Designing healthcare interventions for children with complex health needs often overlooks the perspectives of key stakeholders, including children. Collaborative design is essential for creating solutions that integrate diverse viewpoints and bridge communication gaps. However, prior studies lack tools to align stakeholder perspectives in pediatric care. This study introduces Octo, an educational toy, as a boundary object to enhance communication among children aged 4 to 10 with congenital heart disease (CHD), their parents, and healthcare providers. Octo evolves from a prototype to a functional educational tool, fostering engagement through play while promoting health literacy and stakeholder collaboration. This research through design (RtD) demonstrates the effectiveness of boundary objects in advancing inclusive, child-led interventions and collaborative healthcare design.

Engineering design is inherently a collaborative process that requires active engagement and effective communication. Project-based Learning (PBL) is increasingly recognized for fostering these essential skills. However, instructors face challenges in objectively monitoring interactions and providing process-oriented feedback, particularly in large-scale settings where free-riders and disengaged participants affect team dynamics. This study introduces a generative AI approach to deliver real-time, scalable, and empathetic feedback that enhances team collaboration. Findings highlight the potential of AI-driven systems to improve student engagement and learning outcomes, though limitations remain in providing context-specific advice. A secure framework for AI integration in collaborative learning environments is also proposed.

Design teams commonly need to explain the rationale or logic behind how they frame design challenges and develop a particular design concept and not others. This paper explores the use of Design Logic Visualizations (DLV) as a boundary object to enhance understanding and communication in convergent interdisciplinary engineering design environments. We developed the DLV as a new design tool, building upon existing design process visualizations like design signatures, and provide a case study from our NASA team. We then use a reflection-based autoethnographic and collaborative inquiry approach to reflect on how the DLVs influenced our team, our process, and our decision-making. The findings suggest DLVs can serve as a succinct storytelling tool, support shared understanding across disciplines and levels of leadership, and, ultimately, influence design outcomes.

In the product development process, the way in which different departments collaborate and communicate affects the challenges faced by employees, their level of motivation, and the time and cost of development. This paper examines the collaboration and communication in technical drawings based on the Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS). The idea of different types of technical drawing documents (ISO/TS 21619:2018) is explained. Based on a survey, a comparison with the industrial application is made. The current status of communication in the departments is analyzed and challenges, potentials and possible measures are considered. The results show that the document types and their possibilities are rather unknown (43%). Another insight was that there is a significant difference between standardization and the (working) reality, in which collaboration plays a major role.

This systematic review examines how generative design enhances communication and collaboration in multidisciplinary engineering teams. Using the PRISMA framework and CASP evaluation program, we analyzed 1,105 sources to assess its role in improving workflows, facilitating collaboration, and reducing communication gaps through CAD, algorithmic modeling, and AI-driven platforms. The findings show that generative design supports teamwork, optimizes design processes, and strengthens interdisciplinary collaboration. While widely used in architecture, aerospace, and automotive industries, its adoption in product design remains limited, presenting opportunities for further research and innovation. These insights contribute to a better understanding of how generative design can bridge communication barriers in engineering projects.

The increasing number of accidents involving electric vehicles (EVs) and pedestrians underscores the need of enhancing pedestrian safety. Autonomous vehicles (AVs), which have been introduced to mitigate traffic injuries caused by human error, still miss pedestrian trust due to the absence of a human driver. To improve pedestrian perceptions, EVs and AVs must integrate communication interfaces. This study administers two questionnaires to assess pedestrians’ emotional responses when crossing in front of EVs and AVs, and their preferences of modes of interaction. Vehicles’ ability to communicate their intentions through visual signals results crucial for pedestrians. Finally, findings regarding signals effectiveness when interacting with EVs and AVs allow for guidelines to emerge for the design of EAVs interfaces, offering valuable insights for the development of such vehicles.

While prototype testing with stakeholders is key for valuable feedback in iterative design, there is limited research on how novice designers, who lack the relevant experience, solicit meaningful feedback. This paper analyzes 30 prototype testing sessions from five student design teams to understand how novices structure their testing time by identifying and reporting the instances of testing interactions and types of questions within different contexts. Initial findings show that novices effectively set up testing, engage in active listening, and ask more close-ended follow-up questions. However, they rarely conclude sessions, seek stakeholder questions, and use fewer leading questions in later testing sessions. This preliminary understanding highlights opportunities to strengthen novices’ skills in prototype testing and how testing approaches affect stakeholder feedback quality.

