Students will conduct firsthand user research in local public spaces, interview community members, and create evidence-based empathy artifacts that ground future design decisions in authentic user needs.

Students will synthesize interview transcripts, field notes, and observation data into clear themes and evidence-based insights, then craft and critique a focused How Might We statement that defines a specific user, need, and design constraints grounded in community evidence.

Students will generate a wide range of evidence-based solution concepts for enhancing a local public space, then narrow to 2–3 promising directions using user-centered criteria and documented tradeoff analysis to prepare for prototyping.

Students will translate their prioritized solution concepts into tangible, testable prototypes, gather structured feedback from users and peers, and iteratively refine their designs based on evidence and defined criteria and constraints.

Students will conduct a final validation test with new users, refine their community-based design solution based on evidence, and present their full design journey to city planning partners and community members at a public Design Symposium, explicitly tracing decisions to user research and iteration data.