Pursuing Inclusive Engineering Design: Centering People, Exploring Diverse Perspectives, and Promoting Divergent Thinking

Abstract

Exploring diverse perspectives is essential in building a more inclusive world. In engineering design, this ‘exploration’ takes place through divergent thinking processes, defined as exploring a problem with many diverse perspectives and alternatives considered en route to achieving a solution. The exploration of multiple alternatives, perspectives, and people can occur in every stage of the problem-solving process, including problem definition, research, concept generation, solution approaches, methodologies, and solutions. This dissertation investigates the importance of divergent thinking in engineering to center people, explore diverse perspectives, and ultimately, advance greater inclusiveness in engineering design.

Historically, research on divergent thinking in engineering has focused on concept generation by promoting consideration of many diverse solutions to a problem, but divergent thinking can play a role in other stages of engineering work. Divergent thinking at every stage of engineering processes raises opportunities to explore alternative understanding of problems, approaches, and solutions. In practice, engineers often struggle with divergent thinking because their professional training, education, and culture focus on convergence as a dominant thinking process. The emphasis during training is the search for an “optimal,” correct solution, narrowing perspectives and limiting exploration of alternatives. Available research on the practice of divergent thinking across engineering design is limited, suggesting the need for further scaffolding to support engineers in exploring diverse approaches and perspectives.

In this dissertation, my collection of studies investigates divergent thinking in engineering in multiple ways. First, I examine how students’ divergent thinking about people changes through explicitly representing people when generating concepts. Qualitative and experimental studies assess the impact of an explicit request to depict people in sketches when generating early concept designs. Next, I examined the ways practitioners explored (or failed to explore) diverse perspectives during engineering projects. A qualitative study with a diverse group of engineering practitioners examines their personal experiences divergently exploring stakeholders during engineering projects. My qualitative analysis defines individual, interpersonal, and organizational barriers and facilitators to divergent thinking in engineering. Finally, I examine practitioner experiences through a larger qualitative study across stages of engineering projects to identify broader dimensions influencing engineers’ ability to implement divergent thinking during engineering projects in the field.

The results of my studies offer actionable strategies and dimensions of practice that support engineers as they employ divergent thinking. In lab studies with design students, adding representations of people in concept sketches resulted in deeper exploration of users’ contexts and interactions with designs. My analysis of practitioners’ divergent thinking about stakeholders identified ways individuals and organizations may prevent or facilitate the exploration of diverse perspectives during an engineering project. My broader analysis of practitioner experiences with divergent thinking across the stages of engineering processes outlines potential changes to promote divergent approaches and avoid limitations from convergence dominance in engineering culture. These studies provide guidance for engineers on how to incorporate divergent thinking in their projects and highlight how divergent thinking in engineering is shaped by structures and processes in engineering organizations. My dissertation contributes explicit recommendations to better support divergent thinking across engineering processes as a tool for centering people, exploring diverse perspectives, and ultimately advancing inclusive engineering design.