Influences of ICT Tools on the Empathizing Phase of the Design Thinking Process of Design Students

The notion of design thinking initiates discussions regarding its process and practices in many fields, including education. However, the design thinking process within the architectural domain and among architectural design students has not been sufficiently addressed in education and scientific research. This study explores the design thinking process of the design students while working in a conventional design studio context, further, expanding towards exploring the influences which could be made by ICT tools to the design process adopted by students. For this study, twenty-five interior design undergraduates were selected through convenient sampling technique. The students were divided into five random groups and were assigned with a design task to engage. Conventional design studio at NSBM Green University, Sri Lanka was utilized as the study context. Each study was conducted through three studio days with six hours allocated per day. Data was collected using naturalistic observation, focus group interviews, narrative samplings, and photographs to ensure the credibility of the data by adopting multiple data collection techniques. Six phased thematic analysis was utilized for data analysis. Results have shown that ICT tools have facilitated students to start their design thinking process from Ideation. Empathizing phase was critically neglected by students as a result, and we identified it as a major problem which needs further research.