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To empathise or not to empathise? Empathy and its limits in design

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Abstract

In the 1980s, one of the values advanced to distinguish the field of design from the sciences and the humanities was empathy. Since then it has become an important theme in design practice, research, and education. Insights from philosophy and cognitive science, however, suggest that empathy has become a design ideology rather than a principle suitable for judging the value of design solutions in some situations – for some end-users and some aspects of their experience. When it is applied in design, two important steps tend to be skipped: an ethical and a perspectival one. Assessing its suitability, we hypothesise, has much to gain theoretically and practically from accounting for the role of embodiment in the process of developing empathy.

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... Designers 3 use video for a wide variety of tasks: studying users, sharing information, prototyping, and sharing their insights and ideas with other designers and stakeholders [8,42]. In this study, we focus on Video Design Ethnography (VDE) -i.e., how designers use video as a user research material to develop: insights into the user, their context, and their behavior [10,30,33], inspiration for design requirements [11,13], and empathy for (or understanding the internal state of) the user [15,20,37]. ...
... Importantly, empathy is not a single, well-defined construct [37] -therefore, in this work, we focus on two modes of designerly empathy described by Kouprie and Sleeswijk Visser [20]: "feeling with" the other and "feeling as" the other. This distinction helps frame criticism of empathy in design since a designer "feeling as" they were the user can lead to ignoring the lived experience of the users themselves [4,15]. Previous work on the impact of 360°video on empathy often frames empathy as "feeling as" [2] or does not make the distinction clear [3], which points to the lack of clarity around the potential advantage of 360°video to enhance designers' empathy during VDE workshops. ...
... As discussed in Section 2.1.3, there is a tension between the potential of 360°video to foster empathy and the criticism of using empathy as a proxy for the lived experience of the actual user group [4,15]. We acknowledge that the 360°video methods we discuss in this paper could be used as a (rather poor) proxy for lived experience, however, the designers' reflection as they experienced being "with" the cyclist, rather than feeling "as" the cyclist (E5), suggests that 360°video could make designers more aware of the differences between the lived experiences of others and their own. ...
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The increased ubiquity of 360{\deg} video presents a unique opportunity for designers to deeply engage with the world of users by capturing the complete visual context. However, the opportunities and challenges 360{\deg} video introduces for video design ethnography is unclear. This study investigates this gap through 16 workshops in which experienced designers engaged with 360{\deg} video. Our analysis shows that while 360{\deg} video enhances designers' ability to explore and understand user contexts, it also complicates the process of sharing insights. To address this challenge, we present two opportunities to support the use of 360{\deg} video by designers - the creation of designerly 360{\deg} video annotation tools, and 360{\deg} ``screenshots'' - in order to enable designers to leverage the complete context of 360{\deg} video for user research.
... Several authors propose shared problem understanding (Dorst, 2019;Valkenburg & Dorst, 1998), empathy (Björklund et al., 2020), visualization (Atman, 2019), and collaboration (Cash et al., 2019) as the ones that are needed to run successful design innovation process. Gaining empathy for end-users, i.e., the capacity to stand in another's shoes, is a distinctive designer characteristic (Brown & Katz, 2019;Heylighen & Dong, 2019). This characteristic is central to design innovation, helping the designer understand customers better than customers understand themselves, thus identifying latent needs and creating meaningful creations (Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Windahl et al., 2020). ...
... Gaining empathy for end-users, i.e., the capacity to stand in another's shoes, is a distinctive designer characteristic (Brown & Katz, 2019;Heylighen & Dong, 2019). This characteristic is central to design innovation, helping the designer understand customers better than customers understand themselves, thus identifying latent needs and creating meaningful creations (Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Windahl et al., 2020). Visual representations such as timelines visualize the complexity of the flow of design collaboration activities, reinforcing the critical design results and the ability to bring them to users (Atman, 2019). ...
... Participants aimed to empathize with business owners and end-users during the innovation challenge. This finding supports that building empathy requires standing in another's shoes and thus understanding the users and their latent needs (Brown & Katz, 2019;Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Windahl et al., 2020). Besides constantly interpreting the problem from the user´s perspective, results show that participants clearly outlined what they wanted to accomplish, acknowledging their strengths and weaknesses. ...
... It is worth noting that understanding human behavior is essential for the design of a tailor-made artifact for users. Empathy is the way designers understand users' needs, experiences, and desires and serve as the basis for any product development such as the construction of a curriculum for SWDs and also serves as the basis of inclusion and diversity (Altay & Demirkan, 2014;Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Storm & Smith, 2023). According to Storm and Smith (2023), the idea of empathy. ...
... "Empathy, an emotional understanding, is achieved precisely by leaving the design office and becoming-if briefly-immersed in the lives, environments, attitudes, experiences and dreams of the future users" (Battarbee et al., 2002, p. 243). A usercentered or human-centered design, experience-centered design, and goal-oriented design all recognize empathy as one of the most potent tools designers have to offer (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
... That is, an empathetic view of the concerns and needs of SWDs will enhance their skills and make them problem-solvers. This is why universal design for learning (UDL), which is an inclusive design or design for all, is believed to be driven by empathy with the common understanding that one size doesn't fit all (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). In this light, the concept of empathy has been applied as a design technique for people with neurological, psychological, or learning disabilities (Melo et al., 2020). ...
Chapter
Students with disabilities (SWDs) are among the most marginalized group of learners who may struggle to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to provide authentic solutions to real-life problems. As a result, policymakers and educators have recognized rethinking design for inclusiveness as a means to provide support for and meet the needs of such learner cohorts. This rethink has resulted in the adoption or adaption of the design-based learning (DBL) approach which seeks to improve the learning experience of SWDs through five iterative design thinking (DT) processes: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. It is important to note that the prevailing literature has largely taken a generic look at the application of the DT processes in inclusive settings. This chapter thus critically focuses on the first process of DT (empathize) to facilitate deep engagement between designers and SWDs as a strategy for reducing instructional barriers and aiding the development of their problem-solving skills. The theoretical analysis of the literature concludes with a proposed model which highlights four key factors (environmental, classroom, teacher, and student factors) as enablers for instructors to demonstrate empathy in inclusive settings. Moving forward, we recommend a participatory design approach through the consideration of the four interrelated factors in the proposed model when constructing the educational process of SWDs. Also, a supportive and disability-friendly learning environment should be created for SWDs in terms of architectural and instructional design.
... In the 1980s, empathy emerged as a distinctive value within the field of design, setting it apart from both the sciences and the humanities (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). Empathy is now considered to be a key tool for designers and a defining characteristic in their attempts to understand users (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
... In the 1980s, empathy emerged as a distinctive value within the field of design, setting it apart from both the sciences and the humanities (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). Empathy is now considered to be a key tool for designers and a defining characteristic in their attempts to understand users (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). Despite its importance, there has been little examination of the role that designers play in empathizing with users or of the role that users play in empathizing with designers (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
... Empathy is now considered to be a key tool for designers and a defining characteristic in their attempts to understand users (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). Despite its importance, there has been little examination of the role that designers play in empathizing with users or of the role that users play in empathizing with designers (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). Empathy allows designers to gain valuable user insights, leading to more meaningful designs (Smeenk et al., 2019). ...
... Although empathy has become an important topic in design practice, research, and education (Heylighen & Dong, 2019) and is widely applied in the user research phase of design, it still faces some skepticism and challenges: 1) The concept of empathy in design studies is broad and difficult to quantify (Surma-aho & Hölttä-Otto, 2022); 2) Whether empathy serves as a driving factor in design decisions remains inconclusive, despite some studies questioning the positive impact of empathy on design quality; 3) There is an overemphasis on the advantages of empathy in design, lacking critical thinking about its situational applicability. ...
... Empirical results indicate that role-playing and experiential prototyping strategies can significantly increase designers' attention to key design elements. Although it was not directly proven that increased levels of empathy could directly promote more inclusive design solutions (Chang-Arana et al., 2022;Heylighen & Dong, 2019), this finding is sufficient to demonstrate that heightened empathy can enhance designers' insights into the needs of specific user groups (Burçak, 2017), thereby promoting changes in designers' preferences, attitudes, and efforts, all of which are key factors influencing design abilities (McDonagh & Thomas, 2010). ...
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Can simulating the public transit experience of individuals with mild visual impairments promote empathy in design college students, thereby facilitating their design decisions? The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of a mixed empathy intervention (role-playing and experiential prototyping) on improving design students’ empathic ability and design decisions. The Basic Empathy Scale (BES) and a Design Decision Questionnaire (DDQ) were used to evaluate the empathy and design decision-making of design students (n = 51). Paired sample t-tests, Pearson correlation, and linear regression were used for quantitative analysis of the intervention effects, combined with text mining techniques. Key findings include: 1) The empathy intervention significantly improved students' empathy levels (t = − 2.976*); 2) The cognitive empathy level of students was enhanced (t = −2.276*), specifically in terms of cognitive dimensions, depth, and breadth; 3) The empathy intervention significantly affected students' views on the importance of related design elements (t = − 2.958*); 4) Empathy improvement explained around 36.5% of the variation in design decisions. These findings suggest that during a design practice and education method, role-playing and experiential prototyping can not only help students understand the target users but also enhance their consciousness on design service, thus upgrading their design decisions.
