The Role of Empathic Design Research in the Prototyping of Interactive Visualizations

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that there is an opportunity to develop a new process for the creation of interactive data visualizations by applying and extending the methods of empathic design. In particular, we consider the criteria summarized by Thomas and McDonagh (2013): "empathic research strategies incorporate shared language, collaboration, ethnography, and empathy." We anchor the discussion in a pilot project involving a new navigation system for visually impaired people, where an empathic exercise designed by the visually-impaired participant formed the basis for increasing the empathic understanding of the designer.

The Influence of Designers’ Cultural Differences on the Empathic Accuracy of User Understanding

“…In addition, whether the designer has a strong emotional connection with target users will also affect the designer's empathic understanding (e.g. Moon, et al, 2019). This requires the designer to not only observe the user in the design process, but also feel the user's experience and understand why they have such an experience (Makela & Fulton Suri, 2001).…”

“…Sleeswijk Visser, et al, 2007); 3) stepping into the user's experience, such as role play and photo diaries (e.g. Leonard & Rayport, 1997;Raviselvam, Hölttä-Otto & Wood, 2016;Moon, et al, 2019). Nevertheless, since empathy is not an "instantaneous quality" that could be completely observed from the data, but "evolves in a process over time" (Kouprie & Visser, 2009), designers should maintain direct and continuous contact with users to fully understand them.…”