Whether you are a Professor, PhD, Staff or Student, come feed your mind and body in this series of DPM talks, where we dive into interesting topics by inviting inspiring speakers from inside and outside the department!
Our next talk will be from a special guest: Anastasia Schauer, PhD (she/her) - Assistant Professor | DUCK Lab - Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering - The University of Texas at Austin
“The Manifestation and Mitigation of Cognitive Bias in User-Centered Design” by Anastasia Schauer:
Design heuristics, or rules of thumb, can be used to help engineers make decisions quickly and with lower cognitive load. Heuristics have been used as educational and training tools for novice designers to improve design outcomes for manufacturing and assembly. However, the application of heuristics as mental shortcuts can open the door for cognitive bias and stereotypes to infiltrate decisions made throughout the design process. Availability bias is especially prevalent in humanitarian engineering, where designers are prone to projecting their own needs and preferences onto end-users whose background is often different from their own. Interdisciplinary research methods from engineering design, human-computer interaction, social sciences, and engineering education can be leveraged to better understand the causes and effects of this phenomenon. This seminar will explore (1) the effect of cognitive bias on designers’ perceptions and empathy toward users, and (2) past, present, and future avenues for interventions to assist designers in perspective-taking and cognitive bias mitigation.
As this is a bonus DPM Lecture, lunch will not be provided.
We look forward to seeing all of you there for this interesting talk! 😃
Kind regards on behalf of DPM and Optimus,
Célia, Kostas and Salomé