Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington

The goal of the Design in Engineering for Extraterrestrial Planning (DEEP)  project is to understand how Human Centered Design processes can be integrated into space engineering projects and missions. As the space industry matures, we hypothesize that human-centered solutions may be able to effectively support long-term missions. To that end, we seek to develop a human-centered design and research process/toolkit for human-space activity and explore how this may be integrated into the early-stage technology concepting processes used by NASA and industry partners. 

At the beginning of 2021, the research group worked to frame the project by defining its core questions and developing a data collection plan. The next stage of the research involves engaging industry experts and mapping the complex human systems that define mission design activities. 

This empirical engagement will inform the longer term question of how we might apply human-centered design to artifacts for human usage in deep space and extraterrestrial contexts. In order to explore this, the research team will engage in research through design practices around specific obstacles to the design of space technology, such as the problem of designing systems, technologies, & services for contexts that we don’t have high-fidelity analog access to. 

This research program has been developed by a team of researchers from the department of Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington as well as members of industry and government organizations in the space industry, including NASA and Blue Origin. 

Group members

Faculty

• Beth Kolko, Professor and Associate Chair, Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington

Alumni

• Erin McLean, B.S., Human Centered Design & Engineering (2015), University of Washington; M.D.E, Master of Design Engineering (2019), Harvard University; Senior Design Strategist at Blue Origin
• Caryn Kieszling, B.S. Human Centered Design and Engineering (2012), BA: Anthropology (2012), University of Washington and Senior User Experience Researcher at Blue Origin
• Ankur Agrawal, Alum, M.S. Human Centered Design & Engineering (2016), University of Washington
• Daniel Aldridge, Alum, B.S. Human Centered Design & Engineering (2016), University of Washington

Graduate Students

• Emily Stensland, Graduate Student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
• Adoniah Carmeline, Graduate Student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
• Chris Horng, Graduate student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington and UX Research Intern at NASA JPL
• Valerie Ho, Graduate student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington and UX Researcher at Philips Sonicare
• Will Sutherland, Graduate Student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
• Alex Schonbaum, Graduate Student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington

Undergraduate Students

• Raiham Malik, Undergraduate student in Human Centered Design & Engineering (Data Science), University of Washington
• Sydney Brusnighan, Undergraduate student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington
• Sara Behbakht, Undergraduate student in Human Centered Design & Engineering, University of Washington