... Instruments emphasizing empirically observable and measurable attributes of empathy may underscore the physiological realities of this state, grounding empathy's theoretical facets in embodied data and thus giving the concept a quantified foundation (Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Wright & McCarthy, 2008). ...
... This situation brings to mind the so-called private/public spheres and critique of the presumed duality articulated in feminist literatures. This visibility and presumed legitimacy are helpful in instrumentalizing empathy for business goals, that is, for more successful product development (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
... It is suggested that empathy has evolved into a design dogma instead of a valid criterion for assessing the worth of design remedies for specific end users and components of their experiences. Considering its applicability, considering how embodiment's role in generating empathy has a lot to offer both philosophically and practically (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
... Even though there have been numerous pieces of research on design thinking on some Ghanaian companies according to (Voeten, 2016;Sekyi, 2020;Okai-Mensah et al., 2021;Marful et al., 2022;Kanagat & Laford, 2023), there is not enough evidence to assess how empathy as the pivot factor in design thinking is being implemented in Ghanaian design companies. Empathy as illumed by Carmel-Gilfilen and Portillo (2016), Woodcock et al. (2017), and Heylighen and Dong (2019) thorough transition in the design thinking process is of great benefit to the company to fill gaps and produce practical results. Therefore, the study seeks to study 4Heem Apparela Ghanaian company to identify its operational design framework and to assess how Ghanaian companies empathise with clients. ...
Article
bstract Design thinking recently has become the model employed in solving difficulties and improving products and services in design companies. It is known to be user-centric or human-centric which explains how empathetic it is in its design approach. However, it has been observed that even though design thinking is practiced by Ghanaian design industries, the exploit of empathy is not reflective in various design companies in Ghana, hence a case study to investigate how design companies empathise in their design thinking processes. As a qualitative study, case and participatory research methods were employed using unstructured interviews and participant observation as data collection methods. From the study, it was revealed that 4Heem Apparel similarly practices the traditional classic design model where empathy is employed at the initial stages of design thinking. Even though it does not affect the quality of design, it sidelines the interest of clients and their involvement in product quality hence affecting its innovative product design. It was therefore suggested that; Ghanaian design companies can be more innovative if they will empathise more with their clients in their design thinking processes. eywords Empathy, Design Thinking, Design Process, Design Company, Innovative.
... The sole focus of the empathy map in the first stage of DT is based on our hypothesis that empathy is a core value of the empathizing process of DT. As informed by design literature, empathy is perceived as the convergence of the mental contents and imagination of designers with those of end-users to obtain better design outcomes (Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Kouprie & Visser, 2009). It is achieved by the designers' attempt to understand the feelings, needs, and actions (say/do, hear/see, think) of the character by testing what would fit the situation of the character (Miaskiewicz & Kozar, 2011;Nielsen, 2013). ...
... Future research may consider developing EM designs that explicitly capture the relationships between the components. In addition, more nuanced views about empathy in design have emerged (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). ...
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This paper reports a design and implementation of a STEM enrichment programme infused with affective elements designed for Hong Kong students. Specifically, it features a design-thinking approach to develop solutions to a self-selected problem addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Around 30 upper primary school (grades 5 to 6) and 20 lower secondary students (grades 7 to 10) enrolled in the study. Considering empathy as a core value of the design-thinking process and aligned with affective dimensions of thinking and learning, we investigate students’ design-thinking development and STEM learning processes while highlighting empathy map as a pedagogical tool. We discuss the implications and insights of offering humanistic perspectives on STEM curricular design, especially for K-12 students. Our results showed that students at different age range were able to use empathy maps to devise designs effectively, despite their varying degrees of empathy. Furthermore, we conceptualize empathy maps as a pedagogical tool that creates physical boundaries in design thinking, making students’ mental transitions across design stages more explicit. This study contributes to a better understanding of the educational potentials of design-thinking enhanced classrooms, with the results informing theoretical and practical advice on the integration of the empathy map in innovation-oriented projects.
... At the moment, there are digital rooms that combine VR and AR technology to let clients strive for clothes. People who've had trouble getting around, which includes people with disabilities, will greatly admire this [42]. ...
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Background- Adapted clothing begins by describing such clothes and how they make people with disabilities feel included, comfortable, and ready to conquer the world. An exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of specialized adaptive clothing suited to different groups This abstract examines the inclusive design concepts, rules, tactics, procedures, and examples that have positively impacted the fashion industry. Purpose: This study explores the intertwined networks of adaptable clothing, inclusive design, and the fashion industry concerning persons with disabilities and their empowerment process. Methods: Various case studies & examples have been reviewed for the solution in the investigation of adaptive clothing and inclusive design practices. Examples like Adaptable Design’s global influence are projected in Tommy Hilfiger’s future-oriented project or Bezgraniz Couture. The collaborative initiative led by the Design of Dreams Foundation illustrates one such example where adaptive design proponents and mainstream firms can cooperate to create a culture of tolerance. Technical improvements in adaptive clothing for the fashion industry are addressed in detail according to its challenges and prospects. Results: In a nutshell, it is argued that the fashion industry should be at the forefront of advocating for diversity and embracing the changes as just but normal. Conclusions: Thus, the conclusion focuses on a call to action to point out the mutual contributions of designers and clients in pushing for innovation in fashion design. The significance of understanding them and talking about them openly is highlighted. Technology advancements are considered essential components of adaptive clothing, and it is time for the government to provide additional funding for research and development in this section. In this era, the abstract visualizes and idealizes a better tomorrow where the fashion industry becomes a powerful tool that alters perceptions and expands social space. Designers, manufacturers, and consumers work together in fashion to create a platform that gives voices to people of any kind. Keywords: Adapted clothing, Adaptive design, Disability, Fashion Industry, ethnographic objects
... However, the limitation of these studies is that they often overlook the importance of examining and understanding the perspectives of both pilot users and designers. Inclusivity in the environment is a complex and multi-dimensional concept (Heylighen and Dong, 2019). However, for urban rail transit spaces, which elements are inclusive to a certain group of people, how they are reflected in the design of urban rail transit spaces, and what kind of use scenarios can be obtained, have not been widely discussed. ...
Article
Full-text available
Considering the critical importance of public transportation, especially rail transit, in shaping urban landscapes and its alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this investigation delves into the architectural intricacies of rail transit environments through the lens of inclusivity. This scholarly inquiry adopts a multifaceted qualitative research methodology that synergizes empirical case studies, the formulation of strategic frameworks, and the application of design methodologies to elucidate and operationalize the principles of inclusive design within the context of rail transit systems.The study embarked on an initial empirical exploration through an in-depth case study of Singapore's Thomson-East Coast Line, where able-bodied participants role-played and engaged in an immersive experience by wearing glasses that simulate mild visual impairment. By coding the data from these on-site experiences, a robust inclusive design framework was distilled, characterized by a tripartite structural hierarchy and four thematic pillars. Building on this foundational framework, the study proposed a quintet of innovative inclusive design prototypes tailored to enhance the tactile interaction points within rail transit environments. These prototypes were further evaluated through the reconstruction of subway navigation scenarios experienced by visually impaired commuters, employing storyboards as a tool for situational analysis. The comprehensive inclusive design framework and the ensuing design prototypes unveiled through this study hold profound implications for the strategic planning and architectural design of urban rail transit systems, particularly within the ambit of nascent urban centers poised to embark on or currently engaged in the development of rail transit infrastructures. This research significantly contributes to the discourse on sustainable urban development and the promotion of social inclusiveness, presenting actionable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and designers engaged in the creation of more accessible and inclusive urban transit ecosystems.
... Empathy in design is a central tenet of the human-centered approach, and it intertwines with participatory and collaborative design (J. L. Hess & Fila, 2017;Mattelmäki et al., 2014;Postma et al., 2012;Sanders & Stappers, 2014;Smeenk et al., 2019), ethics and embodiment (Heylighen & Dong, 2019), as well as innovation and creativity (Leonard & Rayport, 1997;Postma et al., 2012;Thomas & McDonagh, 2013). Furthermore, empathy is paramount in care and design (J. ...
Article
This article examines the implicit dimensions of empathy in the early architectural design process, utilizing think-aloud protocols to reveal how designers engage empathically with their creations. Grounded in early 20th-century empathy theories, phenomenological philosophy, and design cognition, we developed the "Feeling AS" empathy framework, which identifies three core modes of empathy: (1) user, (2) space, and (3) movement. Analysis of design protocols demonstrates how empathy shapes design thinking, influences problem reframing, and uncovers spatial affordances tied to user embodiment. Empathy contributes to the design process in two key ways. First, it aids in problem identification, ideation, and a deep understanding of users’ needs during the conceptual stage. Second, empathy enables designers to refine design solutions by revisiting decisions and reframing problems from the users' perspective as the process evolves. The study portrays empathy as a perceptual and reflective tool, akin to sketching, that facilitates diverse perspectives and establishes embodied connections with users and spaces. We frame this process as "seeing through empathy," encompassing empathic framing, spatial affordances, and embodiment. This research broadens the scope of empathy research to include spatial dimensions, emphasizing its inherent role, and extending it beyond conscious strategies to become an embedded aspect of the creative process. Keywords: empathy, affordance, embodiment, concept generation
... Contextual inquiry provides designers with methods into investigate the use context and environment surrounding a new technology, particularly when being integrated into a specific organizational setting (Holtzblatt & Jones 2017;Augstein et al. 2018). Other methods, such as participatory design, empathic design and human centered design, focus on working closely with stakeholders to uncover contextual factors and identify deeper needs (Heylighen & Dong 2019;Holeman & Kane 2020;Drain, Shekar & Grigg 2021). These methods encourage engineering designers to collect a breadth of contextual information to inform decisions throughout their design processes. ...
