D653 Empathizing, Defining, and Ideating, catalog number DES 3200, is the three CU course in the WGU School of Business design sequence covering empathy driven, user centered design thinking supported by research and interdisciplinary collaboration. It deliberately stops before building anything. The three verbs in the title are the front half of the design thinking process, and the course exists because that half is the part everyone skips.
Empathy is a research method, not a feeling
The word empathy causes trouble in DES 3200 because students read it as an attitude. In design it is a method with outputs. You talk to people about what they actually did rather than what they would do, you watch where their behaviour departs from what they told you, and you produce artefacts other people can use: journey descriptions, need statements, quotes that carry weight because someone really said them.
The give away in a weak submission is research that produces only agreement. If every interview confirmed what you expected, either the questions were leading or the analysis stopped early. Real user research is uncomfortable: it usually reveals that the problem you were briefed on is not the one people have, or that the workaround they already invented is better than the thing you were planning to build.
The second scored element is the define step, which is where most of the difficulty concentrates. A problem definition in design thinking is not a task description. It states a specific user, a need expressed as a need rather than as a feature, and an insight that explains why the need is not being met already. That third part is what makes a definition useful, and it is the part most often missing.
Turning scored aspects into a section plan
Scoring detail lives in your Course of Study rather than the catalog. Count the aspects there and use them as headings worded close to the rubric's own nouns. Each is judged separately against a three point scale and each needs a 2, so a large volume of ideas does not compensate for a thin research section.
Because this course produces research artefacts as well as writing, say explicitly which artefact answers which aspect. A journey map that carries an insight is only scoreable if the narrative states the insight in a sentence.
The word budget, worked. Assume six scored aspects and around 1,700 words of written work. Reserve 130 words to name the domain and the users and 110 to close on what you would take forward. That leaves near 1,460, about 240 per aspect. Then take 50 words from each of two descriptive aspects and add 100 to the define aspect and the same to the aspect covering synthesis of research. Synthesis is the hardest step and the one that most reliably separates a competent submission from a thin one.
A structure that fits a design research deliverable
Where your directions specify a structure, use theirs. Where they do not, this ordering matches how the aspects tend to be scored.
| Section | What belongs in it | How it gets read |
|---|---|---|
| Domain and starting question | What area you are working in and what you did not know at the start | A starting question with an obvious answer signals research done backwards |
| Research approach | Who you spoke to or observed, how many, when, and why that method | Small samples are fine when described accurately |
| What you found | Observations and quotes, including the ones that surprised you | Surprise is evidence the research was genuine |
| Synthesis | Patterns across participants, and the insight that explains them | The step most often skipped; grouping is not yet insight |
| Problem definition | User, need and insight in a single statement | The centrepiece of the course |
| Ideation | Quantity first, with the method named, then a shortlist with criteria | Three safe ideas suggests ideation did not really happen |
| Collaboration | Who else was involved, what different disciplines contributed | Named in the catalog description; often forgotten in submissions |
Keep the raw material visible. A handful of direct quotes, attributed to anonymised participants, does more for the credibility of a design research submission than any amount of confident summary.
Evidence craft for user research
Design research is judged on honesty about how little you can conclude from how few people, and on what you did with what you got.
- Report participant count, recruitment method and date every time you generalise, and keep the generalisation proportionate.
- Prefer accounts of specific past events to opinions about future behaviour. What someone did last Tuesday is evidence; what they would probably do is not.
- Include your interview guide or observation protocol so a reader can see whether the questions led the answers.
- Quote participants directly and anonymise carefully, checking that role descriptions do not identify anyone by implication.
- Cite the design thinking framework you are working within rather than treating the steps as common knowledge.
- Use APA in the written portion and keep quotation of published sources short.
Report the finding that undermined your original brief. It is the single most persuasive thing a design research submission can contain, and it demonstrates that the empathy step did what it exists to do rather than confirming a plan already made.
What separates Competent from a submission sent back
Aspects score independently, and returns here concentrate on synthesis and definition.
- Research method is described precisely, including how few people were involved.
- At least one finding contradicted an initial assumption, and the report says so.
- Synthesis produces an insight rather than a grouping of observations.
- The problem definition contains a user, a need and an insight, and no solution.
- Ideation shows range before it shows selection, and the selection criteria are stated.
Performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so returns cost calendar rather than standing. Terms are six months at a flat rate, and research takes real elapsed time, so starting participant conversations in the first week is the practical priority.
Six mistakes that cost time in D653
- Research that confirms everything. It usually means the questions led, or the analysis stopped at agreement.
- Asking people what they want. Users report preferences poorly and past behaviour well, and the questions should reflect that.
- Grouping mistaken for synthesis. Sorting observations into themes is preparation; the insight is the sentence explaining why the theme exists.
- Definitions containing solutions. A need to have a reminder feature is a solution wearing a need's clothing.
- Ideating for quality too early. The method depends on volume first, and a shortlist of three cautious ideas fails the aspect.
- Skipping the collaboration element. It is named in the course description and it needs evidence, not a mention.
Getting from observations to an insight
Synthesis is the step where most design research submissions stall, and it helps to treat it as a mechanical process rather than as a moment of inspiration.
Start by breaking your research into single observations, one per note. Not summaries of a participant, but individual things that were said, done or noticed. Twenty minutes of conversation might yield fifteen of these. Keep the participant's own words wherever possible, because paraphrase smooths away the specificity that makes patterns visible.
Then group them by what they have in common, and resist grouping by topic. Topic grouping produces categories such as pricing or onboarding, which are administrative rather than useful. Behavioural grouping produces categories such as people who check twice before committing, or moments where someone stopped and asked a colleague. Those tell you something.
Now write the insight for each group, in the form of a tension. An insight has the shape of people want X but they also want Y, and the current arrangement forces them to choose. Someone wants to be quick but also wants to be sure they did not make an expensive mistake; someone wants privacy but also wants their information already filled in. Tensions are productive because they generate ideas that address both sides, whereas an observation only generates a fix.
Finally, test each insight by asking whether it could be false. An insight nobody could disagree with is a truism, and truisms produce obvious ideas. The ones worth keeping are those a reasonable colleague might dispute, because those are the ones that lead somewhere the brief did not already anticipate.
How support works on this course
Send the rubric from your Course of Study and the task directions. What comes back is aspect mapped: an interview guide that avoids leading questions, a synthesis method that produces insights rather than themes, a problem definition with user, need and insight, and an ideation section that shows range before selection. The participants and their words stay yours, because research aspects cannot be satisfied any other way.
D653 feeds directly into the prototyping pair that follows. Terms are six months at a flat rate, so lining up the design courses in sequence keeps the research you did here usable in the courses after it.
Questions students ask about D653
Is D653 the same course as DES 3200?
How many people do I need to talk to?
Can you conduct the research for me?
Where D653 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.