning of the project could help include everyone.

The imperative of creating inclusive learning environments remains a central focus in education, particularly within cross-cultural collaborations. While there is a broad consensus on its importance, approaches to achieving this goal vary across disciplines and contexts. This paper adopts a mixed-methods approach—including metacognitive surveys, field observations, and interviews—to explore the factors that contribute to fostering inclusive learning experiences in cross-cultural design collaborations among students from diverse backgrounds.

Our research centers on international design workshops with students from universities in the USA and Taiwan, where participants collaborate to create product-service systems that emphasize sustainability, cultural inspiration, and targeted markets. Insights from these workshops reveal that, while cultural and language differences present significant challenges, these barriers can be mitigated through carefully structured instruction, clear communication of expectations, and the use of artifacts to aid design development. Moreover, design methods incorporating non-verbal and asynchronous communication strategies, such as the nominal group technique, effectively promote inclusivity, particularly for non-native speakers. The selection of topics and settings that encourage knowledge sharing and experiential exchange between students from different cultures further enhances the relevance, accessibility, and meaningfulness of the design and learning experiences. Although these findings are drawn from international design collaborations, we contend that similar strategies can benefit design education beyond the context of international workshops. We advocate for the broader application of these approaches and principles to foster inclusive and equitable learning environments across various design education settings and to create product-service systems that meet diverse cultural needs.

Structured reflective journaling is a valuable tool in design education, enabling students to critically evaluate their learning, track progress, and refine their design decisions. This study explores the impact of structured reflective journaling on student learning in a five-week modular furniture design course at Tecnológico de Monterrey. Using a rubric-guided approach, students documented their progress, insights, challenges, and self-assessments. Analysis of journals and questionnaires reveals that while journaling helped students track progress and refine ideas, challenges included time constraints and student engagement with journalling. The structured rubric played a key role in guiding deeper engagement with the reflection process. Findings suggest that integrating flexible reflection milestones, alternative formats, and structured prompts can enhance journaling’s effectiveness. This paper highlights the potential of reflective journaling to develop critical thinking and self-directed learning in design students, offering insights for educators seeking to integrate structured reflection into project-based design courses.

This study explores how industrial design students in China take on the dual roles of designer and user in a student-led curriculum, the study is based on the first student-led global project at a Chinese university. This paper describes the project content and process of the course to determine the roles and tasks that students take on at different times. Secondly, a case study is conducted on the design projects completed by the student design teams. Finally, the student interviews are analyzed. The research indicates that students have a strong interest in the design courses of different cultural backgrounds, but they often find it difficult to switch roles, from designer to a client. The reason should be that students have fuzzy cognition and different understanding of the concept of clients and designers.

Academia-industry collaboration in product development and innovation fosters significant enhancements in project-based learning (PjBL). PjBL, recognized for integrating acquired knowledge into real-life projects, benefits from active industry involvement by providing academia with contemporary industry challenges, connecting to prevailing market trends and impactful course outputs. This symbiotic relationship bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application, providing students with relevant industry exposure while granting industry access to innovative minds shaping its future. However, to harness the full potential of this synergy, efficient management of these relationships is crucial, involving complexities such as mutual benefits, intellectual property issues, time commitments, and role clarity. Based on interviews with 54 educators from 33 global institutions within the Design Factory Global Network (DFGN), this qualitative study explores four key activities of academia-industry relationship management: expectation management, ongoing communication, network building, and value-adding events. Effective expectation management clarifies mutual benefits early, while regular communication aligns academic and industry objectives. Building robust networks and hosting value-adding events strengthen these partnerships, contributing to sustained growth and innovation across educational and industry spheres. Through the key criteria revealed in these activities, the study provides insights into forming and maintaining effective industry relationships, enhancing project-based learning, and contributing to broader innovation progression.

This study aims to identify the key factors for integrating art-based strategies to help high school students gain a holistic understanding of problems within a design-based complex problem-solving project. Art-based strategies use artistic forms and processes to expand perspectives, deepen understanding of complex concepts, and facilitate problem-solving. Based on an inquiry-based cross-disciplinary program at a public high school in Japan, which uses design thinking to foster problem-finding and solving, this study found students struggle to identify research issues and often remain at a superficial understanding level. To address this, the study integrates art-based strategies into design process to improve students’ problem comprehension and identification skills. Two research questions are posed: how familiar are teachers with integrating art-based strategies？ what challenges may they face when integrating these strategies? The study focuses on Fukusho High School, with four teachers participating in a focus group to evaluate the strategies for clarifying their familiarity, feasibility, and acceptance of integrating art-based strategies into the project.