Article
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Incorporating contextual factors into engineering design processes is recommended to develop solutions that function appropriately in their intended use contexts. In global health settings, failing to tailor solutions to their broader context has led to many product failures. Since prior work has thus far not investigated the use of contextual factors in global health design practice, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 experienced global health design practitioners. Our analysis identified 351 instances of participants incorporating contextual factors in their previous design experiences, which we categorized into a taxonomy of contextual factors, including 9 primary and 32 secondary classifications. We summarized and synthesized key patterns within all the identified contextual factor categories. Next, this study presents a descriptive model for incorporating contextual factors developed from our findings, which identifies that participants actively sought contextual information and made conscious decisions to adjust their solutions, target markets and implementation plans to accommodate contextual factors iteratively throughout their design processes. Our findings highlight how participants sometimes conducted formal evaluations while other times they relied on their own experience, the experience of a team member or other stakeholder engagement strategies. The research findings can ultimately inform design practice and engineering pedagogy for global health applications.
... In LXD practice, design thinking techniques, such as empathy-based approaches for assessing needs, are being adapted to emphasize the importance of understanding and empathizing with learners' unique needs (Schmidt & Huang, 2022). Leveraging the empathetic and user-centered nature of design thinking, the design team acquires a comprehensive understanding of the learners' needs, aspirations, and obstacles (Devecchi & Guerrini, 2017;Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Kouprie & Sleeswijk Visser, 2009;Mercer, 2016). Figure 12.3 provides a detailed account of each phase and discusses its importance in developing a Chinese typing-based learning app for heritage learners. ...
Chapter
The increasing prevalence of digital technology in Chinese society has diminished the significance of handwriting, significantly altering the learning needs of Chinese learners. This shift is predominantly seen in the transition from traditional handwriting skills to typing-based proficiencies in the Chinese language. This design case presents the design process of a mobile application, TIC APP, from prototype development, including design decisions, to formulating a plan for evaluation and feedback analysis. Rooted in design thinking principles, the design of this mobile language learning application aims to enhance heritage Chinese learners’ Chinese language learning experiences by promoting typing-based learning. In the presentation of this design case, the authors discuss vital design considerations, transparency in assumptions, the design dilemma of artistic creation and problem-solving, and safeguarding data for research continuity.
... Gaining empathy for users is widely considered a central task in design (Heylighen & Dong, 2019). This is precisely the problem: Empathy in the design process is directed to users. ...
... Empathy scores might turn into an end in itself with a marketing objective. Some authors criticize the adverse side of empathy when designing in a capitalistic logic (Holt, 2011), while others point out that empathy in design has become more an ideology than a helpful principle (Heylighen and Dong, 2019). This can result in the empathy trap phenomena (Mattelmäki et al., 2014) where designers forget their own concerns. ...
Article
To design user-centered services, it is essential to build empathy toward users. It is hence strategic to trigger empathy for users among professionals concerned with shaping service user experiences. There is, however, a lack of quantitative tools to measure empathy in design. Through two studies, we report on the development and validation of the Empathy in Design Scale (EMPA-D). The tool aims to measure service employees’ empathy toward users. Grounded in theories from psychology and design, we first generated and tested a pool of items through expert inspection and cognitive interviews. In Study 1, we administered 16 items to 406 full-time service employees from various industries, including employees in customer-facing positions. In Study 2, we iterated on additional items and administered a revised scale to 305 service employees. The selected model consists of 11 items and has a three-factor structure (Emotional interest/Perspective-taking, Personal experience and Self-awareness), which showed an adequate model fit and good internal consistency. Evidence of convergent validity was provided by moderate correlations of the EMPA-D scale with empathy measures in psychology (SITES, Empathy Quotient, Interpersonal Reactivity Index), whereas discriminant validity was demonstrated by low correlations with the narcissism measure Narcissistic Personal Inventory. We outline how this self-reported empathy measure can support organizations in enhancing their services and discuss potential limitations of quantitatively measuring empathy in service teams. Research Highlights We present the development and validation of the Empathy in Design Scale (EMPA-D), a self-report measure of employees’ empathy toward users of a service. We report on two validation studies and document the psychometric properties of the scale. The selected model consists of 11 items and a three-factor structure (Emotional interest/Perspective-taking, Personal experience and Self-awareness). The resulting EMPA-D scale contributes to filling the gap in metrics to assess empathy in the service design context. In industry, measuring employees’ empathy support the selection of appropriate empathic interventions to foster the service user-centeredness.
... For decades, scholars have studied how developing empathic relationships between designers and users results in better products or services [53], through design methods, conceptualization [7,45], and the development of design frameworks [17,25,43]. However, the limitations of empathy in design and their effects on design solutions and outcomes are unclear and debatable [18,19]. The only consensus on empathy is there is no consensus [7,31]. ...
... These discussions point to critical research gaps, especially in applying empathy within educational contexts (Han et al., 2021;Stephan, 2023;Pivonka et al., 2024). The transition from theoretical explorations of creativity to their application in today's classrooms, guided by these policies, suggests a move toward more dynamic and empathetic educational models (Heylighen and Dong, 2019;Dotson et al., 2020;Bush et al., 2024;van Rheden et al., 2024). However, there remains a distinct need for research that connects these foundational theories with the realities of contemporary Chinese education, underscoring the importance of empirical studies that bridge this divide. ...
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This research explores the application of an Empathy Design Thinking (EDT) curriculum within primary education, guided by the principles of Experience, Empathy, Exploration, and Evaluation, to examine its effect on fostering student creativity in a Chinese context. The curriculum was redesigned into a streamlined, modular format for ease of integration into existing educational frameworks. Findings demonstrate a positive impact on students' creative thinking abilities, particularly in enhancing fluency and flexibility, with notable mentions of empathy's vital role in the educational process. This study aligns with global educational trends emphasizing the need for empathetic and comprehensive learning experiences, offering insights into the potential of EDT to enrich creative education for primary students, educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers.
... In addition, Heylighen and Dong 55 describe the decision about whether to use tools to gain empathy for the user as primarily an ethical step, resting upon the assumption that these tools have a profound impact on the quality of the result. 54 In contrast, Cameron et al. found that 'empathy can be expensive, often entailing material and emotional costs', and the less secure people felt about being accurate in their empathy, the less likely they were to engage cognitively. 28 Thus, ongoing vagueness could lead to empathy misers. ...
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Empathy is often not well defined, particularly in design. While the practice of designers developing a deep understanding of the people who use their products is recommended, the details of how to do this are limited. This problem of vagueness about empathy in design makes it difficult for product designers to take suitable actions to produce best results for the users. Through a strategic examination of a body of literature, across seven databases relevant to design, the systematic literature review adds to a discussion on empathy within the designing process. Study limitations included the complex nature of empathy itself, and multiple uses of the terms design and product. Findings indicate a contradiction of internal and external factors affecting empathy in design, and are considerably more complex than just an ‘accepted’ part of the design process. Shifting towards user-centred design in industrial design means that a considerably more nuanced understanding of empathy is needed, for implementation in design practice. By better understanding the concept of empathy as a duality, all stakeholders can manage expectations around empathy ‘behaviour’, and empathy as part of the design process. Empathy needs to be recognised as a complex phenomenological relationship between process (external) and person (internal) within industrial design. Practical, theoretical and societal implications of this concept are discussed.Transdisciplinary contribution: Empathy in product design practice represents several fields, related to human behaviour and interactions. This review’s contribution is to confirm areas for further research and the importance of developing theory to address the complexity of design practice.
... Empathy can be cultivated through a variety of mediums. Apart from engaging with actual people living with OCD, students can increase empathy by reviewing recorded information, such as videos or stories (Cargile, 2016;Gasparini, 2015;Heylighen & Dong, 2019). The same goes for completing mindfulness activities, such as journaling (Christian, 2018). ...
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Riane Eisler’s partnership model capitalizes on mutual respect and benefit to empower all relations, an approach that is instrumental to teaching around mental health. Many of the thoughts, urges or behaviors associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) revolve around spatial characteristics of interior built environments. Yet little has been studied on how to infuse such complex problems into design education, which can transform the lives of patients and their families in ways that are both sensitive to students as well as empowering. This paper uses a series of introspections to unpack the lessons learned from a transdisciplinary partnership between an interior design and a product design faculty member who, through a product design studio course, tackled the challenge of designing for youth living with OCD. Three primary themes of reflections and lessons are analyzed: transdisciplinarity, empathy, and course structure. As the analysis reveals, future pedagogical efforts on transdisciplinarity must account for fit - from course objectives to timeline – along with the time and energy needed; a more nuanced approach to empathy must be adopted where the possibility to overwhelm and instill fear in students are balanced with innovation; and fusing research into the design curriculum and course structure must be situated within a more fluid process and also centered on outcomes.
