Learning how to empathize is extremely important when it comes to design. This is because it not only helps us develop products, but it also helps us relate to the challenges that the people are dealing with. According the the article “What is Empathy” people can actually become more or less empathetic. Affective Empathy is the highest form of empathy and this allows the person to not only understand the persons feelings, but also be able to mirror other individuals feelings.
Generally, there are six habits when it comes to a highly empathetic person. To begin, their main focus is on the current values within their own lives. As an empathetic person, you want to know how others are feeling and how they think about a certain situation. They want to understand another persons way of life while also trying to figure out how a certain situation might have affected them growing up. To go along with this empathetic people are also very good listeners. This relates back the the previous habit because this also allows them to help understand and figure out a persons life. Another important habit is enacting change and action because this shows not only how that person is feeling inside wether is be sadness, anger, or frustration, but it also displays how they want to change or fix something for the better. The last habit of an empathetic person is their vast imagination and their willingness to with other people even if they don’t agree on the same things. When all of these habits are combined you not only have an empathetic person but someone who is kind, understanding, and opening.
An example of how empathy can correlate is a reading called the Design Thinking Handbook. In the reading a design firm called IDEO tackled a problem that many American’s were dealing with. Having to live you life paycheck by paycheck. As one could imagine the amount of stress and worry individuals would go through would be through the roof. Because of this IDEO developed a new program that would help individuals save money. Even though this idea was mainly targeted for the poor, the outcome was very much a success as 12.3 million people are currently enrolled in the program.
Last week my class and engaged in an activity that would help demonstrate empathy. I got to work with a fellow classmate, Jibirl, in order to test how user friendly the Quinnipiac University Self Service website was. As the user, I found it to be quite an anxiety provoking exercise but I also had fun because it made me think of different ways how to improve the site for myself and others. It showed that there were many other possible feelings and problems that could arise and that design in general was much more than “just creating”. Additionally, it provided me with a different outlook and helped me better my understanding on why people feel a certain way and how to ultimately fix a problem so that process is more enjoyable and efficient.
Comentários