Why Designing 4 Humans?


When people are tasked to design and build things they are creating FOR other people. The products are expected to work well as well.

The Designing for Humans (D4H) process combines empathy - listening to understand other humans' situation - and engineering principles - structures, systems, planning, sketching, modeling, testing and evaluating.


These two methods work together to help designers, engineers, architects and curious people create the best possible solutions to problems other humans are facing. 

Why for Students?


In the real world people best solve problems by looking at people in the situation, empathizing with them and then going through a process to develop the best solution. 

Using the Designing for Humans as a pedagogy for teaching students helps them act as real-world problem solvers. The process naturally makes students empathize with others and use engineering principles to create the best possible solution for others. 

Students learn about:

  • empathy
  • problem-solving
  • research
  • brainstorming
  • creativity
  • designing
  • testing
  • evaluating.
  • creativity
  • collaboration
  • systems thinking
  • construction techniques



How with Students?


Students benefit from using design portfolios that guide their thinking through this process. These portfolios, keep students on track and thinking about the important information to build out the best solution. The portfolio is incredibly helpful for assessing students growth and thought processes throughout this process.



How For Teachers?


The project planner and teaching guide helps teachers figure out how to build and implement the perfect Designing for Humans project. The planner helps teacher's figure out how to incorporate Designing 4 Humans with the typical curriculum content. The teacher guide helps the teacher walk the whole class through the student design portfolio

What questions do you have about Designing 4 Humans?

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Designing 4 Humans