... Indeed, there are sufficient grounds to be intrigued by DT (Cross, 2018;Druckman and Ebner, 2018;Lawson and Dorst, 2013), and as a result multiple principles (Heylighen and Dong, 2019), models (Dong et al., 2016), methods and (Dalton and Kahute, 2016), practices of DT have been constructed depending on different contexts and theories (Carlgren et al., 2016). As noted thus far, in the context of education, DT has remarkably created its worth in innovative academic pedagogy design, and thereby experiential, futuristic and disruptive training across all disciplines. ...
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Purpose Design-thinking (DT) in education has attracted significant interest from practitioners and academics, as it proffers new-age thinking to transform learning processes. This paper synthesises extant literature and identifies the current intellectual frontiers. Design/methodology/approach First, a systematic-literature-review was undertaken employing a robust process of selecting papers (from 1986 to 2022) by reading titles, abstracts and keywords based on a required criterion, backward–forward chaining and strict quality evaluations. Next, a bibliometric analysis was undertaken using VOSviewer. Finally, text analysis using RStudio was done to trace the implications of past work and future directions. Findings At first, we identify and explain 12 clusters through bibliometric coupling that include “interdisciplinary-area”, “futuristic-learning”, “design-process” and “design-education”, amongst others. We explain each of these clusters later in the text. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM), management education, design and change, teacher training, entrepreneurship education and technology, digital learning, gifted education and course development) Secondly, through co-word-analysis, we identify and explain four additional clusters that include “business education and pedagogy”, “content and learning environment”, “participants and outcome” and finally, “thinking-processes”. Based on this finding, we believe that the future holds a very positive presence sentiment for design thinking and education (DT&E) in changing the 21st century learning. Research limitations/implications For investigating many contemporary challenges related to DT&E, like virtual reality experiential learning, sustainability education, organisational learning and management training, etc. have been outlined. Practical implications Academics may come up with new or improved courses for the implementation of DT in educational settings and policymakers may inculcate design labs in the curricula to fortify academic excellence. Managers who would employ DT in their training, development and policy design, amongst others, could end up gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Originality/value This study conducted a comprehensive review of the field, which to our limited knowledge, no prior studies have been done so far. Besides, the study also outlines interesting research questions for future research.
... As part of the ethical principle of human-centred design, SH upgrading should attain the user values of practicality, ingenuity, appropriateness, and empathy (Kowaltowski, 1980;Kowaltowski & Granja, 2011;Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Cross, 2007). These values translate into increased comfort for users and should ensure a secure and pleasant place to live. ...
Article
Upgrading existing social housing (SH) requires user-centred participatory processes to promote values. Comparative case studies in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK are presented. Living Labs (LLs) were conducted for the delivery of user values and to promote an informed decision-making process. Tools and LL activities were tested to engage stakeholders in the upgrading process, support the co-creation of solutions and address social and societal challenges. The main research aims were to facilitate SH upgrading processes focusing on the delivery of value for users, achieving end-user empowerment, as well as assessing participatory decision-making through LLs. Research goals were achieved in each case study setting. The evaluation of specific cases informed a conceptual framework and guidelines to facilitate upgrading through LLs in varied SH landscapes.
... As part of the ethical principle of human-centred design, SH upgrading should attain the user values of practicality, ingenuity, appropriateness, and empathy (Kowaltowski, 1980;Kowaltowski & Granja, 2011;Heylighen & Dong, 2019;Cross, 2007). These values translate into increased comfort for users and should ensure a secure and pleasant place to live. ...
Article
Full-text available
Upgrading existing social housing (SH) requires user-centred participatory processes to promote values. Comparative case studies in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK are presented. Living Labs (LLs) were conducted for the delivery of user values and to promote an informed decision-making process. Tools and LL activities were tested to engage stakeholders in the upgrading process, support the co-creation of solutions and address social and societal challenges. The main research aims were to facilitate SH upgrading processes focusing on the delivery of value for users, achieving end-user empowerment, as well as assessing participatory decision-making through LLs. Research goals were achieved in each case study setting. The evaluation of specific cases informed a conceptual framework and guidelines to facilitate upgrading through LLs in varied SH landscapes.
... (Foronda, 2020, p. 10). Similarly, the concept of the empathic horizon (Heylighen & Dong, 2019;McDonagh et al., 2018) could remind designers of disparities in understanding and power over users. ...
... The recommendation to designers is first to invest in this examination of one's own senses before attempting to create empathy with a target audience. It thus extends existing, critical discussion of widely practised strategies for gaining empathy in design, for example as discussed by Bennet and Rosner (2019) or Heylighen and Dong (2019) who posit that "in order to take the affective perspective of another, the designer must also take the bodily perspective of the other" (2019, p. 118). ...
... To address these, designers have developed deep empathy with their target users to understand their needs in their settings [20,23]. Research has argued that empathy has become an ideology in design rather than a principle suitable for some situations [13]. The correctness of this technique is questionable due to its inherent subjectivity and designers' subjectivity. ...
Chapter
When it comes to conditions related to vision, it can be challenging to foster empathy in designers toward affected users. However, utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) in an empathic design approach can help overcome these challenges and bridge the existing gaps. Previous research indicates that VR storytelling can be used to examine empathy; however, there is limited information regarding the application of this technique to color vision deficiency (CVD). In this study, we investigate whether a narrative and a game that simulates scenes as observed by individuals with CVD can induce cognitive and affective empathy. Moreover, we examine how this experience relates to performance and how it may contribute to identifying CVD-related issues. The participants were exposed to a normal vision condition and then a CVD condition while performing a color-based sorting task in a dedicated environment. The results indicate that neither cognitive nor affective empathy changed significantly before and after the experience. However, additional CVD-related problems were identified by the participants. Elaborating on this approach would give a greater insight into how to elicit empathic feelings by clarifying how a person with special needs, particularly CVD, experiences the world and how to design and improve such experiences.
... Consequently, designers might encounter difficulties when attempting to integrate technological tools into their problem-solving processes [92], especially when addressing issues involving large-scale calculations, such as those related to wind dynamics. Additionally, there is a growing need for training and educational programs aimed at helping designers develop the technical skills and expertise required to seamlessly incorporate airflow modelling as a data-driven concept into their workflows [93]. ...
... The term "Empathy" was translated from the German (einfühlung) 100 years ago [27] and was widely discussed, mainly in the field of psychology [8][9][10]28]. More recently it has become of interest to the human-computer interaction (HCI) community [12,16], especially in the application of driver-vehicle research [25]. Empathy is important in improving driving safety in the driving environment. ...
... of the limits of empathy is said to suggest an ideology rather than a set of principles, an end rather than a means. 6 These critics emphasized two missing approaches in discussions of empathy in design: the ethical one when choosing methods, and perspectival one that shifts focus from mental states to embodiment. This paper examines how research-based design can cultivate more genuine empathy, expanding the affective and relational aspects of human empathy with more objective knowledge of body-environment interactions to overcome designers' self-referentiality and bias. ...
Conference Paper
What would cities look like if they were designed for the most vulnerable? This question proved fertile ground for a research-based pedagogy focused on one specifically vulnerable group—young children—disproportionately impacted by current social unrest, ecological degradation, and extreme urbanization; and yet seldomly the subject of architectural research or education except in limited typologies, e.g. schools and playgrounds—where they are segregated into. The two-semester research studio asked, what if instead of more or better spaces dedicated to children, the entire city was redesigned for them? Students examined the child’s experience in the contemporary city and the way design turns children’s vulnerability into a liability, especially in the context of urbanization and climate change. During the first of two semesters, students collaborated in transdisciplinary research resulting in a jointly-authored framework of evidence-based design principles: playfulness, safety, health, sustainability, and inclusivity; arguing how designing for children would make a better city for everyone. Drawing on ample evidence of how open and frequent access to immersive experiences in natural landscapes positively influence children’s cognitive, physical and emotional development; the course challenged whether these “natural experiences” are at odds with dense and compact urban development. This polemic generated a challenge for design research during the second semester: how to design “natural experiences” into everyday spaces of dense cities, beyond the centralized park? This was a point of departure for ten individual design investigations, that together illustrate the potential for a new constructed urban landscape. Projects focused in the city of Boston, including planning for inclusive housing, transportation, and coastal resilience; and hybrids of socio-ecological infrastructure and learning environments. This pedagogical analysis reveals how transdisciplinary research expands the definition of vulnerability, cultivates genuine empathy, and builds confidence in designers’ social agency; but also uncovers unique challenges and opportunities for architectural education and practice.
... Hence, there need to be additional and supportive methods that should be included in traditional METU JFA 2023/1 design process that would enhance the experience of students. ED could be added as a supportive method in design process since it enhances students' empathy ability towards all people and interactions with people who they design for (Heylighen and Dong, 2019). Also, it develops their imagination in use of the product or environment that they created while increasing their creative thinking for innovative design solutions and providing codesign activities. ...