Understanding the cognitive processes that support designing is essential for fostering effective decision-making and creativity in design education. This study presents a novel approach to quantitatively characterize and measure framing and reframing (F-RF) behaviors during design problem-solving.

F-RF is an essential cognitive process in problem-solving, influencing how problems and solutions are viewed. A frame, shaped by the problem-solver's knowledge, experience, and values, acts as a conceptual lens, affecting how information is interpreted and decisions are made. In design, framing plays a critical role by identifying and defining constraints, goals, and potential solutions, guiding designers in how they perceive and approach their tasks. Effective framing allows for the strategic redefinition of problems, fostering the exploration of ideas.

Quantitative measurement methods for F-RF are underexplored. This approach presented here uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to analyze F-RF behaviors during design tasks. By employing verbal protocols, this methodology provides an objective means to track and assess designers’ F-RF behavior through their relative semantic distances.

A case study involved a controlled experiment with five independent undergraduate students, tasked with designing a small museum. During a 55-minute design session, they verbalized their thoughts, which were recorded for analysis.

The results demonstrated that the data-driven NLP approach effectively characterized and tracked F-RF behaviors throughout the design process. It facilitated identifying and measuring F-RF occurrences in students' verbal protocols. This approach also enabled the quantification of semantic distance values associated with design F-RF, revealing insights into the students' designing behavior. The design sessions had Designing and Finalizing phases. No significant differences were found in the number of frames generated during these phases. However, the semantic distance value of F-RF was higher in the Finalizing phase. The analysis revealed different patterns, with cyclical phases of high-semantic F-RF value – associated with an increase in divergent thinking– alternating with low-semantic F-RF– associated with convergent thinking. Unlike traditional models, which suggest initial divergence at the early stages of the process, followed by a final stage of convergence, this study revealed a more dynamic F-RF process involving a cyclical interplay of expansion of the design space.

The study supports innovative assessment methods in design education, emphasizing the importance of understanding framing-related cognitive processes to foster effective design practices. The proposed NLP approach advances design research and enables new assessment strategies for design education, which may be used to enhance student performance.

By tracking F-RF activity using NLP, educators gain deeper insights into students' design behaviors. Reflecting on these cognitive processes promotes the development of problem-framing skills, which are associated with high-quality creative design outcomes. Integrating this methodology in design studios can strengthen students' framing skills, improving their outcomes and preparing them for complex real-world design challenges. Additionally, it can address the need for assessment methods in multidisciplinary team-based design projects that emphasize collaborative design and framing.

Additionally, developing automated feedback systems based on this methodology could provide timely relevant insights for educators and students. Such systems would increase students' awareness of framing behaviors, supporting their learning experience.

The possibility of automatic evaluation in online exams offers the advantage of automatic evaluation compared to paper-based exams with manual assessment. Nevertheless, teachers and students have major concerns about digital exams e.g. automatic evaluable question types are easier for students, because they can guess or recognize the answer without knowing it. To analyse these concerns for Engineering Design Education this paper investigates to what extent can be found differences in the results between digital and paper-based examination formats when assessing the same learning outcomes. For three courses, the analysed data contains one data set of a paper-based examination with mostly open questions and rather big complex tasks one data set with results from several small automatic evaluable tasks for the same learning outcome per course. Based on the analysis, the paper discusses provides recommendations for automatic evaluable exam tasks in Engineering Design Education.

Dyslexia, prevalent among students in art and design in higher education in the UK, is considered a learning disorder. As such, its treatment in educational environments is commonly reduced to mitigating the student difficulties derived from dyslexia rather than leveraging the strengths of dyslexic students in key skills for product design. Studies suggest that dyslexic students in art and design might represent around 30% of the student population, as opposed to estimations ranging from 3% to 17% in the general population.

