How Designers Foster Empathy

Magritte. Presence of Mind (1960)

So what else can designers do to foster empathy besides their human-centered approach and their Design Thinking process?

Work closely with business and deliver GREAT RESULTS that have positive impact on people’s lives AND meet the needs of the client.

Business and markets are now aware of the benefits that an empathic approach can bring to them for the pursuit of their goals...and these are good news for of all us because of the positive impact to people.

Reality shows that business culture and its impersonal language dominates most of the professional relations: How can empathy be nurture in such an impersonal and distant environment?.There is a need to build a new working model for contexts of diversity and professional interaction by creating a communication space with a shared language that would permit a real multidiciplinary team work. 

Design have accomplish the ability to put together sciences and design, and some designers are already working their way to get together business and design.

Nº1 TASK for designers: Develop empathy for business! 

• Working embedded in business environments. This will allows designers to get insights that may lead to a mutual better understanding. 
• Widen your knowledge of global markets, marketing, economy, etc., to be effective: just as you would if the task were to get an insight of another community.
• Some designers are reluctant to any partnership with business and prefer to focus on aesthetics: Don't you think that it would be a positive impact to business to bring some aesthetics to their culture? I believe it is a awesome challenge...
• Forget the believe that "my kind of knowledge is indescribable". Find the way to communicate. It's very possible. 
• Do you think that business culture is boring or...? This is another awesome challenge...and you can truly improve your "thrownness ability" by practicing in outsiders environments... 
• As a Design thinker, you can contributing with your know-how to get rid of boundaries between business and designers: Share your experiences and insights with your peers
• Learn "business talking" to understand them and try to "teach" them a more creative storytelling: But also you need to improve your communication skills to a less complex level, focus in engaging and empathying with people. 
• Help business to bringing more people into the conversation and foster interdisciplinarity, synergies and sharing knowledge.

And the most important of all:

Try to have fun while doing all of this!





My inspirations to write this post:

Design Thinking: Thoughts by Tim Brown

http://populardelujo.wordpress.com/ 

VIDEOS: 

Bill Moggridge 1943-2012 

Esteban Ucros on what-design-can-do

Experience Design: Brands, Designers & People

Madrid, sept 2012

Designing emotions.

Designing for human complexity.

"What are the motivations of a designer?, Why designers always want more?, Why designers feel responsible for their audience?, Why designing appears to be so easy?, Is there anything in this world that is not designed?

I was asking myself these questions after a month of intensive and exhausting design work.

Experience Design is an multidisciplinar, synergistic, empathic, "humantific" and aesthetically activity that also requires a complex management of oneself and the expected and unexpected environment to create an emotional connection between everyone involved in the experience itself: The brand, the audience, the designer and the team.

Experience Designers need to understand and love their audience and need to be empathic from the heart: Empathy is a magical bond that can not be faked, otherwise there will be no emotional experience, just an exchange.

An Experience Designer also needs to developed managements capabilities with an strong focus on PR Communication skills:

Clients: Communicating complex ideas and insights to an audience/clients not familiar with creativity processes and creativity professionals.
Audience: Communication skills that would strenghten relationships between people that live the same experience and the brand

Designers need to control and manage the uncertainty of designing experiences for people as complex and unpredictable as oneself. 

Designers not only need to be able to deal with uncertainty: they need to enjoy it and include it as a vital part of their creative process. 

Experience designers have to be able to stay firm, confident about their critical thinking methodology applied in the process, and sure that the innovations that they have proposed are going to work out: They have to find out how to be able to transmit self-confidence in every decision. 

Designers have to learn how to feel comfortable working in an enviroment willing to transmit you their fears and insecurities in every stage of the process. It´s time to take control, it´s time to transmit your confidence, t's time to build trust.

Designers have to be confident leaders that create delusion in their teams; They have to pretend that what they do it´s not that difficult: If it would transcent to the rest of their team the real complexity of their management of unpredictability that involves any activity involving people's emotions, NO ONE WOULD TRY TO INNOVATE.


Management of complexity, unpredictability, and uncertainty inherent in any innovation or new model creation is what defines a XXI century designer.