Article
REFLECTION OF EMPATHIC DESIGN PROCESS ON INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS’ UNIVERSAL DESIGN SOLUTIONS Most interior architecture students encounter challenges in reflecting the universal design (UD) approach and applying human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) principles in their design projects. In design education, as students’ empathic ability develops, their UD understanding enhances, and they can design more accessible, usable, and universal products or environments. This study explores the reflections of empathic design (ED) techniques on students’ UD solutions in the design process. Twelve second-year (except control group, Group D, n=3) interior architecture undergraduate students experienced an ED technique (Group A, direct contact with the user, Group B, obtaining indirect information about the user and attending a lecture, Group C, role-playing) as a learning method to collect data about the user (with a broken arm), then all participated students (n=12) redesigned the existing kitchen of the user and reflected their learning and design outcomes. The case study was conducted virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The transcripts from video recordings, including the data collected from group interviews and design conversations, are analyzed thematically. The results demonstrated that experiencing ED is positively reflected in students’ perceptions of their learning experiences and outcomes with an increase in self-awareness and design awareness. Students remembered their prior courses’ knowledge and their individual ED experiences to produce UD solutions. Three ED techniques positively influence students’ UD solutions since they change students’ design thinking approach. Group A was user-centered, Group B recalled their EM, and Group C was activity-based while proposing design solutions. However, Group D was indecisive and needed extra time to complete the requirements. Each ED technique is particularly helpful in supporting the learning domain, but the role-playing technique is foundto be more effective in increasing empathy levels and finding UD solutions compared to the others.
... Empathy has become an essential aspect of design research, practice and education (Heylighen and Dong 2019;. By giving social importance, design research has seen a significant surge in the discussion of empathy ) related to human-centred design, user-centred design, people-centred innovation, empathic design, universal design, participatory design, co-design and design thinking (Tellez Bohorquez 2017). ...
Article
The complex and multi-layered phenomenon of empathy has its roots in design research and design practice, and so has indirect and dispersed connections to design education. Moreover, the ill-defined nature of design increases the complexity level while handling empathy in design education. Based on the scoping literature review, this study maps empathy in design education within three dimensions: the educational interventions, the aspects and the contexts of empathy. Qualitative content analysis is conducted to establish the categories representing the dimensions of empathy in design education. Through this integrative framework based on these three dimensions, the dispersed connections of empathy with design education are systematically examined and research gaps for future studies are discussed.
... Secondly, compassionate critiques are potentially beneficial for the future careers of design students since they are highly related to empathic skills. In the design domain, empathy apparently and genuinely has a central role (Heylighen and Dong 2019), especially in user research. According to Jiancaro (2018), empathy as a tool helps designers to approach users from cultural (Battarbee et al. 2014), cognitive (Lindsay et al. 2012), physical (Mcdonagh and Thomas 2010;Strickfaden and Devlieger 2011) and demographic (Newell et al. 2011) aspects. ...
Article
Peer critiques play a major role in the design learning process. However, due to vague boundaries and definitions of them, it is hard and yet significant to model peer critiques in the context of design education. This article aims to gain a greater understanding about dynamics, motivations and contents of peer critiques. As a result, a framework to categorize peer critiques in design education context is presented. Also, a new type of peer critiques is suggested as compassionate critiques, which are defined as statements that occur between hierarchically equivalent, emotionally matched individuals and contain a general appreciation and sensitivity without determinate judgements about the idea, project or process.
... One way PI tools can improve self-efficacy is by demonstrating the way people in similar situations address and pursue their goals [19,80]. Incorporating empathy, by recognizing and acknowledging the effort of attempting to accomplish a goal [96], into PI tools can boost people's self-efficacy [39]. Fostering PI's empathy ability can be achieved through flexibility in goal setting. ...
Conference Paper
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Research has extensively explored how personal informatics tools can support people's health goal setting practices. To understand the current state and reflect on the future of goal setting in personal informatics, we report the results of a scoping review of 51 papers that use and provide design implications for implementing goal setting. Our review highlights six implications for using goal setting in personal informatics tools (clarity, transparency, flexibility, framing and reframing, personalization, and reflection). We find that goal setting is becoming increasingly complex as the number of goals and their characteristics increase. We discuss these insights and point towards the importance of supporting self-efficacy during goal setting, showing adaptive goal evolution over time, reducing burden during goal setting, and framing goals to understand the complexity of health goals and support a holistic view on goal setting.
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Developing empathy towards a user is a vital part of user-centered design. Several approaches developed in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience have been adopted in measuring empathy in design. However, these approaches have limitations, such as subjective bias, time consumption, the need for specialized equipment, and expensive laboratories. To address these shortcomings, there is a need for a quick, easy-to-implement, and automatic measure of empathy in design. We explore empathy measurement using transcripts from a user interview. More specifically, we explored whether language style matching (LSM), a measure of unconscious verbal mimicry, can be an indicator of empathic mental processes. We further investigated its relationship with the designer's empathic understanding of the user and the expressed emotion similarity between the designer and the user. The results show that verbal mimicry exists between the designer and the user. However, this mimicry, as detected with LSM, was not correlated with empathic understanding. Instead, we found that LSM has a significant correlation with the similarity between the designer's and the user's expressed emotions during the interview. Verbal mimicry using LSM shows the potential to measure the designer's empathic understanding of the user, which is both cognitive and affective. Further research should explore other measures of empathic understanding.
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Value creation in business ecosystems through design thinking (DT) is an emerging area of interest for scholars and practitioners. While prior research has mainly focused on product/service innovation, insights are limited into the role of next-generation leaders leveraging DT practices in business ecosystems. This study aims to bridge this gap by employing a stringent data extraction process using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to conduct a rigorous systematic review process, including titles, abstract, and keywords analysis, backward–forward chaining, and strict quality evaluations. It develops a broad research framework linking the characteristics of next-generation leaders (context) to DT (process) tools and methods, driving business ecosystem value creation (outcomes). This is achieved through a process-based framework of antecedents, phenomena, and outcomes at distinct and multiple levels of analysis. The study also provides future research directions and practical implications that contribute to the growing field. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to conduct an integrative analysis of this area.
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How is the designer to approach questions of responsibility, obligation, or right and wrong in relation to their role in creating, sustaining and altering the complex worlds which we inhabit together? Every design decision stands as the first teetering domino at the head of an infinitely complex fractal chain reaction of consequences, the full repercussions of which are ultimately unforeseeable. The moment of ethical crisis – being faced with a range of possible options and lacking a fully adequate knowledge of which path is best to choose – is an unavoidable component of the design process. Ethical theories, principles, codes and rules always lag one step behind the frontier of the new, the territory in which design operates. Recognising that ethical crisis is an integral reality of the design process, how can designers be best supported and equipped for this challenge? This paper explores one path towards this aim, presenting the case for the use of philosophical thought experiments as appropriate and useful devices for developing capacities for ethical thinking and for nurturing a transformed ethical mindset within practising designers. Thought experiments do not directly guide or provide knowledge or answers as to the ‘right’ thing to do in any given situation. Rather, the argument is presented here that thought experiments can stimulate productive conditions in which designers can learn not to ‘know ethics’ but to ‘think ethics’. By playing these mind games, the designer can exercise and strengthen their mental capacities for responding to ethical encounters within the complexity of real-world design practice.
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In debating who takes responsibility for adolescent’s online activity, expectations are that a multi-systemic approach is needed. In this paper, the voices of 11–18-year-olds, teachers, and mental health practitioners in focus group conversations were analysed using thematic analysis. Results indicated that young people demonstrated empathy in situ during data collection. However, when reporting on conversations in digital spaces, they complained of a lack of empathy from others, noting that bullying, and trolling were problematic. We propose the novel use of an intentional digital cognitive interruption to support empathic posting. The intention is for this to act as a catalyst for young users to consider their responses before posting by providing a momentary disruption to the fast flow of online interaction. We invite further conversation about supporting adolescents’ digital empathy in online spaces.
Book
Efforts to promote creativity often centre on encouraging people to engage in 'design thinking,' 'systems thinking' and 'entrepreneurial thinking.' These different approaches are most often defined, taught and applied in mutual isolation, which has obscured what distinguishes them from each other, what they have in common and how they might be combined. These three approaches are also most often described in isolation from the approaches that characterise other disciplines, all of which are relevant to how problems are identified, framed and solved. These other approaches include 'computational thinking,' 'engineering thinking,' 'scientific thinking,' 'evolutionary thinking,' 'mathematical thinking,' 'statistical thinking,' 'geographical thinking,' 'historical thinking,' 'anthropological thinking,' and many more. Examining these approaches as a set allows each of them to be better understood, and also reveals the connections and contrasts between them. Such comparisons provide the foundation for a more coordinated project to represent how different disciplinary approaches contribute to creative work.