This research aims to rethink dyslexia in higher education product design courses, focusing on its power rather than treating it as a problem for students. It is well-known that people with dyslexia have key skills in product design, such as visualising, imagining, communicating, reasoning, connecting, or exploring. Primary and secondary sources were consulted to rethink how dyslexic students are taught and assessed in a product design course at the University of Brighton.

Interviews with two dyslexic Product Design students revealed their strengths, such as hands-on skills, creativity, and visual thinking, as well as their challenges, such as difficulties with processing large amounts of information, reading dense text, and essay-based assessments. Secondary sources confirmed these strengths and challenges, highlighting how dyslexia provides advantages like visual and spatial reasoning, holistic thinking, and creative problem-solving, which align well with the knowledge and skills required in Product Design.

A 12-week dyslexia-friendly Product Design module was developed using the Double Diamond methodology. This module is structured into six two-week stages and includes hands-on activities and flexible formative assessment formats. The syllabus is visually structured to match the strengths of dyslexic students. Course materials are provided in traditional text, visual, and multimedia formats. Flexible assessment formats allow students to choose between traditional (text-based), visual (poster-like), or multimedia (audio or video) submissions, enabling students to communicate their learning through their preferred modality. Regular formative feedback supports time management and working memory issues, with feedback sessions that can be recorded for later review.

The inclusion of these flexible formats, concise project briefs, and accessible teaching materials is expected to match the strengths of dyslexic students and offer neurotypical students a wider set of assessment paths. This diversified array of assessments supports student engagement and confidence, helping dyslexic students become aware of their strengths and creating an inclusive learning environment for all.

This research highlights the need to extend the focus from accommodating the challenges of dyslexia to actively matching its strengths. Flexible assessment formats, accessible materials, and practical projects foster a positive learning experience for all students. Future work will focus on implementing the proposed module, its impact on neurodivergent profiles, and the potential for integrating AI tools to enhance accessibility and inclusivity in design education.

Engineering and design courses are often rooted in strong professional practices. Recent graduates often express a gap between the educational content of their degree courses and professional practices. The competency-based approach enables educational professional to fill this gap. Thus, the question we are asking in this paper is the following: if the competency-based approach is introduced into an engineering school in a structured way, how do the various stakeholders react to and take ownership of this new teaching method? To answer this question, we will use two types of data collected as part of the creation of a ‘Bachelor of Science and Technology - Sustainable Design’ programme. The first set of data comes from a questionnaire distributed among the stakeholders of an engineering school. The aim of this questionnaire is to gain a better understanding of their understanding of the competency-based approach and the means they are using to implement it. The second set of data was obtained from a recording of a competency-based approach training course for the same stakeholders. This second set of data enables us to understand the reaction of stakeholders to the technical issues involved in implementing the competency-based approach within a training course and an institution. This paper shows how the competency-based approach enables stakeholders of a training programme to improve their pedagogical activities.

Within the framework of the "Product Family Design" course in the third year of design studies, a company associated with the university-industry linkage program (Education Partner) Ronal Group Mexico, presented the challenge of designing a new wheel rim design specifically for the Mexican market. The company's goal was to create rims with a unique identity, ensuring that these designs were both manufacturable and competitive with European products. To address this challenge, a methodology integrating theory and practice was structured, merging academic content with client needs for contemporary markets within a higher education institution. This approach allowed students to work closely with the industry in an applied and collaborative learning environment. The design process culminated in the creation of manufacturable 2D and 3D proposals using advanced AI and traditional design tools, from which two designs were selected for production in the Mexican market. This outcome highlighted the students' ability, under proper management and support, to meet both industry requirements and course objectives. The combination of design methodologies, interpersonal skills (soft skills), and the interdisciplinary approach between academia and industry were key factors in the project's success, fostering educational innovation. The project demonstrated that effective university-industry linkage (UIL) management is possible within an academic setting, ensuring adequate interdisciplinary synergy between teaching experience, industry needs, and student motivation (. This establishes a successful pathway for educational innovation, process analysis to propose sustainable alternatives, and the development of competitive products. As a result, a flexible and applicable methodology is presented, aiming for outcomes that transform academic experience.