A systematic process was used to develop a complete taxonomy of visual representation mechanisms applicable to the display of any kind of engineering information. The resulting twelve categories are broadly divided into eight related to graphical elements treated individually and four related to the arrangement of two or more graphical elements treated in conjunction with each other. The taxonomy is oriented to inform the further development of user interface software frameworks supporting the automated display of interactive engineering information in any form.

Advertisements play a key role in shaping perceptions of gender identity, which are influenced by biological traits and cultural beliefs. In India, practices like arranged marriages have historically defined gender roles, but younger generations are increasingly challenging these norms, especially through dating apps. This study examines how dating app advertisements address gender dynamics and societal challenges in India. By applying Barthes’ Semiotic theory, we analyzed a popular Bumble ad. The findings reveal how the ad promotes female agency, subverts gender norms, and portrays men as emotionally expressive. By blending modern technology with family values, the ad presents dating as empowering and respectful, challenging rigid societal norms. The study promotes inclusivity and shows how ads reshape gender narratives, and offers insights for creating socially responsible campaigns.

Interdisciplinary work environments, such as in the engineering of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), face significant communication challenges due to the need for collaboration among different engineering domains. This study examines communication comprehensibility within a CPS research project involving 30 researchers from multiple universities. We conducted two surveys to assess the status quo of communication comprehensibility. While most research descriptions are generally understandable, significant barriers exist due to technical terminology and differing epistemic foundations. The study presents a systematic approach to assess communication comprehensibility in interdisciplinary projects and highlights the need for support in enhancing communication. Further data from multiple projects is needed to develop effective communication models for interdisciplinary teams.

Developing new factories is effectively a design task. In this paper a case study on barriers to efficient project communication is presented. Preceding research has shown that production systems design projects can be more efficiently executed and that as many as 95% of all problems in collaborations are due to a lack of communication. The study was designed to grasp project communication barriers from three projects and developed a visual planning tool. The findings show that digital planning software supports mainly in the categories of Egocentrism and Mistrust, Equivocality and Ambiguity and less in Interaction Capability, Asynchronisity and Noise and Information-sharing Behaviour. Recommendations for future research is to connect the project communication support to quantitative project performance aswell as the acceptance of technology in production systems design.

Teams have been favored due to the diverse knowledge access. However, diversity can also have negative effects, and team outputs can be influenced by many factors, such as psychological safety. While the effects of psychological safety have been studied, its development has received less attention. Prior research in this area has focused either on specific populations or cross-sectional effects. To add to this area, this study examined the longitudinal development of psychological safety in engineering capstone students: how it evolves, and whether this can be influenced by team-related experiences. This study showed that although psychological safety did change meaningfully with time, neither time nor experience alone could capture the change. The results could shed light on the evolution of psychological safety, as well as what factors could potentially influence its development.

Designer and user have different perspectives on a product. This can lead to differences in their evaluation and classification in usage situations. Not least, products are evaluated from different backgrounds of experience. Communication between user and designer therefore appears to be crucial to support this mutual process of understanding. Prototyping is a widely used and recognised tool in development. The use of these as non-verbal instruments in communication, however, poses specific challenges for the designer, since ambiguities in interpretation are also possible here. The aim of this paper is therefore to develop a model that describes the communication between developer and user via prototypes to identify factors influencing the communication-process. Based on this communication model, initial implications for the design of prototypes will be derived

This study addresses the mental health needs of refugees and migrants in the Netherlands, highlighting the urgent public health challenges they face. Unique psychosocial hurdles, exacerbated by cultural dislocation, language barriers and systemic inequalities, hinder their access to quality mental healthcare. This study explores how coloniality intersects with mental healthcare access, using a decolonial framework to challenge stereotypes and assumptions that marginalize migrant voices. Through semi-structured interviews with migrants and language service providers, this research reveals the complexities of navigating the mental healthcare system. Findings reveal that temporality, professionalism and language barriers are key issues in migrants’ mental healthcare journeys. We advocate for systemic changes that prioritize migrant perspectives. Ultimately, this study aims to inform policy and practice to enhance mental health services for migrant populations in the Netherlands and contribute to the broader dialogue on decolonization in mental health.