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This paper aims to interrogate the design studio conversations between teachers and students in order to explore the indicators regarding empathy. To investigate design conversations occurring between design teachers and design students, participant observation studies were conducted at two universities in Finland and Turkey. As an empathic indicator, we addressed (1) how design teachers take the perspective of other agencies and (2) what deliveries are utilised for empathic perspective‐taking. It was understood that design teachers identify themselves with both human and non‐human agencies as design students, users and materials. Moreover, deliveries leading to the identification of design teachers with these agencies included both discursive and performative means.
Book
Study booklet with regard to the UX Design (B.A.) and Digital Games Business (B.A.) degree programs (in German).Vindigni, G. (2024): UX-Designethik (128 p.). Das Studienheft „UX-Designethik“ vertieft die designethischen Herausforderungen im User Experience Design und setzt sich mit den philosophischen Grundlagen von Martin Buber, Baruch de Spinoza und Løwgren auseinander. Es betont die Bedeutung von Empathie und interpersoneller Reziprozität im UX-Designprozess, inspiriert von Bubers dialogischem Prinzip und Spinozas Ethik der affektiven Beziehungen. Durch die Integration dieser philosophischen Perspektiven bietet das Studienheft einen lernzieltaxonomischen Rahmen für die Ideationen und Inventionen von UX-Designlösungen, die sowohl designethisch fundiert als auch tiefgreifend human sind. Es motiviert UX-Designer, über die unmittelbaren funktionalen Anforderungen hinaus zu denken und designethische Überlegungen als zentralen Bestandteil des Designprozesses zu betrachten. Indem es die Beziehung zwischen UX-Designer, Nutzer und Gesellschaft neu determiniert, strebt das Studienheft danach, die Verantwortung von UX-Designern im Sinne des Theorie-Praxis-Transfers für die Schaffung positiver und anschlussfähiger Nutzererfahrungen zu unterstreichen.
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An Operations Management Perspective on Design Thinking provides a map of what is known about mechanisms of design thinking when looking through an operations management lens and identifies areas where knowledge gaps still exist. In applying the operations management lens, the author constructs a simple framework for how to assess progress in design thinking activities. To provide improved design thinking progress measures, the author expands this framework by considering multiple dimensions of these measures in greater detail: the outcomes of an operation and its transformation function. Applying the reference set to these multiple dimensions of the expanded framework identifies contributions from other disciplines that can help explain the conditions under which design thinking operations can be managed successfully and pinpoints unexplained gaps that are worthy of future research. The monograph first prepares the methodological ground by putting the attempt to search for better design thinking process measures in the context of existing research approaches. The next section summarizes the origins and characteristics of design thinking and provides an overview of the progress measures that have been proposed for design thinking. The monograph then introduces an operations management perspective for design thinking as an innovation production process. The next section expands this perspective by introducing multiple dimensions and finer grained measures and apply this extended framework to the data set from earlier sections to pull together the current understanding of design thinking and to identify future research opportunities. The monograph concludes with some broader reflections.
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Empathy is widely revered as an essential mindset among designers. While beneficial to design practice, empathy has its problems. Consider studies that show: (1) We easily confuse and conflate empathy, sympathy, and compassion. The differences between these capacities are critically important. (2) Empathic resonance in the brain is highly biased. We find it hard to empathize with people unlike ourselves. (3) Having too much empathy may also be problematic and can be weaponized by bad actors. (4) We feel empathy only for humans and some animals — not for objects, spaces, places, or our planet. If we can empathize with humans and only in limited ways, perhaps designers could benefit from an assemblage of emotive capacities beyond just empathy. This paper will trace the “edges of empathy” and argue that designers should cultivate two additional emotive capacities that complement empathy: curiosity and care. Because care is a linguistic ancestor to the English word curiosity, the paper will briefly trace the etymological roots of curiosity. It will argue that care and curiosity are inextricable: developing one can foster the other. The paper concludes that, unlike empathy, care and curiosity broadly apply to people, objects, places, systems, and ecologies situated around that which we build.
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Nous proposons d’apporter un regard critique sur la notion d’empathie employée dans les modèles de conception collaborative. Il semble que l’injonction faite par le design, de comprendre l’expérience d’autrui à travers une posture empathique, nous fasse oublier le dispositif de co-conception, dans lequel « la place de l’autre » se construit. En effet, en cherchant à nous « mettre à la place d’autrui » nous figeons son identité. Or, nos observations participantes de projets collaboratifs dans une agence digitale nous ont permis de voir que, durant le processus de co-conception, les gens prennent conscience d’eux-mêmes et évoluent. Cette « révélation de soi » ne nous semble pourtant pas dépendre de la capacité des acteurs à se montrer empathique, mais d’une forme de dramaturgie. Nous proposons alors de comprendre la co-conception en termes de situation afin d’en montrer la logique dispositive bienveillante à travers laquelle l’identité des participants évolue.
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Challenges around inclusive design and social design consciousness require understanding the thoughts and feelings of the people around us. The role of empathy in the design process is widely recognized in the literature, increasing the attention of researchers and design educators to include empathic design as a research approach in product design education. Developing empathy through experiencing others’ life provides opportunities for students to understand how people with disabilities live, feel and experience their everyday life. Product design students need to gain socially conscious awareness and improve their empathic horizon. According to the literature, through training and experience, the empathic horizon of designers can be extended and changed over time. To acquire more empathy with people, simulation devices or wearable kits can be designed to mimic the weaknesses and limitations of people with disabilities. This paper describes an empathic design process where the students designed and prototyped an empathic wearable kit and perform the task independently. Putting on ‘other shoes’ the students record the experience in video and use the think-aloud technique to communicate the difficulties felt during the task. By learning to empathize, students can improve their abilities to recognize and make interpretations of what people think, feel, and need. Empathy practice during product development can provide empathic collect probes to help in students' design process decisions.
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Globalisation and the mixing of people, cultures, religions and languages fuels pressing healthcare, educational, political and other complex sociocultural issues. Many of these issues are driven by society's struggle to find ways to facilitate deeper and more emotionally meaningful ways to help people connect and overcome the empathy gap which keeps various groups of people apart. This paper presents a process to design for empathy – as an outcome of design. This extends prior work which typically looks at empathy for design – as a part of the design process, as is common in inclusive design and human centered design process. We reflect on empathy in design and challenge the often internalised role of the designer to be more externalised, to shift from an empathiser to become an empathy generator. We develop and demonstrate the process to design for empathy through a co-creation case study aiming to bring empathy into politics. The ongoing project is set in the Parliament of Finland, and involves co- creation with six Members of the Parliament from five political parties. Outcomes of the process and case study are discussed, including design considerations for future research.
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The main aim of this article is to give an assessment of prediction error minimization (PEM) as a unifying theoretical framework for the study of social cognition. We show how this framework can be used to synthesize and systematically relate existing data from social cognition research, and explain how it introduces new constraints for further research. We discuss PEM in relation to other theoretical frameworks of social cognition, and identify the main challenges that this approach to social cognition will need to address.
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Studies on design, disability and phenomenology offer rich insights into how the designed environment is experienced by people with different abilities. In architectural design, this experience is only starting to become recognized as a valuable resource for designers. Considering disability as a particular kind of experience, we report on the focused ethnography of architect Marta Bordas Eddy’s design practice. We analyze how her design practice and outcomes connect with her embodied experience of being a wheelchair user and the role of architecture therein. We interviewed Marta, her sister/co-worker and her life partner/co-habitant, gathered design documents, and analyzed the house she designed for and by herself. Our study highlights how Marta’s experience of being disabled, combined with her background, informs how she assesses design and establishes distinct architectural qualities. Being a disabled person and a designer enables Marta to detect problems in an intuitive body-based manner and think of solutions at the same time. The analysis of Marta’s house moreover raises awareness of architecture’s role in (disabled) people’s lives insofar it can support or impair human capabilities. It challenges prevailing views of what a house for a disabled person looks and is like, and how design can neutralize apparently restricted capabilities.
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This article explores wearable simulations, which are analogue and low-tech tools that designers deploy to gain first-hand insight into the experiences of different users, including elderly and disabled people. Ranging from gloves and goggles to elaborate whole-body suits, wearable simulations are said to facilitate an inclusive and empathic design process by encouraging practitioners to seek affective and sensory connection with others. The article builds on post-phenomenological thinking to propose an alternative understanding, where wearable simulations are seen as prototypical compositions that generate unexpected bodily variations, which have the potential to sensitise designers to the limits of knowing bodies and invite experimentation with experience.
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Using personas in requirement analysis and software development is becoming more and more common. The potential and problems with this method of user representation are discussed controversially in HCI research. While personas might help focus on the audience, prioritize, challenge assumptions, and prevent self-referential design, the success of the method depends on how and on what basis the persona descriptions are developed, perceived, and employed. Personas run the risk of reinscribing existing stereotypes and following more of an I-methodological than a user-centered approach. This paper gives an overview of the academic discourse regarding benefits and downfalls of the persona method. A semi-structured interview study researched how usability experts perceive and navigate the controversies of this discourse. The qualitative analysis showed that conflicting paradigms are embedded in the legitimization practices of HCI in the political realities of computer science and corporate settings leading to contradictions and compromises.
