Welcome to this mini-video, where we are exploring, The importance of empathy in design.
When we hear the word empathy, we think of it as an innate characteristic we all have as humans. We mostly try to be compassionate and caring people. But when we talk about empathy in design work, we are talking about a mindset and practices that go a step further than simply caring about or sympathising with another person or group. Empathy is in fact a key skill that we must develop as human-centred designers. Empathy for design means that we must aim to understand another person’s perspective. We must see the world as they do, delve into their challenges, worries, triumphs, and goals. To do this, we must put aside the biases that we all have, and start with what we call a beginner’s mindset. This means entering any new problem space without certainty or preconceptions, and being willing to listen and learn. Why do we do this? Well, empathy is a powerful tool for design. It helps us to gain a deeper understanding of the problem, based on real-life experiences. We can gain valuable insights into the people we are designing for – their world, challenges, and needs. Using this knowledge, we can make an informed decision as to which problems are actually the most critical to solve. In doing so, we can design solutions that our stakeholders actually want and need. Well this sounds great, but how to we do this? First of all, we need to position ourselves in a such a way that we can adopt our stakeholder’s POV. We do this, quite simply, through speaking with people, observing them, and by placing ourselves directly into their world and context. More specifically, we have a number of different methods to choose from to help us do this, including interviews, shadowing, body-storming, and co-design workshops. We will be covering some of these methods in a separate video. For now, let’s summarise. Empathy for design work goes deeper than care alone. Empathetic design directs us to understand people and their needs and challenges. We must set aside our assumptions and biases to do useful, effective design work. We rely on engagement and research methods to build empathy, such as interviews and workshops. Thanks for joining us for this mini-video, and we hope you will check out the next in this series.
About
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
The Importance of Empathy in Design
View Transcript
Welcome to this mini-video, where we are exploring, The importance of empathy in design.
When we hear the word empathy, we think of it as an innate characteristic we all have as humans. We mostly try to be compassionate and caring people. But when we talk about empathy in design work, we are talking about a mindset and practices that go a step further than simply caring about or sympathising with another person or group. Empathy is in fact a key skill that we must develop as human-centred designers. Empathy for design means that we must aim to understand another person’s perspective. We must see the world as they do, delve into their challenges, worries, triumphs, and goals. To do this, we must put aside the biases that we all have, and start with what we call a beginner’s mindset. This means entering any new problem space without certainty or preconceptions, and being willing to listen and learn. Why do we do this? Well, empathy is a powerful tool for design. It helps us to gain a deeper understanding of the problem, based on real-life experiences. We can gain valuable insights into the people we are designing for – their world, challenges, and needs. Using this knowledge, we can make an informed decision as to which problems are actually the most critical to solve. In doing so, we can design solutions that our stakeholders actually want and need. Well this sounds great, but how to we do this? First of all, we need to position ourselves in a such a way that we can adopt our stakeholder’s POV. We do this, quite simply, through speaking with people, observing them, and by placing ourselves directly into their world and context. More specifically, we have a number of different methods to choose from to help us do this, including interviews, shadowing, body-storming, and co-design workshops. We will be covering some of these methods in a separate video. For now, let’s summarise. Empathy for design work goes deeper than care alone. Empathetic design directs us to understand people and their needs and challenges. We must set aside our assumptions and biases to do useful, effective design work. We rely on engagement and research methods to build empathy, such as interviews and workshops. Thanks for joining us for this mini-video, and we hope you will check out the next in this series.
About
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).
If you liked this, you’ll love…
What is human centred design?
A brief introduction to qualitative research
Interviews: The Basics