A framework for empathy in design: stepping into and out of the user's life

Abstract

In user-centred design, a widespread recognition has surfaced for the importance of designers to gain empathy with the users for whom they are designing. Several techniques and tools have been developed to support an empathic design process and several issues are indicated that support an empathic process, but precise definitions and a framework of what makes 'empathy' is missing. Although the need for empathic approaches in design has been repeatedly stressed, a fundamental basis of the concept of empathy is missing. The goal of this paper is to inform the discussion in the design community by applying the concept of empathy as it has developed in psychology. This paper presents a review of how empathy has been discussed in design and psychology literature, and proposes a background framework for supporting empathic approaches in designing. The framework presents empathy in design as a process of four phases, and gives insight into what role the designer's own experience can play when having empathy with the user. This framework can be applied to three areas: research activities, communication activities and ideation activities. Empathic designConsider a multi-disciplinary design team consisting of marketers, engineers, product designers, usability professionals, etc. The team has received a brief to design a communication product for elderly people, but none of them belongs to the user group himself. How does the design team make appropriate design choices for others who are unlike themselves?The problem of understanding the user and his or her experience has a central place in usercentred design (Sanders and Dandavate 1999, Sleeswijk Visser et al. 2005. The design literature of the past two decades has explored several ways of bringing contextual and affective factors into design. By 'empathic design , designers attempt to get closer to the lives and experiences of (putative, potential or future) users, in order to

Applying an empathic design model to gain an understanding of consumers’ cognitive orientations and develop a product prototype

“…When this firm called for employee feedback on its current product lines, and thus obtained greater understanding of correct and incorrect features, the managers immediately decided to improve the related work areas. Kouprie & Visser (2009) proposed a framework that could be applied in design practice, with empathic design appearing in four phases: discovery, immersion, connection and detachment. Discovery means entering the consumer's world, immersion means adopting the consumer's point of reference, connection means achieving emotional resonance and finding meaning, while detachment means designing from a user's perspective.…”

An intelligent fuzzy regression approach for affective product design that captures nonlinearity and fuzziness

“…Consequently, designers are increasingly focusing on affective satisfaction that products can bring about rather than on their functional benefits. Fulfilling affective satisfaction enriches a person's life and can increase one's general experience of well-being (Diener and Lucas 2000, Kouprie and Visser 2009, Mugge et al 2009). Accordingly, emotional responses to products can be a decisive factor in purchase decisions (Jordan 2000, Desmet 2002, Norman 2004, Artacho et al 2009, Nurkka et al 2009).…”

In Their Shoes: Student Perspectives on the Connection between Empathy and Engineering

“…Some authors even depict this helping response as part of empathy 15 . In the context of engineering, this helping behavior is often portrayed in the form of caring for stakeholders 2,18 or developing userappropriate design solutions 5,8 , but may take other forms, such as in effectively communicating 4 , innovating 19 , or making ethical decisions 20 .…”

“…In the context of engineering, successfully utilizing empathy requires both a willingness to behave empathically and skill at developing and translating empathy into meaningful engineering action 8 . Willingness or opportunity to utilize empathy may be inhibited in many engineering settings, even those nominally dedicated toward empathic design 25 .…”

“…While an emerging body of literature focuses on the development of engineering students' empathic tendencies and how engineering students utilize empathy during design [5][6][7] , other scholars recognize utilizing empathy requires not only empathic competence, but also a willingness to employ empathy 8 . With this in mind, more work needs to be done to better understand how engineering students conceptualize empathy and view its role in engineering practice.…”