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(Free download at: http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/viewFile/1255/626) This article focuses on the designer's responsibility towards his own context of life. It develops an approach in which being a socially responsible designer also means acting "where you are" to transform your own situation by establishing dialogical relations with those who live in the same context. To define and explore this approach, the article is organized into three main sections: it presents an overview of key definitions in socially responsible design (SRD); it clarifies what is meant by dialogical relations; and it presents the methodological framework and results of an exploration into the use of a dialogical approach to SRD carried out on the campus of the authors' university. It not only exemplifies the application of this approach in a specific local context, but also illustrates how an understanding of dialogical relations might contribute to education in SRD.
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This article argues that we are in a transition from an economy of scale to an economy of choice. It presents the historical context of how design relates to the economy of scale, and why underlying forces of that economy reduced the relevance of user experience and focused design practice on appearance. It discusses why manufacturers now meet the desire for more consumer choice through over-production. It explains how this leads to an “innovation gap” in which companies know how to make anything without knowing what to make. This article presents a model of the core capabilities of design, showing how they relate to economically viable ways of providing choice. The model involves a closer fit with emerging production processes related to platforms, the maker movement, and open innovation. In this model, such capabilities provide more exploratory and responsive ways to create innovation than a reliance on the predictive methods inherent in the economy of scale. This leads to a “whole view” model of innovation. The model proposes a way of “sketching” innovation initiatives that involves fundamental questions: What is the offering? Who is it for? Why will it create value? How will organizations make it a reality?
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This paper proposes that adopting a “phenomenological stance” enables a distinctive kind of empathy, which is required in order to understand forms of experience that occur in psychiatric illness and elsewhere. For the most part, we interpret other people's experiences against the backdrop of a shared world. Hence our attempts to appreciate interpersonal differences do not call into question a deeper level of commonality. A phenomenological stance involves suspending our habitual acceptance of that world. It thus allows us to contemplate the possibility of structurally different ways of “finding oneself in the world”. Such a stance, I suggest, can be incorporated into an empathetic appreciation of others' experiences, amounting to what we might call “radical empathy”.
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In this paper I develop the contention that architects rarely relate their design conceptions to the human body and its multiple forms of embodiment. Where the body is conceived of, it is usually in terms of a conception of the 'normal body', or a body characterised by geometrical proportions arranged around precise Cartesian dimensions. I describe and evaluate the content and implications of architects' conceptions of the body and embodiment, and consider the possibilities for, and problems in, challenging the dominance of bodily reductive conceptions in architecture.
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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.
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The most exciting hypothesis in cognitive science right now is the theory that cognition is embodied. Like all good ideas in cognitive science, however, embodiment immediately came to mean six different things. The most common definitions involve the straight-forward claim that "states of the body modify states of the mind." However, the implications of embodiment are actually much more radical than this. If cognition can span the brain, body, and the environment, then the "states of mind" of disembodied cognitive science won't exist to be modified. Cognition will instead be an extended system assembled from a broad array of resources. Taking embodiment seriously therefore requires both new methods and theory. Here we outline four key steps that research programs should follow in order to fully engage with the implications of embodiment. The first step is to conduct a task analysis, which characterizes from a first person perspective the specific task that a perceiving-acting cognitive agent is faced with. The second step is to identify the task-relevant resources the agent has access to in order to solve the task. These resources can span brain, body, and environment. The third step is to identify how the agent can assemble these resources into a system capable of solving the problem at hand. The last step is to test the agent's performance to confirm that agent is actually using the solution identified in step 3. We explore these steps in more detail with reference to two useful examples (the outfielder problem and the A-not-B error), and introduce how to apply this analysis to the thorny question of language use. Embodied cognition is more than we think it is, and we have the tools we need to realize its full potential.
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In this article, I advocate a research process that involves engaging, reflexively, with the embodied intersubjective relationship researchers have with participants. I call this practice reflexive embodied empathy. First, I explicate the concept of empathy through exploring ideas from the philosophical phenomenological literature. I then apply this theory to practice and offer examples of reflexive analysis of embodied empathy taken from various hermeneutic phenomenological research projects. Three interpenetrating layers of reflexivity are described, each involving different but coexisting dimensions of embodied intersubjectivity. The 1st layer—connecting-of— demonstrates how people can tune into another's bodily way of being through using their own embodied reactions. The 2nd layer—acting-into—focuses on empathy as imaginative self-transposal and calls attention to the way existences (beings) are intertwined in a dynamic of doubling and mirroring. The 3rd layer—merging-with— involves a “reciprocal insertion and intertwining” of others in oneself and of one in them (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, p. 138), where self-understanding and other-understanding unite in mutual transformation. Through different examples of reflexive analysis from my research, I have tried to show how intersubjective corporeal commonality enables the possibility of empathy and how, in turn, empathy enables understanding of the Other and self-understanding. I discuss how the coexisting layers of empathy and the resultant understandings can be enabled through hermeneutic reflection and collaborative research methods.
Conference Paper
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For a decade HCI researchers and practitioners have been developing methods, practices and designs 'for the full range of human experience'. On the one hand, a variety of approaches to design, such as aesthetic, affective, and ludic that emphasize particular qualities and contexts of experience and particular approaches to intervening in interactive experience have become focal. On the other, a variety of approaches to understanding users and user experience, based on narrative, biography, and role-play have been developed and deployed. These developments can be viewed in terms of one of the seminal commitments of HCI, 'to know the user'. Empathy has been used as a defining characteristic of designer-user relationships when design is concerned with user experience. In this article, we use 'empathy' to help position some emerging design and user-experience methodologies in terms of dynamically shifting relationships between designers, users, and artefacts.
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There is a convergence between cognitive models of imitation, constructs derived from social psychology studies on mimicry and empathy, and recent empirical findings from the neurosciences. The ideomotor framework of human actions assumes a common representational format for action and perception that facilitates imitation. Furthermore, the associative sequence learning model of imitation proposes that experience-based Hebbian learning forms links between sensory processing of the actions of others and motor plans. Social psychology studies have demonstrated that imitation and mimicry are pervasive, automatic, and facilitate empathy. Neuroscience investigations have demonstrated physiological mechanisms of mirroring at single-cell and neural-system levels that support the cognitive and social psychology constructs. Why were these neural mechanisms selected, and what is their adaptive advantage? Neural mirroring solves the "problem of other minds" (how we can access and understand the minds of others) and makes intersubjectivity possible, thus facilitating social behavior.
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We investigated the hypothesis that people's facial activity influences their affective responses. Two studies were designed to both eliminate methodological problems of earlier experiments and clarify theoretical ambiguities. This was achieved by having subjects hold a pen in their mouth in ways that either inhibited or facilitated the muscles typically associated with smiling without requiring subjects to pose in a smiling face. Study 1's results demonstrated the effectiveness of the procedure. Subjects reported more intense humor responses when cartoons were presented under facilitating conditions than under inhibiting conditions that precluded labeling of the facial expression in emotion categories. Study 2 served to further validate the methodology and to answer additional theoretical questions. The results replicated Study 1's findings and also showed that facial feedback operates on the affective but not on the cognitive component of the humor response. Finally, the results suggested that both inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms may have contributed to the observed affective responses.
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Chapter
The human mind is not a fleshless computer. Rather, sensing and acting are integral parts of human cognition. In particular, the body influences abstract cognition, judgments, and action. How far the body’s influence goes, whether or not there are any amodal (i.e., non-embodied) cognitive processes, is a matter of debate. We adopt a dualistic view, with both embodied and amodal processes influencing judgment and behavior. However, while amodal processes are well examined in psychology and are being applied to diverse problems in people’s lives, embodied processes are less well understood and less widely applied. Yet, the body’s influence on the mind can be harnessed for trainings and interventions. In the present chapter, we discuss how behavior might be modified from a dualprocess perspective, emphasizing different embodiment mechanisms. Additionally, we mention some ways in which knowledge about these psychological processes might be used for trainings and interventions.
Chapter
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Chapter
All controversy over empathy is based on the implied assumption that foreign subjects and their experience are given to us. Thinkers deal with the circumstances of the occurrence, the effects, and the legitimacy of this givenness. But the most immediate undertaking is to consider the phenomenon of givenness in and by itself and to investigate its essence. We shall do this in the setting of the “phenomenological reduction.”
Book
What distinguishes humankind from other species? A leading candidate is our capability for mutual understanding ("theory of mind"), our ability to ascribe thoughts, desires, and feelings to one another. How do we do this? Folk-wisdom says, "By empathy-we put ourselves in other people's shoes". In the last few decades this idea has moved from folk-wisdom to philosophical conjecture to serious scientific theory. This book contains work which has played a major role in crystallizing this "simulation," or "empathizing," account of mindreading and showing how it is confirmed by recent findings in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Regions of your brain resonate with the brains of others when you observe them manifest their feelings in facial affect or see them about to undergo a painful stimulus or a mere touch on the arm. The chapters explore an array of topics in the philosophy of cognitive science, ranging from embodied cognition to the metaphysics of actions and events. "Embodied cognition" is a catch-phrase for a family of current proposals in the philosophy of cognitive science. Some of these call for a radical re-shaping of cognitive science and others for a more measured response to repeated experimental findings that the body-or representations of the body-figure more prominently in cognition than previously recognized. The text dives into this terrain with a theory that brings coherence and unity to a large swath of scientific evidence. Other chapters revisit earlier work on action individuation but reconfigure it with a psychologizing twist. The final chapter prepares the reader for a futuristic scenario: a book that presents you with eerily accurate accounts of your past life, your present thoughts, and even your upcoming decisions. How should you respond to it?.
