Cultivating Empathic Engineering Design through UX Pedagogy: Challenges and Insights

Communication Design Quarterly Sep 2024

Cultivating Empathic Engineering Design through UX Pedagogy: Challenges and Insights

Ashley Rea ; Akshata Balghare

Abstract

This article reports on a study about design thinking pedagogy in technical communication courses taken by engineering students. The study suggests that design thinking pedagogy can foster engineering students' empathy for users, particularly their ability to recognize the feelings, knowledge, and perspectives of others. However, its findings reinforce the difficulty faced when encouraging students' societal-level empathy and the limitations of empathy. While engineering students may struggle to transfer user empathy to courses in their major, this study found that engineering students believe design thinking has relevance to their future careers. This article offers teaching strategies and project ideas for technical and professional communication instructors to facilitate students' ability to transfer user empathy to their disciplines.

Journal: Communication Design Quarterly
Published: 2024-09-01
DOI: 10.1145/3658422.3658429
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Topics: multimodality technical communication professional writing

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