Evolution of Student Perception in a Human Centered Interdisciplinary Design Project

Students from the first year exploration of engineering design course in the College of Engineering and students from the second year industrial design studio in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies teamed together to pursue design-build projects based on assistive technology devices for third world countries. The teams were formed in such a way as to create a research study to assess the perceptions and outcomes of design teams consisting of only engineers as compared with those of interdisciplinary teams. Two engineering instructors and two industrial design instructors were involved. The paper describes the assistive technology design-build projects and their assessment. Results indicate that interdisciplinary teams produce higher quality designs. The evolution of the students' perceptions as members of the interdisciplinary teams compared with the students' perceptions as members of the engineering only teams is presented. Finally, the direction of future projects and assessment instruments are discussed