Collaborating By Design on 2FB | Dartmouth Libraries

October 14, 2024

Student x Libraries Collaboration Envisions a New, Vibrant Space

When you think of the word “design,” what do you imagine? City planners choosing the layout of a city or roadway network? Maybe it’s trying to figure out the best shape and material for the ultimate water bottle? For some people, when they think of design, they think of project-based collaborations and human-centered co-design, and human-centered design thinking.

But what is human-centered co-design and design thinking?

Rachel Orlowski ‘25, Design Corps Member and Peer Mentor, shares that human-centered design is specialized problem-solving through a different lens, one that focuses on core users and their specific needs. When solving a problem, it’s not, “I have an idea!” Instead, it’s a process that starts by asking, “who is my user and how am I going to shape ideas around what they need?” This empathetic and exploratory approach brings about intuitive solutions that center stakeholders in the problem-solving process.

Watch the "Design Is" video, an excellent resource to better understand design and its evolution.

Different industries and sectors take distinct approaches to theorizing and applying their versions of design thinking. However, core to them all, is the fundamental nature of design as a human capacity. And it is that perspective that the Libraries wanted to tap into as part of a plan to re-envision the second floor of the Berry Library.

"For as long as humans have existed, we’ve always been makers. That means you’re a designer too!" - Paula Olson, DIAD Senior Program Manager

At Dartmouth, we're fortunate to have the Design Initiative at Dartmouth (DIAD), housed at Thayer, serving all corners of campus and beyond. DIAD spearheads interdisciplinary research efforts, off-campus projects, new courses and collaborative programs using human-centered design and design thinking. The DIAD team facilitates collaborative creativity using context responsive frameworks and activities to bring together technology and the liberal arts. This approach empowers the community to uncover and address the most challenging problems. It’s also the origin of the intensive program, Design Corps. The result? A collection of interwoven, distinct student-led group projects engages with various campus collaborators to empathize, define, and prototype innovative transformations.

The Design Corps program brings together teams of students and Dartmouth-wide partners to confront complex challenges, working over the course of one to three terms. Rooted in the spirit of collaboration and experiential learning, the program invites students to immerse themselves in human-centered design, activating their creative curiosity to understand user experiences and propose opportunities based on real needs.

In 2023, Susanne Mehrer, Dean of Libraries, connected with DIAD co-directors Solomon Diamond and Eugene Korsunskiy. She was excited to explore how a partnership with DIAD and Design Corps could include student voices through user-centered design to help conceptualize the future spaces and services on second floor Berry Library (2FB). With the partnership in place, Laura Braunstein, Head of Digital Scholarly Engagement at Dartmouth Libraries, led this collaborative initiative with library staff, the Design Corps' students, and other key stakeholders throughout. Laura shared how the Design Corps students’ participation in and contribution to this project was incredibly important. She said that one challenge and opportunity for the Design Corps team was getting stakeholders on the same page as far as project vision and user needs. She also emphasized how the team's "collaboration with the Libraries will be the basis for everything else we do.”

There is a vibrancy to 2FB that is unlike any other floor in the Berry Library.

Daniel Chamberlain, Associate Dean of Libraries

Design Corps team members workshop personas

To kick off their collaboration, passionate library staff scoped the project. They asked “how might we pair library staff expertise with flexible facilities for everything from data science, geographic information systems, and podcasting to oral history, digital storytelling, and computational textual analysis?” Words like, “dynamic, energetic, innovative, and co-creation” inspired the process.

The Design Corps team took the brief and focused on the users and their needs. What’s so special and vital about students leading the design process is their dual position as students and design experts. That duality means they bring a deeper appreciation to the project, being invested in the impact and sustainability of the outcomes now and for the future.

Our hearts are in this project, not only from the student side, as in “all my peers use this space,” but that we’re building from success. There are incredible resources on 2FB, and we’re lucky to have them.

Sabine Spier ‘26, Design Corps member 2023-2024

The team interviewed students, staff, and other key stakeholders. From those interviews, Sara Shelton '26, Design Corps member 2023-2024, remarks how their role was important because they were hearing as many people as possible. They performed a competitive analysis of digital media labs at peer institutions, and led participants through design charrettes to visualize floor layouts. "We distilled everything down to action points, insights, and prototyping, which was difficult and time-consuming. In the end, we have this perspective that fills a gap," said Sara.

The Libraries highly value student engagement in all forms, and we’re excited about what innovations may result from the past 8 months of intensive collaboration with the Design Corps team. As we update our spaces, programs, and services in ways that empower students to unlock their individual potential, we’ll continue to use human-centered design as a tool for engagement and change.

Susanne Mehrer

floor plan mockup of the envisioned future space

Laura’s role throughout the collaboration was crucial. As a bridge for stakeholders, she connected Design Corps to library staff, high-level administrators, and faculty across Dartmouth who needed inclusion. Students met with Joanna Whitcomb, Director of Campus Planning, and Doug Moody, Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literature, as examples.

During Summer Term 2024, Design Corps’ ultimate goal was to establish a common understanding of the space that supports both library users and library staff. By term end, they hoped to have a clear narrative about who the users are and could be, and their unique needs, wants, and desires within the space. That narrative has both characters and story arcs: user profiles, which describe the needs, interests, expectations of a typical set of users of the space, and user journeys, descriptions of how a typical user might experience the space.

We’re not outside consultants. We’re professionals with a stake in the outcome because it’s the school we go to. And it affects future students.

Sara Shelton ‘26, Design Corps member 2023-2024

Design Corps team put up workshop posters

Design Corps students set up a workshop session

What resulted, as with most design processes, wasn’t what the Design Corps team had initially presumed. And that’s what the design process is all about! Sara and Sabine pointed out that whatever the design of the space ends up being, they hope it keeps the users in mind, not just today’s users, but future ones too. "Our final deliverable changed so much. We no longer have a floor plan or design features for a new space. What we presented was what we saw and heard from stakeholders, the most shared insights, and overlapping needs," said Sara. They hope that whatever comes from their contribution to the project, that future iterations of 2FB will be inclusive of the various students, staff, and faculty they met throughout the process. For the Design Corps student team, this would be a powerful outcome of their engagement with user-centered design.

Three years since its inception, Design Corps continues to offer students the freedom and opportunity to shape campus impact through empathy-centered design projects. The program evolves based on student feedback and reflective efforts. It embraces co-design as a living process where shared understanding is built through thoughtful planning, action, and reflection.

Looking forward, we're excited about future collaborations between the Libraries and Design Corps.

Design at its core is optimistic; it’s the call to change what is to what ought to be…to build a better, wiser, more just world.

Foundation Capital

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