Overview

Class Central Tips

Engineering courses often focus on technical skills and processes, leaving students with few examples of how to apply these skills in the real world. With "Introduction to Socially Engaged Design," you'll learn about this essential engineering and design framework, strengthening the connection between your work and its impact on individuals, societies, and the environment. Developed by expert faculty at the University of Michigan, the Socially Engaged Design model shows engineers and designers to explore the broader societal implications, outcomes, and potential unintended consequences early in the product design process. You'll learn to explore, develop, and iterate on your solutions to make equitable, evidence-based decisions. You will better understand how your experiences shape your work and explore how power, privilege, identities, and cultural contexts can shape your approach and impact. The course draws heavily on real-world examples of product design solutions that enhanced and deterred the progress of individuals and communities. In addition to these concepts, you'll learn how to effectively work with stakeholders to bring a design solution to life. By understanding design solutions' economic, social, and environmental impacts, you can develop better product and engineering design solutions for current and future generations.

Syllabus

Introduction to the Socially Engaged Design Process Model

In this module you will explore the intersection of technical design, engineering, and social factors, focusing on equity and societal needs. You will examine the Socially Engaged Design (SED) Process to navigate complex engineering challenges, learn its structure, and apply the SED principles through case studies showcasing the societal impact of engineering.

Explore

In this module you will understand how to employ stakeholder maps to identify project influences and discover the impact of power dynamics and personal bias on stakeholder interactions.

Define

In this module you will learn the process of identifying and defining engineering needs and design opportunities, and understand how to distinguish between and gather stakeholder requirements and engineering specifications. In addition you will examine how personal biases can affect problem framing.

Ideate

In this module you will understand the role of tools and strategies in ideation to create innovative design solutions. You'll survey best practices in generating and selecting ideas, while examining how identity and power dynamics influence the ideation process.

Develop and Realize

In this final module you will dig into the Develop and Realize stages as critical analysis processes for validating and verifying design concepts. This module defines prototyping as an iterative tool, focuses on stakeholder engagement in development, discusses varied validation strategies, and addresses the influence of personal and societal factors on idea evolution.