Empathy requires us to put aside our learning, culture, knowledge, opinions, and worldview purposefully in order to understand other peoples’ experiences of things deeply and meaningfully. It requires a strong sense of imagination for us to be able to see through another person’s eyes.
It requires humility so we can seek to abandon our preconceived ideas and biases. It requires that we have a heightened awareness of other peoples’ needs, wants, motivations and goals. Let’s go through the traits an empathic observer should possess—and some methods you can use to gain a deep understanding of the people for whom you are designing.
Daryl Davis, renowned for deradicalizing KKK members spoke at the Minds IRL event on Saturday in Philadelphia, which brought together speakers across the political spectrum to speak about ending racism, violence, and authoritarianism. Subverse spoke with Davis about his thoughts on the event and why having these conversations are important.
Design Thinking is an empathic, human-centered approach to innovation that has become prominent in design and business circles in recent decades. In the image below we have modified a Design Thinking diagram used by the Hasso Plattner Institute for Design (aka “d.School”) at Stanford University, to show how biomimicry concepts can fit into the framework.
Whereas design thinking emphasizes beginning the design process with empathy for users, in a biomimetic concept we could extend that concern to include all life
. During the “define” step one would identify the function and context necessary for the solution and formulate questions for biology research. The “ideate” step then includes searching biology for inspiration, translating strategies and considering nature’s unifying patterns. And finally, the “test” step includes evaluating whether the resulting design is ultimately life-friendly.
Empathetic design means keeping the user in mind throughout the process of designing or creating something. It means being aware of what a user needs and what a user may want. Empathetic design does not mean ensuring that a user is given everything they may want because sometimes that simply is not practical or possible...
Empathetic design can be complex. There are many strategies for practicing empathetic design and there is a lot of information available. To learn more about empathetic design, please look at some of the resources I have attached below. Personally, IDEO has always been an excellent source of information and inspiration for me. So, to those interested in empathetic design, I recommend looking at their resources.
Although there is a lot to empathetic design, in my experience as a Mechanical Engineer, I have found that it boils down to two things; consideration and communication. For me, consideration comes partly from trying to put myself in a user’s position.
This paper examines the promise of empathy, the name commonly given to the initial phase of the human-centered design process in which designers seek to understand their intended users in order to inform technology development.
By analyzing popular empathy activities aimed at understanding people with disabilities, we examine the ways empathy works to both powerfully and problematically align designers with the values of people who may use their products. Drawing on disability studies and feminist theorizing, we describe how acts of empathy building may further distance people with disabilities from the processes designers intend to draw them into.
We end by reimagining empathy as guided by the lived experiences of people with disabilities who are traditionally positioned as those to be empathized.
The Promise of Empathy: Design, Disability, and Knowing the “Other”
This paper examines the promise of empathy, the name commonly given to the initial phase of the human-centered design process in which designers seek to understand their intended users in order to inform technology development. By analyzing popular empathy activities aimed at understanding people with disabilities, we examine the ways empathy works to both powerfully and problematically align designers with the values of people who may use their products.
Empathy is the best designer in reimagining health technology. I recently stumbled upon this article that focuses on concerns that hospitals in Scotland are not being built to a high enough standard to tackle infections.
Empathy is the birthplace of Design Thinking
The truth is, Design Thinking processes and philosophies have certainly become more mainstream in recent years. But are we overselling the capability? Is Design Thinking living up to its potential? We’ve all seen articles that say Design Thinking is dead or it’s overrated. Of course there’s always room to improve, but let’s be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. In reality, the naysayers are forgetting one of the foundational core constructs of Design Thinking; Empathy!
Figure 1: The Design Thinking process starts with empathy
Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design approaches, as applied to eLearning, focus on designing solutions that work for real learners in real workday situations. As such, empathy is an essential element in a Design Thinking approach to eLearning, and it is the first stage of any Design Thinking-based process.
In a instructional design context, empathy requires understanding the pain points and the daily reality of your target audience; it also requires some knowledge of learners’ motivations and needs, which might not be obvious.
One divergence-convergence cycle is dedicated to designing the problem. The typical approach is to start by designing the solution. But this prematurely limits the potential for design. Design thinking begins with immersion to understand the space to explore. To see with new eyes. To throw aside all preconceived assumptions. In this phase of the flow the following states are achieved:
Understand – Build empathy through immersive experiences.
Observe – Identify deep insights and hidden needs.
Point of View – State the nature of the problem or envisioning of new reality and concept to be developed.
They say the idea behind the experience is to apply that firsthand understanding to make their building designs more empathetic and accessible.
“One of the things that we really took away from the staff that ran through the scenarios is that having the hearing and the sight losses is really isolating,” Steiner tells Here & Now‘s Robin Young. “So even though I was at the airport [and] I did not have a flight to catch, I couldn’t understand half of the announcements. The losses that you have can be a little bit overwhelming.”
“The reason it works is because empathizing, or thinking about someone in an emotional way, leads to more cognitive flexibility,” says professor Kelly Herd.
Across trials and tasks, the empathetic designers were found to be measurably the most creative (the results were judged by various independent panels), and crucially, their ideas were no less practical than the logical group. In other words, their creative ideas didn’t come at the expense of realism.
For instance, when prompted to come up with potato chip flavors for pregnant women, the cognitive thinkers came up with flavors like “salt” and “BBQ.” But the empathetic thinkers thought up with flavors like pickles and ice cream, sushi with wasabi, and something called “margarita for mom.” Sushi and margaritas are not just surprising choices, they’re both foods that most pregnant women abstain from for nine months.
