Human-Centered Engineering Design - Lesson 01 - Design Thinking and Design Process

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3968-6540

Document Type

Other

Publication Date

Winter 1-15-2025

Department

Thayer School of Engineering

Abstract

Purpose and audience. This is the first lesson in a series called, “Human-Centered Engineering Design.” These lessons are intended to be integrated into introductory courses on engineering design at the undergraduate level, across any engineering discipline. They are designed to function either as a sequence or as stand alone lessons to fill an existing gap in a course.

This first lesson, Design & Design Process, is meant to introduce a human-centered design process experientially–students will do a design sprint in under an hour. This is best positioned before students begin a project within a course–perhaps even within the first class session of a term. We have found that this short experience serves as a preview for how engineering design will feel at various stages of a project, thus preparing students for a course project.

This lesson borrows heavily from “The Wallet Exercise / Gift Giving Project,” a free resource (also with Creative Commons license restrictions) by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner School of Design (“the d.school”); we adapted it with select engineering design language and techniques–such as “specifications.”

This lesson series was funded by a Dartmouth Library’s Open Education Initiative grant. All materials have a Creative Commons license–they are free to use and adapt for non-commercial purposes with attribution to the authors and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Structure at a glance:

  1. Design sprint activity - 45 minutes

  2. “What is Design?” slides - 5 minutes

  3. Share and discussion - 10 minutes

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