The purpose of this study is to measure the effect of empathy priming on both ideation fluency and idea originality during brainstorming tasks. In a three between-subjects experimental design study, sixty industrial design students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: single persona priming, empathy maps priming, and no priming. A one-way, between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that empathy priming had a significantly different effect on ideation fluency than idea originality. Participants in the empathy maps group showed higher ideation fluency and generated a greater number of novel ideas compared to either the single persona group or the control group. The study demonstrated that priming with empathy maps positively influences idea originality; however, priming with illustrative persona showed no significant effect on idea originality.

Mechanical Engineering graduates are expected to emerge from their degrees competent in communication, collaboration and other transferrable skills, often learnt through engineering design projects. Authenticity of small-group projects may be limited however, due to reduced complexity of both product and inter-team interaction of educational projects as compared to industry. Four years ago, we restructured a third-year module such that three teams of four students each collaborate in a so-called superproject to deliver a functioning prototype. In the cohort of 180 students, 15 superprojects are defined, each with a different topic. Academics act as the project director for the various superprojects, representing both client and mentor roles. Additional academics are technical advisors and supervisors to respective subassembly teams. Workshop and laboratory technicians provide practical support enabling access to, and design for, advanced manufacture and testing facilities. The module leader and departmental pastoral support team act as the superproject’s HR department, providing advice and support for professional skill development and appropriate behaviours. This structure requires strong inter- and intra-team collaboration and communication, and good interpersonal skills for successful integration of subassemblies. Findings after four years of running superprojects include that the nested organisation requires higher staff input than other options, but is considered a valuable investment relative to outcomes. The structure allows more complex projects, with variable interfaces and more authentic constraints and working conditions, improving both student experience and employability. Staff development is also facilitated through the hierarchical and collective nature of supervision and assessment on the module.

The participatory design of urban areas and spaces, which takes into account the needs of local residents and initiatives, is an important aspect of urban planning.

As part of this, efforts to design urban spaces in a participatory manner are becoming increasingly important in order to improve the quality of life of local residents and promote environmentally friendly solutions. This will create a significant contribution to social and environmental sustainability and quality of life in urban areas.

Within the framework of sustainable urban development and in the context of the New European Bauhaus (NEB), the revitalisation of a fallow industrial estate in the city of Zeitz is a central element of this contribution.

Therefor this contribution explores methods that enable active citizen participation while integrating innovative concepts such as non-persona, beyond-human persona, sustainability persona, giga-mapping and user-integrated design in the project process.

Furthermore this contribution introduces the planned use of augmented reality (AR) technologies and how this can be integrated into participatory design process. This contribution aims to communicate planned content before it becomes reality to involve residents. This can be achieved through the concept of reading the city as a patchwork, by experiencing different concrete futures in real places trough AR, alongside digital community walls, and digital crowd innovation challenges.

This paper examines systems design methodologies to enhance human-centred product-service systems by leveraging the transformative impact of engineering Lean Six Sigma techniques. It investigates the integration of AI within a university context, exploring how these approaches can; drive process improvements, optimise resource use, and deliver enhanced service outcomes for students, faculty, and staff. The study focuses on improving the efficiency of the placements booking process within engineering and design areas of a university located on the southern coast of the UK. Executed over 18 months, allowing both the implementation of improvements and the subsequent analysis of their effects throughout an academic period. This approach yielded a substantial corpus of quantitative data. The utilisation of key engineering tools such as; Stakeholder Mapping, SIPOC, Gemba walks Hypothesis Testing and Control Charts, played a pivotal role in streamlining processes.

The initial study involved 142 students across two placement areas, with only approximately 40% managing to book their second Placement Review in a single email transaction. The remaining 60% required additional contact, consuming valuable staff time. The post implementation study involved 157 students across the same two placement areas, a comparable data set. It was found that an AI assisted booking system only reduced the number of students requiring further contact by 8.66%, not a significant figure. However, the real benefit of the new system was that the mean time to book the students Placement Review was decreased by 67.03%.

Teaching industrial design principles to engineering students at a technical university poses distinct challenges. Unlike art or design students, engineering students often approach problems with a binary perspective, expecting answers to be either correct or incorrect. This mindset complicates their engagement with design, where subjective interpretation and open-ended solutions are fundamental. This abstract presents work carried ut at a university of technology within the Industrial Design Engineering program. The aim has been to clarify the design process for industrial design engineering students by introducing structured methods for articulating subjective decisions. The goal has been twofold: to provide students with tools to self-reflect on their design choices and to establish a shared framework that enhances transparency and communication between students and educators.