Empathy is a core principle of design-thinking and human-centered design. While it's difficult to walk a mile in another person's shoes there are steps we can take to bring ourselves closer to the people we design for.
In this workshop we will work through a series of exercises meant to broaden our understanding of how we listen to, understand and learn from people other than ourselves so that we may create innovative solutions to uncommon problems.
Effective collaboration is fueled by empathy—an awareness of others and an ability to detect their emotions and understand their perspective. To come up with truly innovative solutions requires new ideas. And to bring new ideas to light requires seeking a diversity of perspectives and creating a welcoming space for people to share their ideas without fear of judgment.
Leaders who are skilled at empathic collaboration know that voicing an opposing opinion can be a moment of tension for a member of their team, but that those tense moments are the greatest opportunity to unearth impactful ideas. They design ways to intentionally push their people beyond their comfort zones and guide them through the process of creative problem solving by providing support—asking questions instead of calling shots—at critical steps along the way.
“If we hope to meet the moral test of our times... then I think we’re going to have to talk more about the empathy deficit. The ability to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, to see the world through somebody else’s eyes.”
Empathy has the power to understand others and allows us to enter imaginatively into their thoughts and feelings and therefore respond in an appropriate way.
What is empathetic design? Empathetic design (not to be confused with empathic design, a common design methodology) is, simply put, designing with a level of empathy for your audience. The opposite would be apathetic design—which is often a result of the “I’m a designer” effect.
Empathetic design is not necessarily just the practice of buzzword-filled “User Experience Design” practices. Empathetic design is the fundamental understanding of how people use the tools that you build. It’s not about users and testing (though those are important too). It’s about people. Empathetic design is about being a person, designing for other people. Understanding that your website that you create for your business to communicate with your audience is a tool that will be used by people is the first step in creating an empathetic website.
The topic of empathy has been circling around for quite some time, particularly since it’s one of the pillars of the Design Thinking Process (established under the “Understand” component of the process). Empathy is also a topic that keeps being written about from multiple Authors, who try to emphasize the fact that Designers are only successful when they empathize and fully embrace the users they’re creating a solution for.
The idea for this article sprung up, not because I want to demystify what others have written so well, but mostly because I want to empirically showcase what I’ve observed from going through multiple Product Design teams and applications/software products deployed to the market, and what role Empathy truly played. Also as a highlight, I highly recommend a thorough read on this article hailing from the phenomenal Don Norman on the topic of Empathy. It’s a testament to a different perspective on the concept of Empathy in Design from a genial author.
Tips for introducing an empathic mindset in your company
Without a mutual understanding of the benefits that an empathic design approach can bring, it can be difficult to stand up to business-driven product requirements or unvalidated assumptions about the right solutions to implement.
One of the easiest ways to help others in your team or company to start thinking more empathically is to invite them to sit in on user research or user testing. Ask them to be your note taker, or simply have them observe. When a non-design team member can actually see and hear first hand a user experiencing and interacting with a product, it gives them an opportunity to develop empathy for that user and create a meaningful connection with them.
As learning and development (L&D) professionals, we all work to bring solutions to organizations and people. While we need to design and build things that are good for the organization, we also need to build things that people value and enjoy. This sounds easy, but the challenges of time, budget, fuzzy needs, shifting priorities, and resistance to change are well known. The Design Thinking approach offers a possible solution.
Design Thinking is a set of tools and methods for creative problem-solving. Design Thinking focuses on empathy by adopting the mindset of the people you are serving. Overall, Design Thinking includes a set of key phases that describe the approach. They are: empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing.
Design Thinking is simply a method for creative problem solving. According the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), The key ingredient is that it’s a human-centered process. As a UX Designer, it’s…
It’s important to recognize that these steps are non-linear. They can occur in parallel and are often repeated. However, “empathize” is typically the first step.
Building Empathy For Your Users
Empathy is not only applicable to UX. It’s an important life-skill to have and one that will be beneficial in the workplace and beyond. However, even if you consider yourself an empathetic person, it can be easy to lose sight of how to connect with the user. So, how can you ensure this doesn’t happen?
The first step is getting to know your users. This is not just about understanding what the target client wants and needs. Rather, this step is about taking the time to fully grasp users’ thoughts, emotions, and desires. As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” If you can understand the customer’s “why,” then you will be able to better convey the “why” of your business to them. In essence, it’s about building a connection between the product and the user.
Claire Hall “I think it is fascinating to see that eliciting empathy has inherent value in maximizing creativity,” Herd says. “This is one of those areas of psychology that hasn’t been clearly disentangled yet for marketers: how does explicitly thinking of others’ feelings affect those who are creating new work?”
“We’ve shown that empathy can change the way in which you think,” she says. “We’ve looked at it in a somewhat narrow context of product design, but it appears that subtle things, such as imagining how someone else would feel, can have a huge impact on creativity in general.”
Consideration of an end-user’s feelings is a potent tool for developing innovative new products and solving problems that exist in the marketplace.— Kelly Herd
My friend Delos “Toby” Cosgrove is a fellow blogger for LinkedIn. He and his wonderful organization, the Cleveland Clinic, deserve a massive shout-out for their recent video entitled “Empathy.” I challenge you to watch it without a few tears forming.
Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task. When communicated as it is in this video, empathy can be truly inspirational. What the Cleveland Clinic movie reveals is the true scale and complexity of the challenge of understanding a complex social situation in order to design a system that supports many and various needs.
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