Chapter
The goal of this chapter is to propose a narrow conceptualization of empathy as a complex imaginative process in which an observer simulates another person's situated psychological states [both cognitive and affective] while maintaining clear self-other differentiation. Theoretical and methodological reasons are given to support this conceptualization, which focuses on three principal features of empathy: affective matching, other-oriented perspective taking, and self-other differentiation. The proposed narrow conceptualization differs in some important respects from recent conceptualizations offered by philosophers and social scientists yet captures several of the key intuitive characteristics of the ordinary use of the term empathy and dovetails with recent empirical research.
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"This is an urgently needed book - as the question of choreographing behavior enters into realms outside of the aesthetic domains of theatrical dance, Susan Foster writes a thoroughly compelling argument." - André Lepecki, New York University "May well prove to be one of Susan Foster's most important works." - Ramsay Burt, De Montford University, UK What do we feel when we watch dancing? Do we "dance along" inwardly? Do we sense what the dancer's body is feeling? Do we imagine what it might feel like to perform those same moves? If we do, how do these responses influence how we experience dancing and how we derive significance from it? Choreographing Empathy challenges the idea of a direct psychophysical connection between the body of a dancer and that of their observer. In this groundbreaking investigation, Susan Foster argues that the connection is in fact highly mediated and influenced by ever-changing sociocultural mores. Foster examines the relationships between three central components in the experience of watching a dance - the choreography, the kinesthetic sensations it puts forward, and the empathetic connection that it proposes to viewers. Tracing the changing definitions of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy from the 1700s to the present day, she shows how the observation, study, and discussion of dance have changed over time. Understanding this development is key to understanding corporeality and its involvement in the body politic.
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There is an increasing awareness that many everyday products and services present challenges and difficulties to potential users. These difficulties may arise because the products and services have not been designed to allow for the full range of functional capabilities of the users who wish to use them. Medical conditions, accidents, ageing, or genetic predisposition means that most people will at some point experience functional impairments that make everyday products and services difficult to use. This chapter aims to introduce readers to the needs of the full range of users and provide an introduction to how they can develop more inclusive products and services. It addresses the principal approaches and tools to designing for inclusivity as well as the underlying rationale for why companies and designers need to consider this important set of users.
Book
Although architecture is the fastest-growing profession in America, its private context remains shrouded in myth. In this book, Dana Cuff delves into the architect's everyday work world to uncover an intricate social art of design. The result is a new portrait of the profession that sheds light on what it means to become an architect, how design problems are construed and resolved, how clients and architects negotiate, and how design excellence is achieved.
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The reason why some products get intimately linked with people's lives, while others do not, remains a mystery to most consumer products researchers and designers. A shift in thinking from a focus on the rational to the more emotional domains will help us to understand those uniquely human traits that are responsible for people's liking, using, and wanting to live with the products we design. The gap in the methods and tools available to product development researchers and practitioners is centered upon the emotional domain. This gap exists throughout most of the product development process, both for generative as well as evaluative research. We propose that researchers and practitioners working on product development teams attend to improving their ability to recognize and address the feelings of product users—in particular, the feelings that users have about owning and using products. The success of such products in the future will depend upon the degree to which we learn how to empathize with the product users very early in the product development process.
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This is the third paper in a series being published in Design Studies, which aims to establish the theoretical bases for treating design as a coherent discipline of study. The first contribution in the series was from Bruce Archer, in the very first issue of Design Studies, and the second was from Gerald Nadler, in Vol 1, No 5. Further contributions are invited.Here, Higel Cross takes up the arguments for a ‘third area’ of education—design—that were outlined by Archer. He further defines this area by contrasting it with the other two—sciences and humanities—and goes on to consider the criteria which design must satisfy to be acceptable as a part of general education. Such an acceptance must imply a reorientation from the instrumental aims of conventional design education, towards intrinsic values. These values derive from the ‘designerly ways of knowing’. Because of a common concern with these fundamental ‘ways of knowing’, both design research and design education are contributing to the development of design as a discipline.
Chapter
This chapter addresses the psychological foundations of persona usage. The chapter describes the theories and findings that explain their effectiveness. The reason behind persona engagement is reviewed that leads to better design. Understanding personas without any underlying psychology is difficult. By understanding how persona works, one can design better personas, select appropriate complementary methods, and embed personas in effective processes. Data from psychological studies and artistic experience indicate that one naturally and generatively creates and engages with detailed representations of people. Personas bind into this powerful human capability. Most of the people do not naturally reason about extensive statistical summaries, but they do reason effortlessly about people, real or fictional. With the power of personas comes the need to be accurate in constructing them. Evidence suggests that stereotypes might suffice for short projects, but richer personas are better for longer-term use. Personas address weaknesses in some of the major methods that can be used with them. They may be useful in situations in which participatory design is not feasible.
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My topic in this paper is social understanding. By this I mean the cognitive skills underlying social behaviour and social coordination. Normal, encultured, non-autistic and non-brain-damaged human beings are capable of an impressive degree of social coordination. We navigate the social world with a level of skill and dexterity fully comparable to that which we manifest in navigating the physical world. In neither sphere, one might think, would it be a trivial matter to identify the various competences which underly this impressive level of performance. Nonetheless, at least as far as interpersonal interactions are concerned, philosophers show a rare degree of unanimity. What grounds our success in these interactions is supposed to be our common mastery of (more or less similar versions of) folk psychology.
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A basic claim of the embodiment framework is that all psychological processes are influenced by body morphology, sensory systems, motor systems, and emotions. As such, the framework holds the promise of providing a unifying perspective for psychological research. This article begins with a sketch of several arguments, from evolution to philosophy, as to why the embodiment framework is a good bet. These arguments are followed by a review of approaches to embodiment, including those from cognitive linguistics, perceptual symbol theory, and action-based theories. Finally, examples are provided for how a unifying perspective might work for cognition (including language and memory), cognitive and social development, social psychology, neuroscience, clinical psychology, and psychology applied to education. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Article
This paper assesses the so-called “direct-perception” model of empathy. This model draws much of its inspiration from the Phenomenological tradition: it is offered as an account free from the assumption that most, if not all, of another’s psychological states and experiences are unobservable and that one’s understanding of another’s psychological states and experiences are based on inferential processes. Advocates of this model also reject the simulation-based approach to empathy. I first argue that most of their criticisms miss their target because they are directed against the simulation-based approach to mindreading. Advocates of this model further subscribe to an expressivist conception of human behavior and assume that some of an individual’s psychological states (e.g. her goals and emotions, not her beliefs) can be directly perceived in the individual’s expressive behavior. I argue that advocates of the direct-perception model face the following dilemma: either they embrace behaviorism or else they must recognize that one could not understand another’s goal or emotion from her behavior alone without making contextual assumptions. Finally, advocates of the direct-perception model endorse the narrative competency hypothesis, according to which the ability to ascribe beliefs to another is grounded in the ability to understand narratives. I argue that this hypothesis is hard to reconcile with recent results in developmental psychology showing that preverbal human infants seem able to ascribe false beliefs to others.
Article
The search for scientific bases for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail, becuase of the nature of these problems. They are wicked problems, whereas science has developed to deal with tame problems. Policy problems cannot be definitively described. Moreover, in a pluralistic society there is nothing like the undisputable public good; there is no objective definition of equity; policies that respond to social problems cannot be meaningfully correct or false; and it makes no sense to talk about optimal solutions to social problems unless severe qualifications are imposed first. Even worse, there are no solutions in the sense of definitive and objective answers.
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Values play an integral role in design: they inform the kinds of trade-offs the designer makes when considering different solutions; they create a basis for the client to assess how a particular artefact may fit into their lives; and they are an important part of negotiating a common understanding in collaborative design settings. In this paper, we examine the interactions in meetings between architect and client to better understand how different values are brought into the design discourse. By analysing the verbal content and non-verbal communication between the architect and client, we identify patterns of discourse that imbue design problem-solving with the language and concepts that express values. From this analysis, we develop a theory of value transfer and describe the social mechanism that facilitates this transfer during design negotiation. This work provides an observational basis for understanding value transfer in the context of collaborative design and is relevant to design domains beyond architecture.
Article
Using transcripts of both architectural and engineering design meetings this chapter shows how the fields of ethics and design inter-relate, especially in the area of creative imagination. The chapter first draws on the concept of a ‘virtual building’ to show how essential aspects of designerly thinking can apply to ethics. It then goes on to show how, in the process of designing, designers engage explicitly and implicitly with ethical issues. The chapter discusses four extended examples from two design processes – one involving the design of a crematorium the other involving the design of a digital pen – before suggesting that by addressing ethical subjects without framing them in explicitly ethical ways, the design process allows us to ‘imaginatively trace out the implications of our metaphors, prototypes and narratives’ a key element of ethical decision-making according to the philosopher Mark Johnson.