A STUDENT JOURNEY: TRANSFERRING HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN EXPERIENCE TO A LECTURE EXERCISE INTEGRATING AI TOOLS

Teaching the philosophy of Human-Centred Design (HCD) and Design Thinking, more so the appli-cation, in a two to three-hour lecture is challenging. The authors point out how Engineering Design students in their third semester of a Bachelor of Engineering programme are guided through typical phases of human-centred and user-integrated product development, discussing the main challenges, application and key values in an industrial context. The chosen approach discloses opportunities concerning collaboration, working in interdisciplinary teams in different stages of product develop-ment and the integration of customers, respectively users. A so-called HCD roadmap reveals major benefits in the learning process. To foster a transfer to own industrial development projects students were asked to team up, to find a product or service, to develop their own roadmap, to identify cus-tomer “gains and pains” in a profile map, fit it to a value map and to sketch or prototype the product or service. The transfer from the experience attained in industry to the lecture exercise facilitated the application of HCD perceptively. An accompanying survey shows that the consultation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) raised student motivation in the exercise. In the study AI tools particularly delivered quick insights and have been used as a source of inspiration. The study also highlights experiences made with different AI tools along the Engineering Design and Product Development process. In conclusion, the results of a survey that accompanied the participating students’ HCD journey are analysed. The authors conclude on the findings on integrating HCD and AI in the lecture.