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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the use of a sociotechnical case study as a means of integrating social and technical dimensions into an undergraduate engineering sustainability technical elective course. Design/methodology/approachThe “Big Wind Project” case study used a microhistory approach to engage students in the complexities of sustainable engineering, aiming to facilitate their exploration of the sociotechnical nature of engineering sustainability projects. Focused on a controversial wind energy project in Hawaii, the Big Wind Project case study served as a pedagogical tool in the course for engaging engineering students in complex sustainability challenges. FindingsThirty-nine students who engaged in the case study lesson responded to questions about their perceptions of the case and the role of stakeholders and other social dimensions in engineering decision-making and agreed that we could use their responses in this research. While many students acknowledged the importance of accounting for social dimensions, their discussions frequently reflected a persistent tendency of engineering work to view outcomes through a dualistic technical-vs-social lens rather than an integrated sociotechnical lens. Originality/valueThis study examined how a case study reveals and supports students’ navigation of the complexities of sociotechnical engineering sustainability work. 

Engineering designers are tasked with complex problems necessitating the use and development of various supports for navigating complexity. Prescriptive design process models are one such tool. However, little research has explored how engineering designers perceive these models' recommendations for engagement in design work. In this exploratory study, we analyzed data from individual semi-structured interviews with 18 mechanical engineering students to identify participant perceptions of design process models. As many design process model visualizations lack explicit attention to some social and contextual dimensions, we sought to compare perceptions among two models drawn from engineering texts and one model that was developed with the intent to emphasize social and contextual dimensions. We identified perceptions of the recommendations from the design process models related to starting and moving through a design process, gathering information, prototyping, evaluating or testing, and what they should consider. Participant perceptions across the three process models suggest different design process models make perceptions of certain recommendations more salient than others. However, participant perceptions also varied for the same process model. We suggest several implications for design education and training based on participant perceptions of the process models, particularly the importance of leveraging multiple design process models. The comprehensive descriptions of participant perceptions provide a foundation for further investigations bridging designers' perceptions to intent, behavior, and, ultimately, design outcomes. 

Abstract Stakeholder engagement with prototypes during the front-end phases of medical device design can support problem identification, problem definition, and early concept generation. This study examined what prototypes were leveraged to engage specific types of stakeholders during front-end medical device design. Analysis of semi-structured interviews with 22 design practitioners in the medical device industry revealed some common associations of prototype choice for particular stakeholders. A few associations are highlighted: designers engaged users with physical three-dimensional (3D) prototypes, financial decision-makers with physical 3D and two-dimensional (2D) prototypes, government and regulatory stakeholders with 2D prototypes, and expert advisors with digital 3D prototypes. The rationale provided by practitioners revealed the intentional selection of prototype form for specific stakeholder engagements. 

Abstract Prototypes have the potential to provoke discussion and to encourage stakeholders to play an active role during design engagements in the front-end phases of a design process. However, detailed descriptions of stakeholder engagement strategies in front-end design are lacking. The aim of this research study was to understand how design practitioners prepare and manage stakeholders for engagements involving prototypes in the front-end phases of a medical device design process. Design practitioners at companies developing mechanical and electromechanical medical devices for use in low- and middle-income countries were interviewed following a semi-structured interview guide. Interview transcripts were analysed, and inductive codes were developed. The findings suggest that design practitioners manage the group composition of stakeholders, review the project and prototype(s) with stakeholders at the start of the engagement, and show the progress of prototypes to stakeholders over multiple engagements. These strategies shed light on the importance of handling interpersonal relationships during stakeholder engagement with prototypes. 

Abstract Designers often gather information, for instance through stakeholder or domain expert meetings, to understand their design problems and develop effective solutions. However, few previous studies have provided in-depth descriptions of novice engineering designers’ approaches to conducting information gathering meetings. In this preliminary study, we analyzed data from six capstone mechanical engineering design teams to identify the types of individuals from whom teams gathered information, when these meetings occurred, and how teams solicited information during meetings. Teams in our study exhibited a range of information gathering behaviors that aligned with recommended practices, particularly in their early meetings. We also observed relatively few instances of teams exhibiting behaviors that were less similar to recommended practices during their meetings. However, our findings revealed two key trends across teams that represented specific opportunities for improvement and that may reflect characteristic novice approaches to conducting information gathering meetings. First, teams explored domain experts’ perspectives in depth during meetings and met with additional domain experts to inform their projects. Teams' meetings with project partners contained few instances of deep exploratory information gathering behaviors in comparison. In addition, teams seemed to finalize design decisions during early design meetings and were less likely to conduct information gathering meetings during later design phases. The comprehensive descriptions of novice mechanical engineering designers’ approaches provided in our preliminary study provide an entry point for further investigations that can inform engineering training, tools, and pedagogy for conducting effective meetings.