Lecture

Understanding Empathetic Design

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In course

HUM-432: How people learn: Designing Learning Tools I

The students will understand the cognitive and social factors which affect learning - particularly in science and engineering. They will be able to use social research techniques as part of the design process to understand end users. ...

Description

This lecture introduces the concept of empathetic design by exploring the impact of not considering end users in product and process design. It discusses the case of snow clearing in Sweden, highlighting the gender biases and injuries caused by the traditional approach. The lecture delves into different types of empathy, such as empathic distress and empathic concern, and how designers can incorporate empathy into their work. It also covers empathetic design techniques like empathy interviews and participant observation, emphasizing the importance of understanding users' needs and experiences.

Instructors (2)

Roland John Tormey

I am a sociologist and learning scientist researching and teaching on engineering education. I'm particularly focused on the roles of emotion and self-regulation in engineering teaching and learning. My profile is accessible here.

Nihat Kotluk

Dr. Kotluk is currently a post-doc at the EPFL. He focuses mainly on emotions in the decision-making process, moral reasoning, and ethics in Engineering Education. He also works on equality and diversity issues. He has an academic background in both STEM and social sciences. Dr. Kotluk has acquired advanced skills in education, inclusive pedagogy, and science teachers' training. He has 14 years of teaching experience and has trained high school students in physics and teachers in pedagogy and research methods, among others. Dr. Kotluk has strong teaching and learning communication skills. He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Science, Curriculum, and Instruction. In his thesis, he studied the perceptions and practices of educators in culturally relevant pedagogy and developed recommendations to put more emphasis on inclusion in pre-service teacher education. With his research, he opened a new discussion in the academic community in Turkey and internationally. In his recent work, he analyzes the educational challenges facing refugee communities and other marginalized groups. In the study, he focused on whether and how teachers implemented the principles of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies and the challenges teachers faced while trying to implement these principles with Syrian students in Turkey. In his more recent work, he has studied moral emotions, moral reasoning in engineering ethics, and equality and diversity issues in engineering education. His teaching and research interests include emotions in engineering education, culturally responsive STEM education, equity and diversity in education, and multicultural education.

Official source

Related concepts (15)

Empathy quotient

Empathy quotient (EQ) is a psychological self-report measure of empathy developed by Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge. EQ is based on a definition of empathy that includes cognition and affect. According to the authors of the measure, empathy is a combination of the ability to feel an appropriate emotion in response to another's emotion and the ability to understand anothers' emotion (this is associated with the theory of mind).

User experience design

User experience design (UX design, UXD, UED, or XD) is the process of defining the experience a user would go through when interacting with a company, its services, and its products. Design decisions in UX design are often driven by research, data analysis, and test results rather than aesthetic preferences and opinions. Unlike user interface design, which focuses solely on the design of a computer interface, UX design encompasses all aspects of a user's perceived experience with a product or website, such as its usability, usefulness, desirability, brand perception, and overall performance.

User experience

The user experience (UX) is how a user interacts with and experiences a product, system or service. It includes a person's perceptions of utility, ease of use, and efficiency. Improving user experience is important to most companies, designers, and creators when creating and refining products because negative user experience can diminish the use of the product and, therefore, any desired positive impacts; conversely, designing toward profitability often conflicts with ethical user experience objectives and even causes harm.

Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others (and others' emotions in particular). Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic empathy, and spiritual empathy.

Empathic design

Empathic design is a user-centered design approach that pays attention to the user's feelings toward a product. The empathic design process is sometimes mistakenly referred to as empathetic design. The foundation of empathic design is observation and the goal to identify latent customer needs in order to create products that the customers don't even know they desire, or, in some cases, solutions that customers have difficulty envisioning due to lack of familiarity with the possibilities offered by new technologies or because they are locked in a specific mindset.

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