How to Boost Designers' Emotional Intelligence to Promote Empathy Toward Participants with Disabilities in Design Thinking

设计思维是一种解决问题的方法，可以深入理解挑战，构思一系列解决方案，并通过原型和测试迭代地改进它们。设计师经常采用设计思维，同时在面对面的会议上与用户密切合作，创造创新的设计。在设计思维中，与用户的情感互动被认为是至关重要的，因为它有助于彻底了解用户的需求。本研究旨在通过情绪智力来提高设计思维中的情绪交互质量。情商有助于在设计师和用户之间建立牢固的情感关系，有助于开发设计解决方案，以满足尽可能多的用户需求，包括残疾用户的独特需求。这项研究还为来自代表性不足人群的学生提供了教育机会。传统的设计实践倾向于准确和客观的数据收集，而不是设计师与用户的情感互动。为了解决这一局限性，这项研究利用了情绪智力(感知、理解和管理情绪的能力)。与关注他人的同理心不同，情商关注的是自己，有助于与他人进行情感互动。这项研究的主要目的是了解如何在设计思维中增强和整合情绪智力，以培养设计师与用户的情感互动。具体目标包括增进对人类情绪系统的了解；发现情绪智力的个体差异；创建一项计划，以提高情绪智力对个人差异的解释；以及评估该计划对面对面设计思维活动的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach to deeply understand challenges, ideate a range of solutions, and refine them iteratively through prototyping and testing. A designer often adopts Design Thinking while working closely with a user in a face-to-face meeting to create innovative designs. Emotional interaction with a user is deemed critical in Design Thinking because it helps to gain a thorough understanding of user needs. This research aims to improve the quality of emotional interaction in Design Thinking via emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can help to establish a strong emotional relationship between a designer and a user, contributing to developing design solutions to accommodate as many users’ needs as possible, including the unique needs of users with disabilities. This research also supports educational opportunities for students from underrepresented populations.Conventional design practices tend to be skewed towards accurate and objective data collection rather than a designer’s emotional interaction with a user. To address the limitation, this research utilizes emotional intelligence (the ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions). In contrast to empathy which focuses on others, emotional intelligence focuses on oneself, contributing to emotional interaction with others. The primary goal of this research is to understand how to enhance and integrate emotional intelligence in Design Thinking to foster a designer’s emotional interaction with a user. The specific objectives include advancing knowledge of human emotion systems; uncovering individual differences in emotional intelligence; creating an initiative to enhance emotional intelligence accounting for individual differences; and evaluating the effect of the initiative on in-person Design Thinking activities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.