When everything it's over, an experience designer reaches a nice sense of accomplishment, but onces again observes that nothing would have been possible without the participation and generosity of every person involved, and confirms that we better be humble or we will be anything at all.

And the designer moves on quickly to the next project and looks forward to the next challenge... By the way, I read that now Tim Brown of IDEO, talks about designing DNA .. . I am in! ;)

What drives designers?

It's all about people 

Why World Leaders Will Be Designers

Otto Neurath. (Vienna,1882 - Oxford,1945)

The answer is simple: There are no suitable words to explain the world...and new ways of understanding are needed... And all possible ways of understanding lead us to a holistic comprehensive view of humanity that involve visual communication and designers.

Facts are overwhelming but: Why is not happening yet?, What impediments do designers need to overcome to be taken seriously?

While reading Otto Neurath's "From Hieroglyphics to Isotype" (1943-45), I came to this quite simple yet visionary explanation:

"What are the origins of the critical and obstructive attitude shown by some people as soon as the question of pictures arises and especially if pictures are systematically used to covey information?

In the middle ages, from which our civilization has inherited so much, those who were literate were particularly word-minded while the lives of the illiterate masses are circumscribed by impressive buildings, sculptures and paintings. As literacy spread and became general and environment grew up in which there was a rather puritanical attitude towards pictures. British parliamentary papers very rarely contained pictorial material. Neither orator nor journalists, both men of words serving topical purposes, nor even writers of more permanent literature in prose or verse were in the habit of using illustrations, although these were sometimes added afterwards by other people. Perhaps it is this tendency which has led to lack of appreciation of informative pictures and to a feeling that any kind of verbal communication must, of necessity, be of higher order than communication by pictures.[...] I think that the day of "eye-consciousness" is rapidly approaching. Communication of knowledge through pictures will play an increasingly large part in the future."
In other words: 

This is a world ruled by exclusively word-minded leaders...turning into hollistic-minded by necessity.

Have to give in...



Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist. Before he was to flee his native country in 1934, Neurath was one of the leading figures of the Vienna Circle. During the 1920s, Neurath also became an ardent logical positivist and championed 'the scientific attitude'.

Thinking About Empathy (1)

 

"I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river."
Chuang Tzu

I'm not participating much in my favorite Groups lately: Besides my regular work, I'm quite busy thinking about empathy. It might sound freaky, it's ok: I'm a nerd. I admit it. The thing is that I'm confused and need answers to my questions.

Suddenly, everyone talks about empathy. It feels almost as a new capability that never existed before...a brand new tool of understanding and innovate...


There are workshops that would teach you how to develop empathy, and conferences, books, and talks...and Empathy Tools that would use simulation devices to gain first-hand insights into particular problem related to customers that can can prompt an empathic understanding of users in a role playing situation...Are we learning a kind of functional Empathy? 
In other words: 

Are we learning to be empathic just to understand better our clients? Do we need to master empathy just to succeed in our professions? A product-oriented-empathy?

I don´t get it. Or maybe I do:

This obsession with mastering empathy is, at the end, another trick to engage customers back to the track? In other words, are we all faking empathy? 

I don't know. 


Empathy as the ability to understand what someone is feeling, is the essence of human kind: It is what differences us from animals. Being empathic is inherent to all of us. So let's say than being empathic is being human, isn't it?

Does it mean that we have been acting in our professions in a unhuman way till now? I mean: This "discovering" of empathy by  business and companies... is it just the evidence of our previous dehumanized procedures? Have we been living two lives: the dehumanized one at work, and the empathic one in our personal life? How can one be empathic a few a hours a day and then...choose not to? 

I don't think so. Empathy it's not only about understanding: It's about emotion.
The inner emotion of recognizing a common link, a common ground with another human being. Being one with others. Recognizing yourself in others. Real communication. What Einstein wanted to achieved, simply to "experience the universe as a single significant whole." This is possible through real empathy. 
 

How can you understand what anybody else feels if you don't understand your own self? Does it mean that empathy need to be mastered through personal experience and awareness?

How can you understand joy, if you have never felt it?

We need outsiders into our business and economic establishment.

In my opinion -let's say my theory- there are people that
dive deep into LIFE (the life that occurs outside an office), experiencing other worlds in first hand and learn awareness and meaningful insights completely out of our reach.