Industrial Design Engineering is an inherently complex discipline, bringing together a variety of knowledge and skills. Our programme at the University of XX is rooted and located in a faculty of Engineering Technology and at the same time benefitting from the influx of knowledge from the faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences and our sister faculty of Electronic Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. Therefore our programme comprises of gamma- and beta topics, envisioned by the former marketing slogan of our university “High Tech - Human Touch”. In this context we developed an integrated full time module of fifteen European Credits for the first quartile of the Bachelor. Keeping in mind that this first encounter of the freshmen would set the standard for the rest of their studies we set our selves the task to develop an agile module that offers the scope of topics and integrates them directly in short design sprints. To aid the students in navigating the complexity of their future discipline we created a strong frame for the programme, inspired by the frame-creation method by Dorst. In line with the slogan of our university and the applied character of engineering we settled for ‘making technology available for people’ as central objective. For the students to be successful in this task, they should become ‘bilingual’. Therefore we crafted a module that ‘frames the students as future Industrial Design Engineers with both the language of engineering (=mathematics) and the language of design (=visual)’.

Memes can be seen as expressions of social discourse and may be considered both as source of information about sentiments regarding societal issues, and as a catalyst for sparking conversation. Since both potential uses have direct relevance for design processes, this paper reports on student projects that have experimented with the use of memes in both contexts. It concludes that the first use can spark inspiration and motivation among students but that its potential for reliable insights is challenged by various factors. With respect to the second use, student projects suggest that there is considerable potential for using memes as a catalyst for dialogue between opposite sides.

This paper will outline novel approaches for designers who wish to actively engage users in the creation of green spaces for health and wellbeing benefit. As such, the research strongly aligns with the conference theme of ‘Fostering Human-Centred Products and Services in Design’ and will present engagement methods that can be adopted and modified by design educators in similar contexts where health and wellbeing outcomes are prioritised.

The degradation of the natural world and accompanying resource and climate challenges are acknowledged as existential issues. Positive action is required in design education in order that new tools, methods and approaches are adopted to allow the natural world to be integrated as part of the design process. There are well-established therapeutic and health benefits in us spending time in nature, for example, improved mood and increased physical fitness. Green prescribing is increasingly recognised as an approach that involves healthcare professionals recommending nature-based activities, such as gardening, walking, or participating in conservation projects, as part of a patient's treatment plan. Planning the development of green spaces requires an understanding of synergies and trade-offs between human-nature interactions. To do this, we must understand the plurality of values, identities and capabilities of the beneficiaries that use such spaces.

Improving the ways in which visitors engage with the natural outdoors spaces is important for conservation, cultural heritage, public health, and economics. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is tasked with sustaining the population’s health, and given its significant land ownership surrounding hospitals and treatment centres, there is an opportunity to explore how best to utilise these spaces. These can add value to both the healthcare facility and surrounding community through enhanced health and wellbeing and deeper ecological appreciation. Design HOPES (Healthy Organisations in a Place-based Ecosystem, Scotland) is a transdisciplinary research project that exploits the potential of design-led thinking and making to innovate and tackle multifaceted health delivery challenges to meet urgent Net Zero goals, set by NHS Scotland, for a sustainable health and social care system. The research here reports on three innovative approaches to extracting, understanding and characterising user requirements that are grounded in local communities, and can then be incorporated in the configuration of green spaces for wellbeing. These include:

* Community information exchange: structuring the dissemination of wellbeing information and co-design sessions in town-hall style events

* Games for community engagement: abstracting sustainability and wellbeing concepts, and articulating these through playful interaction

* Creative practice for communities: setting and developing co-creative activities to generate shared wellbeing visions and values

These will be outlined and discussed based on insights from the presented case studies. The way in which these can be consolidated and integrated within human-centred design process for any environment-specific design context will be outlined. This will provide new insights for stakeholder engagement in the design process, and point to how sustainability and well-being can be prioritised in requirements capture for design educators.

Disability will affect everyone at some point in their lives. Childbirth, breaking a bone, car accidents, and aging are just a few examples of life events that force a change in daily habit or routine. Whether permanent, temporary, or situational we will all need products and services that help us adapt to our physical and digital environments. However, despite this, accessibility is often brought into the product development process only after ideas have been fully developed.

