Students will build empathy by engaging directly with community members and mentors to understand lived experiences of resilience. Through a museum experience, structured interviews, and the creation of evidence-based empathy maps, students will surface assumptions, gather authentic stories, and ground future design decisions in real user needs.

Students will synthesize interview transcripts and museum/community research into clear, evidence-based problem definitions that name a specific user, core need, and insight about resilience. They will identify patterns across interviews, draft and critique "How Might We" statements, and submit a focused design brief grounded in direct quotes and textual evidence.

Students will generate a wide range of documentary and children’s book concepts grounded in real interview evidence, evaluate ideas against clearly defined user needs, and produce annotated concept sketches that trace design decisions back to empathy research before moving into prototyping.

Students will build, test, and revise low- and medium-fidelity prototypes of their children’s books and documentary concepts, using real user and peer feedback to strengthen narrative clarity, audience awareness, and technical quality before final production.

Students will conduct a final validation round with new users, refine their documentary and children’s book based on documented feedback, and present their full design journey to authentic stakeholders. They will trace decisions from interview evidence through iteration, publicly exhibit their work, and reflect on growth as storytellers and collaborators.