Human-Centered and Universal Design

Cindy Bennett presenting on Accessible Design.

Students’ Understanding of Human-Centered Design

Presenter: Carla Zoltowski

In our research, we were interested in looking at ways in which students experience and understand human-centered design. We wanted to understand how educators can help students develop an understanding of, and the skills needed for, human-centered design. We also wished to learn which experiences contribute most to students’ learning of human-centered design and development of an understanding of the user.

Using a phenomenological approach, our study interviewed students over 18 who have participated in design experiences where they are “designing for others.” This included curricular projects such as design classes as well as co-curricular activities such as Engineers Without Borders, research, internships, and other experiences.

Analysis of the interviews led to qualitatively different ways that students understood human-centered design. Five of these categories were hierarchical and included human-centered design as “user as information source input to linear process,” “keep users’ needs in mind,” “design in context,” “commitment,” and “empathic design.” There were two other categories with design viewed as “service” or “technology-centered.”

These results suggest a number of things:

  • Both design and “understanding of the users” reflected in experiences.
  • Development of both an understanding of design and of the need to understand the users are related.
  • Both are needed in the development of a more comprehensive way of understanding human-centered design.

For more information, consult Zoltowski, C., Oakes, W., & Cardella, M. (2012). ‘Students’ Ways of Experiencing Human-Centered Design. Journal of Engineering Education, 101(1).

Mentoring Engineering Students to Consider the Needs of Individuals who are Blind or Visually Impaired

Presenter: Cris Schwartz

There is a substantial “opportunity cost” to our economy based on the fact that a large segment of our population has a disability, which impedes their ability to fully contribute their talents and aptitudes to our overall societal productivity. One major area where this cost is realized is in the challenges faced by blind and visually impaired (BVI) persons who have interests in studying and/or working in STEM fields. Because of the traditional reliance of STEM disciplines on visual information representation, the prospect of a STEM profession can often seem insurmountable by BVI students. The challenges in transcribing graphical information to a tactual format translates into large number of barriers to BVI students interested in STEM. From another perspective, sighted engineering students often are not aware of how this segment of society is unable to use the products of their design efforts due to accessibility obstacles. Even at the capstone design level, many engineering students have a difficult time incorporating accessibility considerations into their designing.

Efforts directed at addressing both pre-college BVI students, as well as university engineering students, has resulted in the development of the immersive engineering and design course ProblemBusters!, which is taught biennially at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The course is a one-week summer enrichment course that engages middle and high-school BVI students in hands-on exploration of the engineering design process, team-based problem solving, mechanical and electrical engineering topics, assistive technology, and the practice of self-advocacy to request needed accommodations. Each offering of the course focuses on an overarching design theme and culminates in a product roll-out show to parents and the public on the last day of the class. A recent theme was the design and fabrication of engineered paper for use in a solar sail for an interplanetary spacecraft. Additionally, these students have also indicated unmet accessibility needs and proposed conceptual solutions. One particular concept was developed into a capstone design project for senior-level engineering students, which resulted in a working prototype that could scan book pages and convert graphics and text to a tactile display in such a way that text is recognized and converted to braille in near real-time.

ProblemBusters!, as well as continued work with university engineering students involving accessible design, has resulted in a meaningful two-way learning opportunity for both groups. It is anticipated that these experiences will help BVI students who are interested in STEM fields realize that when they get to college, they can be fully engaged in team-based projects alongside their sighted peers. Learn more about ProblemBusters!.

EPICS: A Service-Learning Design Program

Presenter: Andrew Pierce

EPICS is a service-learning design program in which teams of students partner with local and global community organizations to address human, community, and environmental needs. Founded at Purdue University in 1995, EPICS integrates multidisciplinary, vertically-integrated, and student-led real design projects into the curriculum. Over the past twenty years, EPICS at Purdue has grown to over 500 students each semester. In addition, EPICS has expanded to more than 25 universities and over 100 K-12 schools. In EPICS, students apply material they are learning in other courses to enrich their design experience, while developing the broad set of technical and professional skills needed in today’s global economy—including teamwork, leadership, project management, and communication skills. The innovative curricular structure of EPICS allows students to participate for multiple semesters, which in turn provides support for long-term relationships with community partners. The Purdue EPICS projects are categorized into four areas of impact: access and abilities, education, environmental, and human services. These project teams employ a human-centered design approach to collaborate with their community partners in designing and building solutions to the challenges posed by their project partners and end users.

