Augmenting Engagement
Featured The Impact of the Empathic User Experience Research Process on Design Students’ Empathy and Communication Skills
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eunmi Moon, Jungmi Kim, Yoosun Kim, Deana McDonagh
Sustainable development in the design field requires innovation to keep pace with the evolving times. To achieve this, it is essential to understand users' needs and desires accurately and minimize unnecessary waste and consumption through sustainable design. Empathy and communication skills are the most critical competencies for designers who create sustainable, user-centered designs. Therefore, instead of solely focusing on design techniques or outcomes, developing the ability to communicate and empathize with users is essential. So, design curriculum changes are needed to prepare future design professionals adequately. Research on curriculum and teaching methods to enhance design students' empathic ability and communication skills is necessary. This study designs and implements an empathic user experience research process that emphasizes empathy and communication in design. It assesses how this process improves design students' ability to grow into future design professionals by enhancing their empathy and communication skills.
Public Health Murals as Practice Based Learning: Design Makes a Positive Impact on Women's Health in Malawi View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Martha Sullivan, Jonas Nyasulu, Anastasia Mwamadi, Victor Kamwendo, Precious Mbeya, Edgar Mbalame, Alexander Helden, Clemence Ngwale
Design has the capacity to improve public health through device design, service design, and visual communication. A robust partnership between Virginia Tech and the Malawi University of Science and Technology has brought multiple disciplines together to address women's health in the Malawi. This paper documents a case study of supporting students in professional practice through a community engagement project in Malawi. Developing coursework to generate public art pieces addressing mother and baby care at the Thyolo District Hospital demonstrated best practices for partnerships and the importance of contextual research. Students worked to improve their technical skills, they developed a project proposal for approval by their community partner, the faculty was challenged to support the students in off-campus work, the medical facility welcomed the students to do work on the visual communication of important health facts, and group is now prepared for further projects and they have been invited to design original large scale public murals. The significance of this project is the establishment of how to cultivate working relations between universities and medical care facilities, as well as supporting students and their communities, demonstrating a sustainable model of professional practice in design education.
Crossing the Bridge between the Realms of Innovation Ecosystems and Design Thinking – Driving the Value Co-Creation Tracks : A Literature Review
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tomi Paalosmaa
Innovation ecosystems and design thinking are both recognized for fostering collaboration, adaptability, and user-cantered innovation. However, their combined potential to enhance value co-creation in business environments remains underexplored. This state-of-the-art literature review examines the interconnections between innovation ecosystem value co-creation and design thinking practices, highlighting the complementary contributions each offers. Through extensive analysis across these domains, this paper argues that integrating design thinking principles into innovation ecosystem frameworks can enhance value co-creation practices. Design thinking’s e.g., problem framing, iterative prototyping, and empathy-driven approaches can deepen engagement and co-innovation capabilities among ecosystem actors, strengthening knowledge sharing, strategic alignment, and value co-creation. Conversely, the structured, dynamic networks inherent to innovation ecosystems could offer design thinking a broader context for sustainable, large-scale impact. Integrating design thinking and innovation ecosystem approaches provides organizations with a strategic advantage in developing sustainable, user-cantered, and resilient business models. By identifying design thinking practices that could enrich value co-creation processes within innovation ecosystems, and conversely, by highlighting innovation ecosystem practices that could expand design thinking’s applicability, this paper presents a framework that harnesses the strengths of both domains.
