A Framework for Fostering Compassionate Design Thinking During the Design Process

Design educators in mechanical engineering departments have witnessed an evolution in the types of design problems that students prefer to address in their courses. Anecdotal evidence from discussions with colleagues indicate that over the last 30 years, projects have evolved from the design of purely mechanical systems to projects that require knowledge outside of the traditional engineering paradigm, including social sciences. These evolving interests have added complexity to the role of design educators and have revealed the limits of available design tools used in these courses; these tools are often not sufficient to support decision-making when subjective aspects of the design process are involved, such as customer preferences. Though a number of design tools exist to assist engineers with understanding customer preferences, they do not provide the specificity needed for sensitive design contexts and require direct access to the end-user. We define sensitive design contexts as those that are perceived largely as invasive/ personal, resulting in a high degree of emotional engagement by the user, such as patients in medical environments or victims in disaster areas. The variety and complexity of design considerations to be considered are high. In the following, we will focus on “compassionate design thinking”, i.e., on the role and impact of compassion during the design process. This paper presents a baseline approach for establishing a framework for compassionate design. The ultimate goal is to provide context-specific guidelines that can be used without having direct access to the end-user.