Some examples of the Purdue EPICS teams that are working in the area of access and abilities include the Indiana Schools for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI), Assistive Technology (AT), Camp Riley (CR), Global Design of Assistive Technology (GDAT), Mobility (MOBI), and Greater Lafayette Area Special Services (GLASS) teams. The ISBVI team is developing technology to assist sighted teachers in communicating with their blind students and constructing a magnifier to make a portable option for students with low vision. The AT team is evolving daily-living assistive technology for a three year old boy with Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita (AMC) and a mechanical horse to help transition children into hippotherapy with a living horse. The CR team has partnered with a camp for children with disabilities and is creating a sip-and-puff switch controlled sailboat rudder to make the camp’s water activities more inclusive. The GDAT team is in the early stages of writing an auditory-based navigation app to assist blind individuals with public transportation in Dublin, Ireland. The MOBI team has created a multi-line refreshable Braille e-reader and a prosthetic lower limb to help a young boy play baseball. The GLASS team has partnered with the local special education organization and is developing a ball-toss game with children with Cerebral Palsy and has created a suite of apps to assist students with learning disabilities in communication and education. Projects like these have benefitted tremendously from close working partnerships between the student teams, the community partner organizations, and the end users.

Learn more about EPICS.

Accessible Makerspaces

Presenters: Katherine Steele and Maya Cakmak

Since a conversation at our spring 2015 CBI, AccessEngineering has been working to improve the accessibility of makerspaces. There are two reasons to focus on this issue: (1) many universities are building makerspaces, which allows us to to proactively address accessibility rather that retrofitting existing facilities and (2) the maker movement is interested in increasing access to making for all, which can make for a welcoming environment for people with disabilities. We have developed a list of recommendations based on (1) conversations during the previous CBI, (2) a tour of UW’s CoMotion makerspace and design challenge conducted with students with disabilities, and (3) feedback from a variety of stakeholders.

Lessons learned include the following:

  • Flexible furniture and outlets can improve the accessibility of the space.
  • Keeping key equipment in fixed locations can aid individuals with visual impairments.
  • Magnifying lenses and desk lamps are useful tools to assist with vision.
  • Quiet spaces where individuals can work or groups can meet can help individuals with attention deficits or those who are deaf of hard of hearing.
  • Training materials and orientations need to be accessible.

More recommendations are available online.

Accessible Design Challenges

Presenters: Cynthia Bennett and Andrew Davidson

Through this activity, we explored how to ideate accessibly since some methods that we teach students may not be accessible for everyone. Often, students are taught to sketch when they ideate or brainstorm. Students are also taught to brainstorm in groups, iterating on ideas, and a time constraint is often put in place to help students to get their ideas out without developing them too far.

We facilitated an hour and a half design activity where participants first brainstormed about a design challenge, reflected on access barriers encountered during that experience, and brainstormed solutions to these barriers. Teams had at least one participant with a disability who was willing to talk about their disability during the design activity.

First, participants were introduced to the user-centered design process—needs assessments, ideation, prototyping, and usability testing. We then defined ideation in more detail as we spent the remainder of the activity focusing on it. Teams participated in a design challenge to think about making smart classrooms more accessible. Following ideation on the design challenge, teams were asked to identify an access barrier they encountered during phase 1 and to ideate solutions to ease or eliminate it.

Teams identified many access barriers and potential solutions that could be helpful for ideation or other group activities. They included the following:

  • Allowing each group member to identify their learning styles and needs before the activity.
  • Using methods for people to use various devices such as syncing handwriting and electronic text, and including provisions for telepresence.
  • Engaging ways of communicating so one person speaks at once and everyone gets to speak such as passing around something for the speaker to hold.
  • A method for facilitators to let participants know they are moving on without interrupting groups.
  • Scaffolding activity steps including expectations of what should be done at the end of the step to ensure everyone is on the same page.
  • Putting less emphasis on time constraints or other ways of getting students to share whatever idea comes to mind without consideration for feasibility.
  • Organizing ideation so people can follow the progression of ideation such as placing sticky notes in a pattern rather than tossing them onto the table as soon as an idea is written down.
  • Using high contrast and 3-D materials.