Cognitive Bias in Design

The purpose of the chapter is to situate design thinking pedagogy in the engineering/STEM curriculum and relate the experiential learning module(s) to the qualities, skills and understandings that a student should gain as a result of the learning and experiences with which they engage.

This module will focus on cognitive bias in design and innovation for learners in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses. Learners will be introduced to the concepts of “design thinking” and cognitive bias in the context of our design work as part of being effective and ethical innovators.

Instructors can use this module to help students become aware of their own biases and understand the impact of their biases on their design work. By introducing learners to different design thinking strategies focused on empathy and ideation, they will gain confidence in their abilities to overcome biases, thereby creating opportunities for innovative design.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

By the end of the module learners are able to:

• Reflect on how bias shows up in our work, in our teams, and in the broader world
• Recognize the different ways we experience bias as designers and as the beneficiaries of the design work
• Describe two types of cognitive biases that are commonly experienced by designers during the design thinking process: “egocentric empathy gap” and “availability bias”
• Distinguish between their own values (as designers) and those of diverse stakeholders involved in a design challenge
• Use/apply different strategies to address each bias in their design work.

Authors

Andrea and Lauren are Co-Founders of Up4 The Challenge, a not-for-profit educational program for youth advocating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for social impact through human-centred design. Up4 The Challenge was developed to inspire students with a shared desire for a better world to work with peers from diverse backgrounds in addressing locally relevant social and environmental issues. In addition to their work with their Up4 team members, Lauren Folk began work as a traffic engineer after completing her Master’s degree at York University and Andrea is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at McMaster and Queen’s Universities. To learn more about them, visit https://www.up4thechallenge.ca/about.