This people are almost impossible to find in a business and economy related world because, as we all know, we -professionals- are surrounded by other professionals like ourselves working, in similars environments since our graduation, with lives quite identical to ours, and so are our friends...
It takes a lot of effort and dedication to build a successful career... so most of successful professionals, CEOs and world leaders haven't had had the opportunity to know "other worlds" besides their similar own world.

Everyone talks -in our design and business context- about innovation and mastering empathy...I believe that we need to include outsiders to our business world: Empathic-outsiders to help us with their meaningful, real-life insights.

Maybe real innovation would be to permit the rest of the world in our little business world. 
And see what happens...

(Design thinking and design process, by the way)

Image courtesy of NOAA

Global Economy: Niches' Revolution

What are your thoughts on the state of the global economy and of Spain's specifically?, John F Moore asked me as a new member of A Better People.

As a designer, this is my human-centered opinion:

The world before the determination of Markets and Brands to conquer the planet, was a set of isolated niches within other niches: Those niches were very cozy, convenient, and provided security and a nice sense of belonging as well. Isolated and easy to evangelize and control.

What happened? Markets and Brands began its growth climbing rampant with their strategy and new philosophy --- More, bigger, faster, cheaper, now --- (Umair Haque, Director of Havas Media Lab).

How? First they focussed on their targets -us-, and invented very very effective tools to get in our brains and find out what we liked and why, what we needed, what were our aspirations, what we dreamed of, etc. .., and so they launched products and more products for us to consumed, many of which have been paradigms of human progress. Others do not.

This voracity, greed of the Markets and Brand's competition raised their need of invent new ways of reaching all potential not captured up to the point and the rest of the world: They invested in research and develop tools, skills and technology and... they were again very very effective: They invented and implemented new channels and communication platforms that have achieved what they set: The whole world knows their products ... but also know everything about everybody.

The conquest of the world by Brands and Economic policies has been arrogant, inbred, lacking in values ​​and empathy, and they have also underestimate the impact that their actions would have on the future. Well, the future is NOW and what happened is Social Revolution. 

And how people lived in their role as conquered till now?

Niches were very comfortable and customized most of the times. The desire to get out was not compelling: it did not seem to be much to see out there and in many cases was not allowed.

Until they (products) began to knock at our door and showed us what we dreamed, the beauty that was waiting for us out there. We heard of people who thought like us and we had the chance to take a look at other niches like ours and empathize ... and then started the questions: Why am I here?, What is going on?, why not ...? What if I ...?,Why should a conform with...?

My conclusions:

• During the Economic conquest, means were created for the purposes of a minority. Now means would work for the majority.
• Design has spread beauty and aesthetics around the world: Aspiration to Beauty is revolutionary. As Schiller said: "The beauty is considered then the result of the fusion of the rational and sensible, and this merger is the true reality."
• The global economic conquest has led to the creation of an objective shared by the global community: through objects, ideas and aesthetics associated with the products and brands, It has managed to create a new social culture woven into our personal aspirations. Everything is not about money anymore. As a consequence, we all are freer than before. 

I summarize the aspiration of the 21st century's people as a revolutionary desire to LIVE, as Aristotle said: "Life or Being (person), who runs through ethics, aesthetics and politics".

I'll re-quote the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset, who wrote in 1921 a book entitled "The Invertebrate Spain" and that continues to fascinate me its visionary analysis of the reality of that time in Spain but that applies universally to  XXI century:

Ortega predicts a "new type of man [...] that would emerge after a therapeutic project based on the change in sensitivity (change in attitudes to life, including the exemplary respect, and above all, respect for science and intellectual discipline) ".

And for my country and the rest of the world: "Spain has to give herself a society. This is the great task of our time."

 "(...) Full of amazement and tenderness for the wonder that is the world." Ortega, O.C. T.I: 364

Economía Mundial: Revolución de los Nichos

¿Cuál es tu opinión sobre el estado de la economía mundial y específicamente de España? Me ha preguntado John F. Moore como miembro nuevo que soy de la comunidad A Better People.

Soy diseñadora y tengo una opinión basada en la observación y análisis de la realidad desde la perspectiva de las personas.

