Collaborating Interaction Design into Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS)

This paper investigates the design collaboration process between the Interaction Design (IXD) program and Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program at Purdue University. There have been quite a few recent research focused on analyzing the collaboration between Industrial Design students and Engineering students. However, little in the literature has been dedicated to discuss the education of Interaction Design and its collaboration with engineering programs. In this research, we tried to identify characteristics that differentiate IXD and EPICS students by focusing on the experiences of the IXD students. Some characteristics made the collaboration successful, but other created frustrations. In order to understand, explore, and evaluate the collaboration process, we collected the data during and after the collaboration and qualitatively analyzed it using a design collaboration model. This analysis identified several interesting features of this interdisciplinary collaboration. The collaboration between two programs benefited both sides and will be conducted regularly. The understanding gained from this study helps to understand and manage the discourse during the interdisciplinary collaboration, which will benefit our future education and inspire better interdisciplinary education and collaboration.