Project Team Resource Guide

C-SED supports student-led, co-curricular design teams working on real-world challenges with social impact. We offer resources to teams to help them deepen their impact, strengthen their processes, and build inclusive, reflective team cultures.

General questions? Reach out to c-sed-info@umich.edu!

WORKSHOPS ON SED SKILLS

If your team is looking to build socially engaged design skills, C-SED offers a variety of workshops that integrate opportunities to practice, facilitated by trained graduate student facilitators.

C-SED can work with you to understand the goals of your organization, needs of your design team, and match a workshop topic or series of workshops for your team to help meet your goals. Before your meeting, please check out this list of questions to consider and be prepared to discuss.

Interested? Sign up for our Co-Curricular office hours

Session Topics:

Introduction to Socially Engaged Design
Contextual Factors and Professional Responsibilities in Engineering Design
Power, Privilege, and Identity in Design
Stakeholder Mapping
Conducting Design Interviews
Conducting Design Observations
Identifying Need Statements
Problem Definition and “How Might We” Questions
Identifying User Requirements and Engineering Specifications
Idea Generation
Concept Selection
Prototyping as a Mindset
Realize Reflection Activity

FUSED MODULES (CANVAS)

The asynchronous Functional Uses of Socially Engaged Design (FUSED) Modules on Canvas provide your team with a structured deep dive into socially engaged design topics. This online format allows for individuals to learn at their own pace while providing a structured learning tool that can be used by the team.

After a prior knowledge check, each module will explore guided content consisting of core reading and videos. Then, you will have the opportunity to complete a task as an individual and as a team.

Sign up for our Co-Curricular office hours

Topics/tools covered:

Stakeholder Identification & Mapping
Interviewing Skills
Contextual Factors & Secondary Research
Conducting Design Observations
Preparing for a Needs Assessment
Data Synthesis & Problem Definition
Determining Requirements & Specifications
Idea Generation
Idea Selection
Prototyping as a Tool for Feedback

Before meeting with C-SED to discuss the FUSED modules or our workshop opportunities, please consider and be prepared to discuss the following questions:

What stakeholders has your team directly talked to?

What research have you done on the context of your design challenge?

Is your team’s stakeholder, observation, and research data organized and stored? How?

What have you done to elicit feedback during project development?

What sorts of things have you learned from your stakeholders?

What is your team’s problem or needs statement?

What are your requirements and specifications?

Let’s Connect!

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIALLY ENGAGED DESIGN (COURSERA)

“Introduction to Socially Engaged Design” is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed by expert faculty at the University of Michigan to walk engineers and designers through the societal implications, outcomes, and potential unintended consequences early in the product design process.

Visit Introduction to Socially Engaged Design on Coursera to get started

Course sections:

Introduction

In this module, you will explore the intersection of technical design, engineering, and social factors, focusing on equity and societal needs. You will examine the Socially Engaged Design (SED) Process to navigate complex engineering challenges, learn its structure, and apply the SED principles through case studies showcasing the societal impact of engineering.

Explore

In this module, you will understand how to employ stakeholder maps to identify project influences and discover the impact of power dynamics and personal bias on stakeholder interactions.

Define

In this module, you will learn the process of identifying and defining engineering needs and design opportunities, and understand how to distinguish between and gather stakeholder requirements and engineering specifications. In addition, you will examine how personal biases can affect problem framing.

Ideate

In this module, you will understand the role of tools and strategies in ideation to create innovative design solutions. You'll survey best practices in generating and selecting ideas, while examining how identity and power dynamics influence the ideation process.

Develop and Realize

In this final module, you will dig into the Develop and Realize stages as critical analysis processes for validating and verifying design concepts. This module defines prototyping as an iterative tool, focuses on stakeholder engagement in development, discusses varied validation strategies, and addresses the influence of personal and societal factors on idea evolution.

THE C-SED LAB

Develop a prototype, explore a new tool, or meet other socially engaged engineers & designers at The Center for Socially Engaged Engineering & Design (C-SED) Lab! The C-SED Lab is a collaborative makerspace that is available to your project team for working on projects, developing prototyping, and learning new making & building skills.

Access the C-SED Lab

Learn More:

C-SED Lab Page

C-SED FAQs

RESERVE ROOMS & SPACES

Reserve C-SED’s collaboration space for a big group meeting or the conference room for a smaller team meeting.

Reserve a room