To break this cycle, our team studies the intersection of accessibility, user needs, and innovation to create a concept that matters to end users. The human-centered design process is never a straight line; many rounds of discovery research, design exploration, and concept evaluation go into developing a single idea. To do this, we talked directly with over 60 end users with accessibility needs, designed 10+ concepts for evaluation, and developed a functional PoC for our top conceptual direction. The goal of this paper is to reflect on this complex product design process in the accessibility space, where our team takes a conceptual idea to a PoC by working collaboratively with the visually impaired and Deaf/hard of hearing communities. This paper will examine our process, lessons learned, and how to iterate with intent.

With growing access to tools like ChatGPT, fostering flexibility and reflection in education is increasingly critical. In the face of global challenges such as war and the climate crisis, universities must shift from knowledge delivery to becoming incubators for creativity and innovation. This paper presents experiences from integrating Sustainability Diaries into two design courses, Service Design (D5) and Systems Design (D7), at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In fall 2024, 80 students submitted Sustainability Diaries—open-ended reflections on course content and group projects from a sustainability perspective, delivered in text, audio, visuals, or combinations thereof. Through educator and student insights, we analyse the role of Sustainability Diaries in fostering creativity and sustainability awareness in design education, offering recommendations for its future application and development.

Yacht design is increasingly influenced by the need for sustainability and technological advancement. As environmental concerns grow and regulations tighten, the maritime industry faces pressure to adopt more sustainable practices. At the same time, advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are transforming creative processes and decision-making, presenting new opportunities for innovation. This convergence offers a unique chance to redefine yacht design approaches.

This paper explores the integration of sustainability considerations and AI tools within yacht design education. A design workshop was conducted with 24 students tasked with developing a concept for a 50-foot charter catamaran, using a generic ecodesign methodology alongside generative AI tools.

While acknowledging opportunities for future refinement, the study shows the potential of using both the methodology and tools in early design phases, revealing synergies that can encourage more sustainable projects. This research highlights the need for evolving educational models to prepare future designers for sustainable yacht design challenges.

The complexity of mechatronic systems is undergoing a continual increase in response to a number of factors, including global challenges, international competition, regulatory requirements, digitalization demands, sustainability goals, organizational transitions and cultural factors. These factors among others, contribute to a growing demand for engineers who possess the ability to comprehend and abstract interdisciplinary system behaviors as well as structures. It is essential that engineers are provided with the necessary support and sensitized to establish and maintain a mindset for innovative engineering approaches to fulfil requirements and functions of the systems to be developed. Obtaining these critical skills and attitudes requires a supportive environment where competencies can be applied and further refined in a practical, collaborative and systems-oriented setting.

This paper presents the Digital Lifecycle Lab (DLL) at the Institute of Machine Components and Methods of Development (IME) at the Technical University of Graz (TU Graz). It outlines the innovative environment and concepts that facilitate the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical experience. In the DLL, students, postgraduate students and engineers from industry learn and validate different methods and software applications (tools) throughout the engineering process. The outcome of this approach is twofold: it offers an ad hoc learning experience and provides a strategic perspective on the end-to-end possibilities along the digital lifecycle of complex systems.

Design fiction is a form of speculative design (Dunne, 2001) that uses storytelling and design to create fictional worlds and design scenarios that can explore the future outcomes of for instance AI technology and societal trends. It often involves the creation of prototypes and other design artifacts that serve as a visual representation of an imagined future. Critical design is critical thought translated into materiality. It is about thinking through design rather than through words and using the language and structure of design to engage people. The aim of critical design practices is that it is critically concerned with the future and aiming at challenging the ideological constraints that limit designers and the society. First, the research will be conducted through a literature review into the field of design fiction. Then, the article will discuss theories of estrangement through conducting and analyzing a workshop involving use of a variety of design tools and techniques such as fictional design (Dunne, 1999), and by creating ideas and concepts to help participants reframe key issues to imagine alternative ecological urban futures by using techniques of estrangement and theories and narratives of the unfamiliar. In workshops with product design students, prototypes of new tools and resources for critical engagement and communication will be co-created, and the findings can create spaces for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being, and inspire and encourage people’s imaginations to flow freely. Design speculations can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality (Dunne, 2007).