Abstract
This research advocates for a shift towards inclusive teaching practices in industrial design education. Neurodivergent industrial design students and recent graduates were leveraged as experts in their lived experiences to promote inclusivity. This study investigates what recommendations the neurodivergent participants could co-design toward inclusive teaching practices. Seven participants (graduate design students) from a North American institution were asked to share their background, comment on the state of industrial design education, and articulate what an inclusive version could be in the future through interviews and co-design workshops. Thematic analysis revealed 6 themes: (1) Interest: engaging in projects that interested them, (2) Stories-experiences: listening and communicating stories and experiences, (3) Flexible workload: actively adjusting deliverables and deadlines, (4) Feedback: receiving feedback on all steps of the design projects, (5) Direction: providing expectations for outcomes in projects, and (6) Process: learning a quality design process. The 6 themes were used to develop 20 product ideas, which were combined or narrowed down to 3 concepts evaluated by 11 industrial design instructors via expert survey. These findings informed the design of Naranote, a digital template for “narrative note-taking” that assists students in expressing a story of their design process for their studio projects. Naranote was implemented among junior-level industrial design students (N=18) while completing their ongoing studio projects and among portfolio workshop participants who used the template to integrate storytelling into a past project. This work contributes a methodology and recommendations for co-design with neurodivergent students and recent graduates. Secondarily, it experiments with co-design to inform a product that supports inclusive teaching practices. Finally, the two user studies are starting points for testing inclusive teaching interventions.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.052
Citation
Bhattacharya, K.,and Khan, S.(2025) Leveraging Neurodivergent Design Students to Co-Design Education and Develop a Resource for Inclusive Teaching, in Clemente, V., Gomes, G., Reis, M., Félix, S., Ala, S., Jones, D. (eds.), Learn X Design 2025, 22-24 September 2025, Aveiro, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.21606/drslxd.2025.052
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Full Paper
Leveraging Neurodivergent Design Students to Co-Design Education and Develop a Resource for Inclusive Teaching
This research advocates for a shift towards inclusive teaching practices in industrial design education. Neurodivergent industrial design students and recent graduates were leveraged as experts in their lived experiences to promote inclusivity. This study investigates what recommendations the neurodivergent participants could co-design toward inclusive teaching practices. Seven participants (graduate design students) from a North American institution were asked to share their background, comment on the state of industrial design education, and articulate what an inclusive version could be in the future through interviews and co-design workshops. Thematic analysis revealed 6 themes: (1) Interest: engaging in projects that interested them, (2) Stories-experiences: listening and communicating stories and experiences, (3) Flexible workload: actively adjusting deliverables and deadlines, (4) Feedback: receiving feedback on all steps of the design projects, (5) Direction: providing expectations for outcomes in projects, and (6) Process: learning a quality design process. The 6 themes were used to develop 20 product ideas, which were combined or narrowed down to 3 concepts evaluated by 11 industrial design instructors via expert survey. These findings informed the design of Naranote, a digital template for “narrative note-taking” that assists students in expressing a story of their design process for their studio projects. Naranote was implemented among junior-level industrial design students (N=18) while completing their ongoing studio projects and among portfolio workshop participants who used the template to integrate storytelling into a past project. This work contributes a methodology and recommendations for co-design with neurodivergent students and recent graduates. Secondarily, it experiments with co-design to inform a product that supports inclusive teaching practices. Finally, the two user studies are starting points for testing inclusive teaching interventions.