Tal y como yo lo veo:

El mundo, antes de la determinación de los mercados y las marcas en conquistar el planeta, era un conjunto de aislados nichos dentro de otros nichos: Eran nichos muy confortables, convenientes, que aportaban seguridad y control además de sentido de pertenencia. Aislado e incomunicados, fáciles de manipular, conformar... y de evangelizar. 

¿Qué pasó? Los mercados y la marcas iniciaron su escalada de crecimiento desenfrenada con la estrategia y nueva nueva filosofía de---More, bigger, faster, cheaper, now--- (Umair Haque, Director de Havas Media Lab).

¿Cómo? Primero se preocuparon de conocer muy bien a sus targets, nosotros, e inventaron herramientas muy muy efectivas para saber qué nos gustaba y porqué; qué necesitábamos, a qué aspirábamos y con qué soñábamos, etc, etc..,  y así crearon productos y más productos, muchos de los cuales han sido paradigmas de progreso de la humanidad. Otros no.

Esta voracidad del mercado y la competencia de las marcas les creo la necesidad inventarse nuevas forma de llegar a todos los potenciales no captados hasta ese momento: invirtieron en investigación y desarrollaron herramientas, competencias y tecnología y volvieron a ser muy muy efectivos: crearon nuevos canales y plataformas de comunicación que han conseguido lo que se propusieron: todos los habitantes del mundo conocemos sus productos...pero también conocemos todo de todos.
La conquista del mundo por parte de los mercados y sus políticas económicas ha sido prepotente, endogámica, carente de valores y nada empática: esto ha hecho que se menospreciara el impacto que iban a tener estas actuaciones en la sociedad y prever la revolución social o socialización solidaria en la que estamos y que definitivamente ha parado sus planes.

¿Y cómo vivieron las personas en su papel de conquistados?

El nicho era muy cómodo e incluso podías hacértelo a tu medida. El deseo de salir ahí fuera no era apremiante: tampoco parecía que hubiera mucho ver y en mucho casos no estaba permitido.
Hasta que empezaron a llamar a nuestra puerta y nos mostraron lo que soñábamos; la belleza; escuchamos a personas que pensaban como nosotros y vimos sus nichos parecidos a los nuestros y empatizamos...y empezaron las preguntas ¿Qué hago aquí?, ¿qué está pasando?, ¿por qué no...? ¿Y si yo...?, 
¿Por qué me tengo que conformar?



Mis conclusiones: 

• Durante la conquista económica, se crearon medios ajustados a los fines de una minoría. Ahora será los medios  sometidos a la mayoría.
• El Diseño ha sido y es un socializador de la belleza. No olvidemos que antes estaba al alcance de un un minoría y que La aspiración estética es revolucionaria. Como dijo Schiller:" Lo bello se considera, entonces, resultado de la fusión de lo racional y lo sensible, y esta fusión es la verdadera realidad". 
• La conquista económica mundial ha supuesto la creación de una objetividad compartida por la comunidad planetaria: a través de los objetos, ideas y estética asociada a los productos y las marcas, se ha conseguido crear una nueva cultura social entretejida a nuestras aspiraciones personales. Al no ser el objetivo vital el dinero, somos todos más libres.

La aspiración de las personas en el s. XXI yo la resumiría en un revolucionario deseo de VIVIR o LA VIDA, como ya dijo Aristóteles: "La Vida o el Ser (la persona), que se ejecuta a través de la ética, la estética y la política"

Voy a volver a citar al filósofo español Ortega y Gasset, que escribió en 1921 un libro titulado "La España Invertebrada" y que no deja de fascinarme por su análisis visionario de la realidad de entonces en España pero que aplica de forma universal a lo vivimos en el siglo XXI:

Vaticina Ortega un "nuevo tipo de hombre [...] que surgiría después de un proyecto terapéutico basado en el cambio de sensibilidad (modificación de actitudes vitales, entre ellas, respeto hacia la ejemplaridad, y sobre todo, respeto por la ciencia y la disciplina intelectual)".

Y para mi país y el resto del mundo: "España tiene que darse así misma una sociedad. Esta es la gran tarea de nuestro tiempo".


“(...) lleno de asombro y de ternura por lo maravilloso que es el mundo”. Ortega, O.C. T.I: 364