Empathy is an important element in design thinking. As a designer, the ability to empathize with the users means to see the world through their eyes and give our best attempt to imagine their experience, to set aside our own perspectives, and try to understand their needs and wants. (Devecchi and Guerrini Empathy and design. A new perspective) It is not hard to see why empathy is so important for us designers – how could we create a solution that works without even knowing what problems we are solving and who we are solving them for?
It is generally believed in psychotherapy that empathy does not necessarily have a consensual definition, but more recent studies have shown that it consists of three major subprocesses: emotional simulation, perspective-taking process, and emotion-regulation. (Elliott et al. Empathy) What does this mean to us as designers? I believe the most important subprocess in terms of design is the second, the perspective-taking process, it is not only important to understand what the user might need from our own perspective, we have to put ourselves in the users’ shoes and understand what would make their lives easier.
Figure 1 shows the kitchen that is featured in the Prodel House, otherwise known as the Prodel Residence. It was designed to be easily accessible by a wheelchair user. Not only does it feature a lower counter, cooktop, and sink top that could be easily accessed by a person in a wheelchair, it also features a variety of one-touch applications that allows the user to use kitchen applications such as the oven and coffee machine with relative ease. I believe this is an excellent example of empathy in design seeing that it exceeds beyond solving the obvious problem of the cooktop being too high.
Empathy is considered to be the first step of design process since it helps us define what the user actually needs, and it is not to be confused with sympathy, which describes one’s ability to have or show concern for another person’s well-being, without being able to relate and understand what the other person is actually going through, which is not necessarily helpful in the design thinking process where we are actively looking for solutions for their problems. (Dam and Siang Design thinking: Getting started with empathy)
Figure 2 is a photo I found on an online forum, where the disabled lift is being provided at this establishment, but it would require someone to go upstairs and acknowledge the staff to turn on the power for this device, this would require the person in a wheelchair to have at least one other person to help them, or it would just be impossible to use. It is, in my opinion, an example of sympathy vs empathy, the option of accessibility is offered without actually considering what the intended user needs and how they feel.
In UX design, the ability to empathize with the intended user enables us to mirror not only mirror their most immediate frustrations (i.e. cooktop being too tall or the need to get upstairs for a person in a wheelchair), but also their goals, limitations, how they behave and their reasons for such behavior.
Bibliography
Devecchi, Alice, and Luca Guerrini. “Empathy and Design. A New Perspective.” The Design Journal, vol. 20, no. sup1, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2017.1352932.
Elliott, Robert, et al. “Empathy.” Strathprints, Oxford University Press, 1 Apr. 2011, https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/36468/.
Figure 1, UniversalDesignStyle. “Prodel Residence: Universal Design House in France.” Universal Design Style, http://www.universaldesignstyle.com/prodel-residence-universaldesign-house-in-france/.
Figure 2, “R/Crappydesign – ‘Go Upstairs to Tell Us You Need Help Going Upstairs.”.” Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/CrappyDesign/comments/i9pdsw/go_upstairs_to_tell_us_you_need_help_going/?ref=share&ref_source=embed&utm_content=media&utm_medium=post_embed&utm_name=a3deee0aa91b48bfa54e6c3b3cb5ca48&utm_source=embedly&utm_term=i9pdsw.
